RE: Foreign words ?

RE: Foreign words ? (Full Version)

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MistressWolfen -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 7:03:26 AM)
Here is a linguistic study of the whole couch/chesterfield thing, kind of interesting and it is age related it appears! http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~chambers/couch.html

sirsholly -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 7:23:45 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: stella41b Americans are well, uh... different? we might be different...but it is you guys that have the accent. OK...i read this every once in awhile: jumper. Here a jumper is a school girly type sleeveless dress meant to be worn over a shirt or turtleneck. What is it across the pond?

Aneirin -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 7:42:46 AM)
A frog

PeonForHer -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 10:04:27 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR A few more..... American British Elevator Lift Toilet Loo Pants Trousers Cigarette Fag Highway Motorway Driveway Car Park (not totally sure about this one) Wrench Spanner A joke from the Bush era, from Brit comedian Alexei Sayle: 'You say 'sidewalk', we say 'pavement'; you say 'freeway', we say 'motorway'; you say 'President', we say 'murdering psychopathic bastard'.

GreedyTop -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 10:27:30 AM)
snort

Marc2b -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 10:31:19 AM)
quote: A frog I thought it was a sweater - at least, that is what I gleaned from the Harry Potter books.

Phoenixpower -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 10:50:28 AM)
yeah that jumper thingy is one of the weirdest word for me I have to say...when I moved temporarily to Ireland back in 2003 I realised that you use the word "jumper"...I translated that with what we call it in Germany as we call it Pullover...now...Pullover as "pull over" makes perfectly sense...why don't you use that perfectly-sense-making-word in any of your countries ?!?!?! Until I moved abroad at that time I had never realised the sense it made when I thought about that word in english....it certainly would make more sense compared to jumper as you don't really jump into that thing, do ya ?!?!

Phoenixpower -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 10:54:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: sirsholly quote: ORIGINAL: stella41b Americans are well, uh... different? we might be different...but it is you guys that have the accent. OK...i read this every once in awhile: jumper. Here a jumper is a school girly type sleeveless dress meant to be worn over a shirt or turtleneck. What is it across the pond? though it is hard work for me to defend someone from the UK I can tell ya, but at least the british aczent I do understand...whereas Mr. A's american aczent was quite a pain to understand at times when we met (leading me to pretend at times I would have understood him, as I did not want to keep asking him "What did you say?" [8\|])

philosophy -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 12:21:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Marc2b quote: A frog I thought it was a sweater - at least, that is what I gleaned from the Harry Potter books. ...and what do you get if you cross a kangaro with a sheep? A wooly jumper. Wouldn't work in American though.......

philosophy -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 12:23:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer A joke from the Bush era, from Brit comedian Alexei Sayle: 'You say 'sidewalk', we say 'pavement'; you say 'freeway', we say 'motorway'; you say 'President', we say 'murdering psychopathic bastard'. ...and from the same era...... Did you know that Margaret Thatcher was an anagram of 'evil nazi bitch'?........give or take a few letters.......

DesertRat -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/17/2009 1:40:12 PM)
~fr~ In 2000, I was on a job in CA and my colleague was from Liverpool. When we were first gettng to know each other we were talking about our favorite pasttimes. I told him I was a very serious, hardcore cross-country skier and he listened very attentively, asked me what I wore when skiing, then proceeded to fall out of his chair laughing when I told him about my wool jersies and corduroy knickers. I briefly had a girlfriend in Wales (my first true submissive) and I noticed her pained looks when I mentioned my "fanny pack". Finally, she asked me to "please stop saying that", and explained why. I was embarrassed and also I understood why the woman in the security line at Gatwick airport looked so disgusted when I asked her to hand me my fanny pack. Years ago, when I had an Austin-Healey Sprite, I honestly thought I could remove road tar from the paint by rubbing it with a candle. Why not? The owner's manual said to use "paraffin"...which is English for "kerosene". I guess most people are familiar with other differences like: curb/kerb, flashlight/torch, backyard/garden, camper trailer/caravan, dangerously violent maniac/rugby fan, etc.

Marc2b -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 9:45:55 AM)
[:)] It does if you well read enough.

kdsub -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 10:56:46 AM)
lol... yes we are but... we are also the majority English speaking country in the world and therefore have the right to change or create new words as we like... so you backwater folks need to catch up...[:D] Butch

Aneirin -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 11:20:31 AM)
Changing our spelling as well are'nt you ?

silvermuse -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 11:26:42 AM)
When my father visited and asked the store clerk where the 'rubbers' would be in a local store, I had to explain to him that rubbers here meant condoms. What he was looking for was an eraser. muse

ChainedExistence -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 11:37:05 AM)
We had an exchange teacher from England who asked some 5th graders to take out their rubbers......that was a source of amusement for quite some time.

kdsub -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 11:39:19 AM)
[:D]..all the time...and I am very good at it personally. Butch

atlboy77 -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 11:46:21 AM)
I was once looking for an eraser and asked my boss if she had an extra rubber handy. I didn't understand her facial expression [sm=whoa.gif] until a couple of months later, when I asked another female coworker the same thing!! We talked and she explained what a "rubber" means in the US... then I immediately thought about my boss... [sm=banghead.gif]

Marc2b -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/19/2009 8:21:09 PM)
quote: Changing our spelling as well are'nt you ? Well, really now, what do words like "color, labor, harbor," etc, need with a "u" anyway?

slavekal -> RE: Foreign words ? (7/20/2009 4:48:56 AM)
3000 miles of ocean between people will do that. And America is huge. There are various accents and terms for things that are not the same everywhere in this country. In Michigan, what others call soda, we call pop. Bostonians call a milkshake a frappe.

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