Good evening, friends. (UK)
How y'all doin'? (USA, South)
G'day, mates. (Australia)
THE USA
Do you think that somebody like me, who speaks the Queen's English, can be understood anywhere in the English speaking world, such as America, or Australia? Yes - that's what I thought. Until I travelled to the USA
- and Australia. Thongs. And Singapore. Off the light and off day. But that's for another time.
I am going to tell you what's right, and what's wrong, with asking for a porter in America, and wearing thongs in Australia.
Why couldn't I understand my American passenger's directions to the hotel? Why I couldn't get a porter in a hotel in the USA.
What went wrong?
AMERICANISMS
Let's start with travelling around America. It should be easy if you speak The Queen's English. Over in the USA, Webster simplified the spelling to make life easy for immigrants, wrote and published the Webster's dictionary. Before the Web, Webster stirred things up.
SPELLING
American and English spelling are as different as night and day. I got upset, offended, when I saw the word night is reduced to nite. But I understood.
I knew that a lorry is called a truck. But that's not all. The British car bonnet, in America is called a hood. The English car's boot, is called a trunk.
When we got out of the car, my American friend said, 'Don't walk on the pavement.' So I stepped off the pavement onto the road.
My American friend shouted, "I said, stay off the pavement!"
I replied, 'Why? I don't see a hole. You're on the pavement.'
'No, I'm not! I'm on the sidewalk.'
'So, what do you mean by pavement?'
"The roadway. What do you guys call it."
"The road. The tarmac."
What else could go wrong?
Nothing. So long as you don't want to go to the toilet. In America toilets are called rest rooms.
We drove our car towards the hotel. My American passenger was directing me to the hotel. He said,
'Make a right!'
I asked:
"What does that mean?
Make a right hand signal?
Get in the right hand lane?"
Our hotel is on the right. Turn off at the next intersection."
"You mean turn right. That's what I said. Make a right."
When we got to the hillside motel, the receptionist, in basement one, I asked for a room next the car parking space.
The receptionist, "Here's your key. You're up on the first floor."
I was not happy.
The lift, or elevator, had basements and first. We went to first. We found ourselves at what we in Britain call the ground floor. Americans call ground floor first floor. First floor in the UK, in the USA is second floor.
MOMENTARILY
At Disney on the monorail I heard a recorded announcement, 'We will be stopping momentarily at the hotel."
I shouted to my family, "Quick, quick quick, get by the door, they're only stopping for a moment."
But my husband refused to be hurried. He said,
"That's the English meaning of momentarily.
But 'Momentarily,' in the USA, means shortly or soon.
Don't worry. Calm down. dear, panic over."
PORTER
To sum up.
American - English
downtown - city centre/shopping area/business district
freeway - motorway
hood - bonnet
mail=post
main street - high street
make a right - turn right
sidewalk -
truck - lorry
truck driver - lorry driver
trucker - lorry driver
intersection - junction
English - American
bonnet (of a car) - hood
Boot (of a car - trunk
centre of the city - downtown
junction - intersection
lorry - truck
lorry driver - truck driver/trucker
pavement - sidewalk
post (noun and verb) - mail (noun and verb)
post box -mail box
turn right - make a right
Useful Websites
wiki Americanisms
About the Author
Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer has lived in the UK and USA and Singapore.
FRANCE
Next post Why couldn't get a cup of tea in France.
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