American-isms

White Dove

What are some words or phrases that people outside of the USA find amusing or interesting?

IP_SEC

Vacation instead of holiday? lol how come they call it holiday.

Vacation from latin vacare- to be free
Holiday from old english halig dae- holy day

Now really! Which makes more sense?

oompa

"throw another shrimp on the barbie" is cool in Austria....................oompa

Quandry

In the south there is Ya'll, as in "Ya'll come on in."

Oh, and yonder, as in "Where"s Bubba?" "He's out yonder workin' on the truck."

And, fixin, as in "What ya'll fixin to do out yonder now?"

Woo hoo! Cool subject.. ALRIGHTY WHERE TO START..

You know I find Americans seem to Hollywood-ise their speech. Like naming the terrorism attack "9-11" See if that happened in Australia they would probably be referred to as "the terrorist attacks" or something. The weird thing about the term 9-11 is that in just about every other part of the world the date 9-11 is actually the 9th of November.

Which brings me to: why are the dates written month-day-year? Doesn't it make more sense to do day-month-year to keep it in a logical sequence? Hmmm

Okay now I'm on a roll.. what's the deal with the English language being tweaked? Centre, favourite, organisation, neighbour. And what's more of a slap in the face is when Microsoft Word wants to put zeds in all my words, and I have to tell it "No, actually I'm REALLY writing English, thanks anyway." haha

Which brings me to zed. The 26th letter of the alphabet. Yep. Sorry folks, it's zed not zee. I think zee started up when Sesame Street needed their song to rhyme.. :-P heh heh

Oh dear I'm having way too much fun with this. Hey and why do you guys call your main meal an "entree"? The word literally means "entrance" so we use it to describe the lighter, starter meal before the main. Hey so what do you call your entrees??

But seriously, secretly I'm a big time admirer of America. In fact, I plan on spending a lot of time there in the future. :-)

And I'm sure you can find some Aussie stuff to make fun of. By the way, we throw "prawns" on the barbies, not shrimps. :-P

TopHat

American "Pick you up" instead of the English "Come to collect you" "Collect" implies to me, bits and parts of a body. "Pick you up" implies the whole body. Am I right?

Awakened at Gilead

Hi HC,

I'm a native born Brit living in these colonies since I was a wee lad, so I realize that I speak American, not English...

But I don't speak Aussie... So what's the deal with Barbie? I saw your pic on another thread, and you have a resemblance with Barbie, I think... So what are Barbies in Aussie???

But don't get me wrong... I learned a few Aussie words from Paul Hogan and from Outback steakhouse...

So enjoy your tucker you people from down under...

(Just when oompa hears 'going down under' he has something else in mind...now,now, oomps...)

A@G

Rapunzel

Oompa: You write that the expression "'throw another shrimp on the barbie' is cool in Austria" Really? Gee, I always thought that they spoke German in Austria, not English. Uugh...don't you mean that this expression is "cool" in Australia? There is a big, big difference between Australia and Austria. Austria is a European nation that borders on Germany. Australia is both a country and a continent in the southern hemisphere. All of its major cities are on the coast. Its interior [the Outback] essentially consists of a huge desert.

changeling

Oh dear I'm having way too much fun with this. Hey and why do you guys call your main meal an "entree"? The word literally means "entrance" so we use it to describe the lighter, starter meal before the main. Hey so what do you call your entrees??

You'll have to take this one up with the French since Americans stole this from French menus.

changeling :)

parakeet

American: wait in line
British: queue up

American: apartment
British: flat

American: elevator
British: lift

American: f**k off
British: s*d off