Literature The British English vs American English thread!

[Joe]

I was watching the movie Band of Brothers. An American and a British soldier are having a conversation. The British soldier appears to be speaking cockney slang.

We're Tommies, not Boche.
-ls all this real? -Yeah, yeah.
lt's for you lads, so you can get your mince pies on some Jerry clobber.
-lf you know what l mean.
-Not really.
You got a Luger? -l'm dying to hold a real Luger.
-Yeah, go on, then.
Quick butchers, yeah? -She's a doozy.
-That's pukka, isn't it? -What? -Eh? Hey, Petty! Hey, mate? You're having a bath if you think you're half-inching that.
Oh, yeah.
Sorry.
Well, good luck.
You too, mate.

Would anyone please "translate" the underlined phrases?

ETA: Found a few.

Quick butchers = quick look
Half-inching = stealing
Pukka = of high quality; properly or perfectly done, constructed, etc
Mince pies = (Cockney rhyming slang) an eye
Clobber = Noun. Clothes and personal belongings. {Informal}

 

[Moll Flanders]

^ Yes, that is right, well that's what I would take it to mean. It's Cockney rhyming slang although sometimes it doesn't rhyme. Pukka means authentic or first rate but it doesn't rhyme with anything in particular.

Mince pies on some Jerry clobber - get your eyes on some German clothes/belongings or guns maybe if that's what they were talking about.

I think you're having a bath means having a laugh if you think you're half-inching (rhymes with pinching) the gun from him.

ETA - I sometimes say having a giraffe for having a laugh/ taking the ****.

 

[ledboots]

I love all that slang.

 

[Joe]

Mince pies on some Jerry clobber - get your eyes on some German clothes/belongings or guns maybe if that's what they were talking about.

I think you're having a bath means having a laugh if you think you're half-inching (rhymes with pinching) the gun from him.

ETA - I sometimes say having a giraffe for having a laugh/ taking the ****.

Thank you, MF, for your reply. I really appreciate it.

The context of the scene is that a British soldier is dressed up in German uniform and strolling about as the Americans are preparing to board the planes to take off for Normandy. The purpose of this dress-up is to familiarize American soldiers with what German uniforms look like.

 

[Moll Flanders]

I was just watching a US show and just realised that a shot of alcohol in the UK doesn't mean the same in other countries.

Shot glass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Joe]

I was watching the film Legend (about the Kray brothers). The film takes place in Britain, but the director is an American.
In the director's commentary, he makes a number of comments about differences between British vs. American English.
In one scene, Reggie Kray's girl friend is wearing a jacket-like blouse and matching slacks. The director explained that the British call this outfit a trousers suit, while Americans call it a pants suit.

In another scene in the movie, Reggie Kray makes a joke about the word capriccio. The director says that Britons use this word all the time and with various meanings. But while the word is found in dictionaries of American English, I have never read or heard an American use it, except in the context of classical music. For example, one of Tchaikovsky's compositions is the Capriccio Italien.

 

[MadamSarcastra]

IM-ing with my Irish online pen-pal/gamer-buddy the other day, was talking about when my wallet was stolen, party store this, party store that.... "What's a party store?," he asks. It made me pause.... oh, yeah, that's such a familiar term to ME.... well.... I typed back "party store = booze shop." He got it right away. LOL

 

[Blobbenstein]

the word capriccio. The director says that Britons use this word all the time

never heard of that word.

 

[Calliegirl]

IM-ing with my Irish online pen-pal/gamer-buddy the other day, was talking about when my wallet was stolen, party store this, party store that.... "What's a party store?," he asks. It made me pause.... oh, yeah, that's such a familiar term to ME.... well.... I typed back "party store = booze shop." He got it right away. LOL

Is that a regional thing, like pop, soda, and coke?

Here a party store is where you buy party supplies; decorations, balloons, decorated paper plates, cups, napkins, etc., but no alcohol. Liquor stores sell alcohol.

 

[AeryFairy]

IM-ing with my Irish online pen-pal/gamer-buddy the other day, was talking about when my wallet was stolen, party store this, party store that.... "What's a party store?," he asks. It made me pause.... oh, yeah, that's such a familiar term to ME.... well.... I typed back "party store = booze shop." He got it right away. LOL

Is that a regional thing, like pop, soda, and coke?

Here a party store is where you buy party supplies; decorations, balloons, decorated paper plates, cups, napkins, etc., but no alcohol. Liquor stores sell alcohol.

Also never heard the term. Here, it'd be called an 'offie', short for 'off licence'.

 

[Second Summer]

Here a party store is where you buy party supplies; decorations, balloons, decorated paper plates, cups, napkins, etc., but no alcohol. Liquor stores sell alcohol.

That's what I thought she meant as well!

 

[MadamSarcastra]

Is that a regional thing, like pop, soda, and coke?

I would think so. In Michigan (and I think we may be the only state to say it... traveled all over the country many times, been in every state except Alaska & Hawaii), we say pop.... East coast, always soda.... a lot of southern states, Coke (it's ALL Coke... what kind of Coke? Sprite Coke? Sure! LOL)

 

[Mel]

My Scottish husband and I are at the point now where I mostly get all of his British phrases and words and he mostly gets my Canadian way of speaking. I guess after almost 11 years you tend to get used to it. But boy did we ever question each other along the way! He still brings me my wallet when I ask for my purse sometimes though. Oh well...lol He used to be like, "Well, a purse is a purse and what you want is your BAG". I tease him and say, "well, you live in MY country now, so deal!"

 

[Moll Flanders]

I was just watching a UK political show and the (Scottish) presenter used the American term Snollygoster.
It is a person, usually a politician, who cares more for personal gain than serving the people.

Snollygoster - definition of snollygoster by The Free Dictionary

 

[Capstan]

I was just watching a UK political show and the (Scottish) presenter used the American term Snollygoster.
It is a person, usually a politician, who cares more for personal gain than serving the people.

Snollygoster - definition of snollygoster by The Free Dictionary

Strange. As an American, I have never once ever heard that term, until today.

 

[Amy SF]

Strange. As an American, I have never once ever heard that term, until today.

Same here.

 

[Capstan]

Same here.

I looked it up. It's archaic, was used in the 19th-century. It comes from, snallygaster, a mythical dragon that ate chickens and children. Good term for a politician.

 

[Amy SF]

So Outlander is back on the air in its second season. All throughout the first season and now in its second season, the Scottish characters use the word "ken" a lot, and I got the impression it was meant to sound exotic and foreign to non-Scottish ears. But I'm familiar with the word. It's not used much in the US in normal conversation, but I've heard it from older people and probably have seen it in books I read when I was young. I always thought it was Scottish Gaelic (good heavens, my iPhone autocorrect keeps changing Gaelic to Garlic), but I did a search for "ken definition", and this turned up:

ken
/ken/
nounnoun: ken

• 1.one's range of knowledge or sight:"such determination is beyond my ken"synonyms:knowledge, awareness, perception, vision, understanding, ... more

verbverb: ken, 3rd person present: kens, gerund or present participle: kenning, past tense: kenned, past participle: kenned

• 1.know: "d'ye ken anyone who can boast of that?"
• ▪recognize; identify: "that's him—d'ye ken him?"

Word OriginOld English cennan ‘tell, make known,’ of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German kennen ‘know, be acquainted with,’ from an Indo-European root shared by can1 and know. Current senses of the verb date from Middle English; the noun from the mid 16th century.

So it's not Gaelic? Hmmm...interesting. Maybe it was absorbed into Scottish culture via the English interlopers.

 

[Joe]

So Outlander is back on the air in its second season. All throughout the first season and now in its second season, the Scottish characters use the word "ken" a lot, and I got the impression it was meant to sound exotic and foreign to non-Scottish ears. But I'm familiar with the word. It's not used much in the US in normal conversation, but I've heard it from older people and probably have seen it in books I read when I was young.

I read John Keats' famous poem "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer" when I was in high school. He writes:

...
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats : The Poetry Foundation

John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, on 31 October 1795 to Thomas Keats and his wife, born Frances Jennings.

John Keats - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Joe]

One of the participants on this Board (from England) used the word ken in this post:

Music - Post a song that doesn't suck