+3 votes
194 views
in Fun & Humor ☻ by
Some examples:

Aluminium. Over here we say 'al-u-min-i-um'. You say 'aloom-i-num'. Neither nation can spell the word.... (Aluminiumiumium?)

Beer. What you call beer, we call lager. What we call beer, you call disgusting. This might be mutual.

Cookies. You eat these with milk and with great self control you only eat two at a time (you don't? naughty!). We call them biscuits. You call biscuits those dry crackery things that might go in soup (or at least in the part of the US I went to).

Flummoxed? Our US chums will be if you use this word. It means to be confused. The typical reaction of the average Brit upon arriving in the US. Then again you might be 'hit for six' (i.e. upset to the point of falling over) by it all. Which just isn't cricket, eh chaps?

Hard. In the UK, you might see an unshaven tattooed uncouth man with big muscles in a pub. If you accidentally spill his beer, he might get upset and request you to join him outside. He might say `Come on then if you think you're hard enough!' Or even 'I'm hard, me, so you better watch your step, mate.' He is not casting aspersions on your sexual persuasion, nor does he have an erection. He is merely stating the fact that unless you buy him another pint of lager in the very immediate future he might beat seven shades of shit out of you. In the US, our friend the male actor would probably say 'I'm hard' while sharing a bottle of woody flavoured chardonnay with his co-star...

Kip. In the UK to have a sleep or a nap. A kip house is apparently a brothel. Being young and innocent I was unaware of this...

Randy. In the US a perfectly reasonable first name. Pity then, the multitude of poor Americans given this unfortunate appellation when they come over to old Blighty. Wherever they go, grimy street urchins snigger, little old ladies try desperately to stifle guffaws and ordinarily quite sensible members of society burst out in laughter. And why? In the UK, saying 'Hi, I'm Randy!' is akin to saying to our American cousins 'Hello friend, I'm feeling horny.' However, save your pity for poor soul Randy Highman who introduced himself to my supervisor at a conference not so long ago...

Roundabout. Imagine you are travelling in the UK along the M3 into Basingstoke (why I can't imagine - it's a God forsaken place.) You have already worked out that a motorway is the same as a freeway and you are feeling pretty pleased with yourself. In front of you is the biggest rotary you have ever seen. In the UK, we call them roundabouts. To instill a morbid fear of these things in our children we force them to play on minature versions of them in playgrounds (wooden disk that turns around with bars to hold onto) and make them watch endless re-runs of the Magic Roundabout*. This program was originally a French satire on politics in the late 1960s though it looks just like a animated kiddies show made by someone on SERIOUS acid. Sugar cube eating dogs indeed. *

Stuffed. To be full up after eating too many cookies. Also 'Get Stuffed' a cookery program for insomniac students and people on a low income, where you are told how to make fancy versions of beans on toast using everyday ingredients like baked beans, bread, butter and curry powder. The recipies are invariably called things like 'Currybeanytoasty-yum-yum-a-go-go'. As well, 'get stuffed' is something you say to someone who isn't your best mate.

Toilets. Although we have a lot of colourful euphenisms for the lavatory experience in the UK (e.g. spend a penny, watering the daisies) we lack the prissiness of our American chums. To us a toilet is a bog, a kharzi, a shithouse (or alternatively an outhouse in more polite company), a gents/ladies but mostly a toilet. It is perfectly acceptable to be in the Ritz and request to use the toilet. However, you guys seem ashamed of the t-word. Hence you go to the John (where no-one called John is there) and the bathroom (where there is no bath). ...And a word of warning for English chaps in the US - never admit to eating baked beans out of the can.


Link: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dgl3djb/~ukus.html

* About The Magic Roundabout:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Roundabout
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Man%C3%A8ge_enchant%C3%A9

3 Answers

+1 vote
by

A picture with a little - errr misinterpretation (see comment at the bottom):

image

+1 vote
by

Again, I learned something and those differences are so interesting.

+2 votes
by

"Toilet" was itself a euphemism when its use in the modern sense began.  Pope did not mean what we would take the boldface phrase to signify today.   :D

   "Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jury-men may dine;
The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace,
And the long labours of the toilet cease.
Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,
Burns to encounter two adventrous knights,
At ombre singly to decide their doom;"

Oh, and speaking of 'The Rape of the Lock," here are a couple of lines that could be Bill's and Donald's mottos, pigs both.

  “For when success a lover’s toil attends,

Few ask, if fraud or force attained his ends.”


by

Yes, an excellent comparison - lol.

Indeed:

There's no fairness in wars and games of lust,

if abuse of power impedes the just.

:O:)

by

Maybe if Pope were alive today, he'd append this addendum:

Bill's groping hands share much in kind with Trump's;

Both grab for thighs, pudenda, breasts and rumps.  :angry:

image

by
(..... giggling with very bad hind thoughts - lol) - :D

...................

And so, the ridicule in crumping slumps

on callipygian "dumps" prompts massive grumps.

:O:angry::ermm: - err - hum ...

by

image

Said the fair, callipygian Venus:

"I heard that Bill uses his penis

On interns and clerks;

He regards them as perks;

He's a lecher of gross piggish genus."

by
:D:D:O:angel::D

Salacious words - oh how shocking!

They have "straps" to hold the stocking,

fondling curbs, which should be "jocking" -

titillating, itching, mocking -

bawdy sights causing bold knocking ...

:blush::D

by

LOL!  :D

Speaking of bold knocking, is it my imagination, or do Venus's buttocks on the statue above seem stained, as if they had been patted by many unclean, oily hands over the centuries?!  :O :blush: :O

by

That is indeed the question, and I am afraid that we know too well about human nature - lol.

Many like to touch what's forbidden and others are afraid, ashamed or upset to have guilty thoughts - and some others are disgusted:

Image result for cachez ce sein tartuffe

nombril = belly button

by

LOL!  :D  It's a good thing the lower picture frame isn't lower... he would need more smiley faces.

Oh, wait, never mind.  Venus has that part covered with her hair.  :blush:

by

Lol - indeed, of course, the entire painting of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" shows much more.

image

BTW, I forgot: the model, Simonetta Vespucci (née Cattaneo), was the cousin-in-law of Amerigo ("Americus") Vespucci.


by

Very interesting!  :)

But even more astonishing:  where did they EVER find such a large seashell for Simonetta to stand on? :O

by

Lol - I don't think that she was standing on such a sea shell "creation" (if you look at the position of her feet and the rather thin structure) said to have been imagined, often sculpured and painted according to a great scallop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecten_maximus (too bad: there's no gastronomic info in English)

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakobsmuschel (although not so detailed like in the French version)


and I am wondering if the enormous size in the painting was, perhaps, influenced by the giant clam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_clam


Lol - our ancestors had not all the information we have, but they had a great imagination. :)


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