Americanisms Brits Just Don't Get

Nope. Plenty the other way though.

How does someone as obviously intellectually & morally flawed as Donald Trump continue to be spank fodder for MAGAts?

r2 is unclear on the OP's concept.

R3 Yea, stuff that's simply not understood. Like when a Brit uses "pants" in America to mean underpants.

[Quote][R2] is unclear on the OP's concept.

R3 No sweetie. Apparently you don't understand that there are at least 2 definitions of Americanism.

The second definition of "Americanism" reads as follows:

2. attachment or allegiance to the traditions, institutions, and ideals of the United States. "Americans in Europe have almost all preserved their Americanism"

It's ok to be a snarky bitch, but try not to be a stupid one!

Driving everywhere. Americans will drive around a parking lot for 15 minutes trying to scope out the closest spot. The delicate feet of Americans can't be defiled by walking!

The love of guns.

Voter Suppression.

Probably valedictorian (I think most people kinda get it but still a foreign concept).

Also, ‘Most everybody does x’ - most what? What is the word ‘Most’ doing here?

Obsession with HALLOWEEN!

Fastidious dental care! 🤣🤣🤣

All that and a bag of chips.

The pants thing always trips me up. What do Brits call women’s pants? Trousers are men’s. Slacks?

R14 they’re all called trousers, mate. Regional variations can apply—‘kecks’ or ‘bottoms’, for a couple of examples of many—but again they’re unisex.

We’d also tend to be more specific about the type of trousers, saying joggers or jeans or whatever they are, rather than use the catchall. The only time I’d say ‘pants’ is used for outerwear in Brit English is for ‘Harem pants’, but that’s a borrowed term anyway.

Jumper (sweater) is a word that threw me off.

This is fascin—

R9 Maybe add frosh and intramurals? Blue books? Plebes, as distinct from plebs? Know the difference between halfback and quarterback? A Back Bay accent is from where?

Winning

R18's obsession with Greg.

R18 American football is a good one. I tried watching an NFL game once, and my eye started twitching. Couldn't make head nor tail of what was going on.

And all those annoying interminable ad breaks! And the half time show pep-rally nonsense! And the cringey fan cheers! (it's rude sarcastic chants or nothing, lads). Batshit.

Atheism being a taboo subject

American football is catching on in the US.

American football is easy compared to CRICKET. My god that is incomprehensible.

Lots of insurance terms, like HMO and PPO. Tax stuff, like 401(k) and Form 1040. Store stuff, like Mr Pibb and Fritos. Bakery items, like maple bars and shoofly pie.

Can you buy bread and other pastry products in the regular grocery store in the US? I don't mean all, old, wrapped in a plastic croissants and bread, but the fresh ones, made that morning? Or do you need to go to the special store for those that is only for those products?

R25 Most large supermarkets in the US have an in-store "bakery" but it usually just bakes frozen stuff made in a factory elsewhere. Just like Lidl in the UK. You don't see them rolling out pastry in the store to make those croissants, do you.

[quote]American football is catching on in the US.

Are you posting from 1935?

American (processed) cheese

Our portion sizes

People of Walmart

[quote]Jumper (sweater) is a word that threw me off.

Yeah, in the US, a jumper is a dress worn over a top with sleeves. I don't think they're too popular anymore.

R30 in the gothic-lolita fashion subculture, you hear a lot about jumper-skirts and dresses. That's the only use outside the U.S. I've heard of, though.

[quote] Lots of insurance terms, like HMO and PPO. Tax stuff, like 401(k) and Form 1040.

HMO: a health management organization; sort of like a private, members-only NHS; an HMO is a birth to death all-inclusive health services provider. Members of the HMO pay premiums and deductibles to the HMO in order to use the HMO’s chain of hospitals and specialty practices. Members can use doctors, hospitals and providers outside of the HMO but for an additional cost.

PPO: preferred provider organization; a list of private doctors with whom the members’ health insurance company has negotiated rates for various treatments and procedures. Members are free to choose any doctor from the insurance company’s approved list; premiums and deductibles apply. Going to a doctor who is not on the list will cost more.

401(k): the retirement vehicle for full-time non-public sector professionals; essentially an investment account to which both the employer and employee make contributions; the 401(k) replaced traditional company pensions.

Form 1040: refers to the basic filing form used for reporting income to the federal government’s tax office, the IRS.

I'm a Brit and some words that don't translate for me that Americans use are 'pussy', 'grifter' and 'trashy'. I mean, I know what they mean but they've never really taken off here.

Indoor plumbing, central heat and air conditioning

Ice in drinks

A full set of teeth? 🤔

Food to go that doesn't look like this when you get home

As R1 noted, there's not much about America that Brits don't get.

The other way (things about the Brits that Americans don't get) is much different, of course.

fanny

Let me guess where you're from, r38.

Being obsessed with guns

Meghan Markle

[quote]People of Walmart

But no one is trashier than white trash Brits. Haven't you ever seen Benefits Street?

r41 how's the machete attacks?

R43 No, but I saw Onslow and Daisy. Isn't that good enough?

r7

R27 No one thought that they are rolling out pastry in the store, smartass. We have bakeries in the back of the store where they are making that stuff, where I'm from.

I think vocal fry is one of those things. I'm not sure if Americans do it more than the British, but it seems that way.

R46 - yep you're right - that certainly put this in the shade...

R48 - yeah it's annoying

Why are there so many of these types of Brit vs American threads lately? Is it due to the klan granny invasion?

R6 nails it.

R21 Football is the most exciting sport to watch. It is one thing about America I will miss when I move to London.

R33 do you mean pussy as in vagina or pussy as in cowardly?

Being number one.

Why do they call rounders baseball? Why do their rugby players wear so much protective gear? Pussy, much?

r49

I remember years ago a British female friend went to see Legally Blonde in the theater. She didn't understand a lot of it.

Here's what I don't understand: If baseball is basically unknown in the UK, why do so many people seem to have baseball bats? At least in the British TV shows I watch, they seem to -- it's often featured as a weapon. Why and where would they even sell them? Why not use a cricket bat?

R59 rule of cinema, I'm guessing. Poetic license. No-one I've ever met irl actually has one in their house.

Also, cricket bats are unwieldy and difficult to swing fast or repeatedly. Plus a bludgeoning with one would be too bloody and vicious for watershed programming.

R59, They do it for the cultah.

Fanny. In the UK it means vagina.. It is also used to describe a stupid person.

Brits use baby talk for words.

R53 How is American Football exciting when they are stopping the game every few seconds. How the hell is American Football more exciting than Basketball, where something is actually happening. And not just a few times a game, but all the time.

R59 Because you can smash the head a lot easier with a baseball bat than with a cricket bat.

Baseball bats are used by criminals in the UK for the purpose of intimidation.

[quote]Why are there so many of these types of Brit vs American threads lately?

The trolls are amongst us, R51 and flexing their muscle.

These threads are akin to the anti-women, anti-minorities, anti-trans, anti-semite, anti-elders, anti-decency, anti-democracy threads ad nauseam, R51; the object is to divide and conquer through the promotion of enmity.

They are using us in order to create a fictitious gay monolith whose opinion will be used to alienate us. The best we can do is refrain from engaging in their antics.

Beware of trolls and their seemingly innocuous polls.

England is a shithole filled with smelly foreigners.

R63 the fuck?

R67 I think you're probably right.

Very rare R 44. The U.K. has a fraction of the US homicide rate. The only school shooting we’ve ever had was Dunblane. The already tight gun laws were then tightened. Because we seem to care more about kid’s lives than you do.

r71

Braces.

Teeth whitening.

Mouthwash.

^am a Brit who had traintracks & retainers for years, as did many of my peers when we were at school

R71 "Because we seem to care more about kid’s (sic) lives than you do." Tell that to the parents of the two 16-year-old boys knifed to death in Greenwich last week.

R75, The poster never said there was no crime at all but your playing thick so....

R76 The poster compared gun deaths only, ignoring the serious problem of knifings in London and other parts of Britain.

[quote]^am a Brit who had traintracks & retainers for years, as did many of my peers when we were at school.

Boarding school?

Shooting the entire family or coworkers because one is stressed.

...which is not what happens.

In the UK, the color/colour red is associated with the political left while/whilst the color blue is associated with the right.

It is odd that it's exactly the opposite.

"It's called SOC-cer!"

No it's fucking not, shut up, cunts.

[quote]Because we seem to care more about kid’s (sic) lives than you do.

Is that why they all get packed off to boarding school where the boys are all sodomized before they reach puberty?

Vivian Vance

Vivianne they spell it.

Huh?

That you call jam ‘jelly’ and jelly ‘jello’. Can’t cope with it honestly.

If an American jokes around and uses the term “bro” the British person tends to pause. Not sure why

R89 ‘bro’ is becoming more common in the UK with the Zoomers, I hear urban kids say it more and more (globalisation?). That said, ‘bruv’, ‘bruvva’, ‘mate’ and ‘man’ are far more natural and common parlance.

R77 Again more posturing. The UK has half the homicide rate of America.

[quote] I remember years ago a British female friend went to see Legally Blonde in the theater. She didn't understand a lot of it.

Let me guess. Your friend is a blonde?

R91 Only because knives don't kill quite effectively as guns.

R78 nope, non-fee selective grammar.

In fairness, I was one of the poorer students there, and this was back in the noughties when the NHS were still giving out free cosmetic dentistry left and right for some reason.

r88 Jell-O is a brand name, but it is used as sort of a generic for flavored gelatin.

[quote]In the UK, the color/colour red is associated with the political left while/whilst the color blue is associated with the right.

That actually makes more sense, and was the case everywhere until the past few decades. Red is (obviously) the color of communism, which is the extreme left.

R93 I don't know if your being antagonistic or agreeing but yes you are correct my friend. Isn't that a good thing.

The film ‘Hereditary’ released as ‘Bloody hell, the Missus is bonkers!’ in the U..K.

Going to the dentist, using spices in the food.

A constitution you can actually read.

Fake niceness, though this is particularly a US south thing.

The American need to always show the big bleached teeth in photos looks VERY odd to us.

R102 your yellow, crooked, cavity ridden teeth looks very odd to us.

I don't know anyone who has teeth like that.

[quote]Is that why they all get packed off to boarding school where the boys are all sodomized before they reach puberty?

"sodomized"? - oh, dear. I think that's your fantasy.

R99, We have heavily subsidised lifelong dental care on the NHS. Free for children, people on most welfare benefits and over 65s.

I can only speak for myself, but I have been cooking food from all over Asia since I was a teenager. We have fantastic Asian grocers in every town, and can easily source the ingredients.

R106 - most of the gurls on here have never been near England. All they know is what they saw on Scooby-Doo

How Americans accept living in a place that is basically a war zone where every adult is permitted to carry a gun, and mass shootings occur seemingly every day.