How about "I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot bargepole" -is that a universal phrase? I just used it on another thread and realis/zed (:p) that I don't think I've heard anyone else say it over here?

do they have canals over there?


the other variation is of course 'I wouldn't touch it with yours'.....

yes. http://www.americancanals.org/

but so many people use phrases without understanding their origins that I wouldn't use a lack of canals as an indicator that the phrase wouldn't be used, anyway. Take for example "One Fell Swoop" -how many people even say it right, never mind have any idea as to it's possible origins. hmm, come to think of it, does anyone outside the UK use that one?

Do they have canals in Australia? And do they use that phrase there? It seems funny to hear Aussies use so many of the phrases that Brits do but Americans don't -no wonder so many Americans can't tell Aussie and Brit accents apart!

I really am at a very muddled stage after 6 years here where I sometimes really have to think about which phrases and words come from which side of the pond, and which one I need to use in a particular circumstance.

My kids' doctor (unintentionally, she says) played a mean trick on me. My daughter had a verruca that wouldn't go away, so we took her to see the doc. The doc has a Brit husband so understood what I was talking about, but never let on that Americans call them something different (Plantar Wart), then nearly peed herself laughing at the confusion caused at reception when I tried to book an appointment to have the offending growth removed. How on earth can you properly enjoy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without knowing what a Verruca is? :lol:

"One fell swoop?" Oh, absolutely, we use it in the States. Even if it took us until we read Tolkien in junior high school or so to see "fell" used in that sense in or on something other than a swoop.

All it takes is a spot of literacy.

I remember a doodle showing a hairy, goggle-eyed and friendly looking critter declaring himself "one swell foop."

Heavy reading of Patrick O'Brian novels suggests the barge in question that has a barge pole is an Admiral's barge, and the pole a boathook.

Also the literary record -- Donald E. Westlake IIRC -- records a refusal to touch something with an eighteen foot Lithuanian.

"Why would you expect them to know the Brit spellings?"
I expect very little from anyone. But why would they not know British spellings? Are Americans not exposed to British literature? British books are not rewritten with alternative spellings for the US market.

"Or were you referring to me?"
No.

I was really wondering if anyone would pick up on "gobsmacked".

Not all, but most are. There is plenty of editing done to books when they are shipped over from the UK for US readers. Not only spelling changes, but colloquialisms are "translated" for clarity.

Watched a British cooking show last night in which the woman placed a mixture in a "goblet" and "blitzed" it. The British do not merely blend!

Really? Wow. I hate the thought of that :P I have real difficulty reading translated works (I'm thinking more in terms of fiction, rather than historical sources etc) it disturbs me that I am not actually reading the words of the author :P Don't know why, I just always have found that extra abstraction makes me feel too distant from the author's intentions.

Generally speaking, I don't think American books are altered to make them more understandable to a British audience, although cover designs are often very different. The assumed taste of the British reader seems to be different than the assumed taste of the American reader.

More on UK/US book editing. No changes needed for the Aussies, but the US and Canada get plenty of changes.

I don't really understand why they would do that. There are plenty of books out there that utilise dialect and slang that isn't familiar to the reader. Some authors deliberately subvert grammatical and lexical conventions in order to create something new, like in Clockwork Orange, Vurt, Vernon Godlittle and a bunch of others.

Besides, just because something isn't understood in detail, doesn't mean the reader won't get the meaning behind it.

I just don't get it.....some of my most treasured reading memories have been American books and one of the things that makes them so great is the different use of language and imagery.


*wanders off muttering*

That's nothing -they revoiced the Teletubbies and Bob the Builder! The Tellytubbies! Eh Oh? I'm sure it would really confuse American kids hearing "eh oh" in a Brit accent :rolleyes:

Bob's hedgehog friends turn into porcupines and his cheese sandwiches become PB&J. it's not like American children don't come across cheese sandwiches, and hedgehogs feature in lots of kids' books. My American friends with sprogs don't understand why these were changed, either.

I know exactly why: someone gets paid to do it.

Along with all the other work done to music and video (PAL conversion, time codes, audio sample rate changes, compression and editing to match for commercial breaks, "radio ready", etc) there are entire companies out there that work with imported television shows to make the "broadcast ready" for the US by changing words, phrases, and accents through dubbing.

It is probably very difficult to sell a series to broadcasters in the states without proof that the show has the "broadcast ready" stamp on it, no matter how small the changes are.


...and are you sure about the Teletubbies? The "eh oh" had a British accent as I remember, as did the narrator. Same for that other exported abomination, Boobah.

Kitsune, what do you think about that? Do you think it is a good thing or a bad thing?

What about Lord Bargepole? Wasn't he a character from Punch magazine?

I had another uk ? and now I've forgotten it.

Oh yes, I'm sure -it was initilally British when I first moved here, then my two-year old got bored of it and when we came back to it for the next sprog it was all Americanized. Except for the "show and tell" segments, although they were often substituted for American ones which is fair enough, I think. But Kipper always kept the British voices. :neutral:

Fortunately, my kids grew out of that stuff before BooBah came along, but from what I have seen of it, I'd be quite happy to stand alongside the Americans and toss it into Boston Harbor.

....and for all you Brits out there, I'm using the Amercan interpretation of this :eyebrow:

I think Boobah is a terrible thing.

Now I really AM gobsmacked. I had no idea Britspeak literature would be dumbed down, I mean altered. Imagine reading Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" or Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" without their flair for English narrative! Imagine if Stephen King's novels were anglicized - what would happen to all the product placements, for a start?
Dubbing children's tv programs I can understand.
Talking of dumbing down, I think Teletubbies should have been forbidden by law in the first place, but I grew up with Muffin the Mule, Thomas the Tank Engine, Pugwash the Pirate and the Flowerpot Men. Even the Flowerpot Men had better dialog than the flicking Teletubbies.
"Weeeed! Little weeeed!"

They leave the classics alone, thankfully.

I don't like that they edit books this way, but I understand that they do it because it is an easier sell. I think it would be interesting if we could compare two versions of the same book, side-by-side, and find the differences and see if much is changed in the overall meaning and plot.

The editors must have readers that do nothing more than highlight passages and words they don't understand or seem uncomfortable in reading. Every instance of a light switch flipping down to turn something on must be meticulously altered to stop mass confusion! Entire paragraphs describing "her delicious, juicy butty" must be rewritten to prevent snickering!

There is actually a difference between a burger and a patty.

If you're buying frozen pre-formed meat at the store, always go for the burgers.

Both, if labelled as such, will contain 100% beef. Patties, however, contain the less popular parts of the animal, including lips, veins, and testicles.

Remember, always buy the burgers.

... and yet our introduction to the word "patty" came from McDonalds. Wait, makes sense.

I still remember the Big Mac advert from the 70s
"Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun..."

This website shows the differences between the UK and US editions of Harry Potter. For me it contains weird examples of finding out something I thought was universal is in fact simply British. Like posting here :)

I'd just like to note that I fully plan on using the phrase "do his nut" in everyday conversation after reading this. Thank you.

[quote=Sundae GirlI still remember the Big Mac advert from the 70s
"Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun..." [/QUOTE]


omg, I just remembered one of my big tricks in Jr Hi was being able to say that backwards. I still can. Without reading it. TA DAAAAA (I went to a very boring Junior High School!)

[slight detour]
American FYI re Harry Potter
The Harry Potter books mention Muggle coins with 7 sides or something like that. I have learned that some Americans assume this is just a flight of fancy of the author and are unaware thet two British coins are in fact heptagonal rather than round. Should you ever need this in a quiz, they are the 20p and 50p pieces.
[further off track] another potential quiz winner is that there are 14 pounds in a stone
[/further off track]
[/slight detour]

It occurs to me to wonder -- after discovering that Lucky Jack Aubrey (he's like Horatio Hornblower but more recently written, and more lively written too) weighs exactly what I do -- does anyone know why exactly fourteen pounds to the stone, and not a dozen, nor eighteen?

[tangentially OT]In reading any Aubrey-Maturin Patrick O'Brian novel, it is helpful to have recourse to The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. I suspect O'Brian had his own copy. I've finally learned what brailing is, sailing large, and sailing on a broad reach; tacking and wearing I'd already grasped. O'Brian's novels give you the no doubt dangerous impression that with a couple of week's experience on a square-rigged ship, provided you'd read all the novels, you could con and fight her -- if not a line-of-battle ship, then at least a fourth-rater (also explained in the Companion).

the standard cannon ball weight for a ship-of-the-line?

Any idea why the wheelhouse is the bridge?

Speaking of odd transatlantic editing...

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles? What the hell?

Baffled us too, don't worry.
I used to know the theme tune off by heart though.

Yeah we all knew the Ninja bit. That was a weird thing. Didn't really care, though, as I was getting a bit long in the tooth for that sort of thing by then.

Over here, a hamburger is the whole bun with salad, onions and a meat patty in between. Meat patties are made of minced meat.

Sometimes when I make rissoles (the australian word for what you call a hamburger) I put curry paste (and a few other things) in them. They're very yummy that way if you've never tried it.

And then, of course, us Brits have mincemeat to really confuse things. :D
Very popular this time of year, especially with vegetarians as long a real suet isn't used.......

I just made fruitmince pies the other day. They're a christmas favourite in our house this time of year. ;)

Doubt it, as there really wasn't one then. Two- and three-decker ships ran to having multiple calibers: their heavier armament being on the lower decks, with lighter guns next tier up and, supplemetarily, carronades -- approximately, seagoing howitzers, though not fired on high trajectories, as the state of the gunners' art simply wasn't good enough to hit a moving target from a moving platform with plunging fire, but their lighter weight/lower velocity combination allowed them to throw huge balls with enough range to do just fine in broadside engagements at half a sea mile and less -- around a thousand yards -- while not having to deal with the much greater weight of a long gun of the same bore.

The great guns would run to 24- and 32- and 42-pounders. Lighter-armed vessels might have long twelves, notably as bow and stern chasers, while the broadside guns would be of a shorter-tubed description so as to better fit crosswise on the gundeck. Cannon balls seemed rather, in the early nineteenth, to skip over the 14-pounder, going from 12- to the greater smashing power and carry of the 18-pounder. The whole -pounder scheme is quite like the shotgun's gauge or bore system, but cannonballs are in balls of iron, not lead -- eighteen pounds of iron, melted, will form into the same exact size of sphere every time when zero-geed off the top of a shot tower and caught in a tub of water at the bottom.

The American frigates of this era, contemporary with the USS Constitution, were apparently much noted for their use of big carronades as most of their armament, producing a stable ship, formidably armed and throwing a huge weight of broadside, without having to pay a weight or stability penalty and able to mount these great big bores high up in the hull in consequence, which means they could use this heavy armament even in quite high sea states that could prevent a more conventional ship of the line from using its heavy battery because it couldn't open its lower gunports without being swamped. Severe weather could cripple a first-rater's fighting abilities.

Griff, probably because a bridge usually (there are exceptions, like the Iowa class BBs) extends from one beam end to the other across a ship -- handy for the steersmen in docking and other close maneuvers, and for a captain to get a good look aft as well as forward, on either side. Quite the new invention, once conceived, which I think accounts for the use of such a term.

Tudor ships had cannons onboard. I suspect 14 pounds to a stone originated before American frigates.

Harry Potter would probably never have caught on in the States had the dreaded word "Philosopher" appeared on the first cover. It is also difficult to make the leap of logic that turns a type of young girl's dress into a sweater.

So, Brits and Aussies, how are you going to spend Boxing Day tomorrow, now that you probably don't have servants?

And there's the kind of mince that comes in a brick-pack and needs to be moistened with something, say, apple juice and rum, to really behave like a pie filling. Mince-brick is better for spooning onto hot cereal, though, as its flavor is more concentrated than most mince in jars, which is more fluid.

Hmmm Boxing Day? Well in my family that usually works out as a second, mini-Christmas day. Judah was at his dads for Christmas day, so he, my mum, my bro and me will exchange gifts and have a nice meal with a few glasses of port.

My eldest niece will be driving mum and dad potty with her new 'Fairground Grabber, candy machine'. It's loud, I had no idea when I bought it just how noisy it was! All the time she's trying to work the grabber, it makes fairgound/circus music *grins*

My youngest niece will no doubt by now, be deep in a book, having had her fill for the moment of her new playstation.

This afternoon, me, Judah and mum will watch some Battlestar Gallactica on jude's projector screen. I have no doubt that there will be a plate of mince pies involved somewhere. Oh and a line or two of coke......alright, I'm kidding about the coke.

Boxing Day = Bubble & Squeek - Christmas day's leftover vegetables mixed up all together and fried in a frying pan with a little oil (or turkey dripping - that's the fat off the turkey that's now solidified - sounds great doesn't it?)until hot all though and slightly scorched on the bottom, and then served with Cold Turkey (not the drug-related sort, although another two days and into Turkey casserole - that's the one that follows Turkey Curry - and you'll probably be needing them) and pickles (piccalilly, sweet pickles, mango chutney - whatever takes your fancy) plus some gherkins and/or pickled onions to round off the dish. And you thought we Brits were heathens when it came to cuisine - well, really!

Well, if you take the Coke cans out of their carton...

Only just read this - we used to love rissoles at school! But mostly because if you said it the right way it sounded like arseholes.

"What's for lunch today?"
"Aah, rissoles!"

Kids, eh?

boxing day was spent trying to eat through all the leftovers and freezing what we couldn't stuff down our pie holes.

Would you believe we still haven't cut the christmas cake??? No one's had room for anything remotely related to dried fruit or rum since boxing day ended. lol

I have a spare home-made Christmas pudding.....

We only cut into ours last night - usually we get one from a friend who bakes them for charity, but this time we bought from M&S - thing was bloody dry!

Favourite food purchase for Mrs CF this year - Pink Champagne chocolate truffles - not sure where she bought them from, but no one else got a look-in!