Literature The British English vs American English thread!

[Blobbenstein]

Another term used was fly tippers. I've been unable to find a definition for this. I assume it is something like a litterbug or someone who empties his trash on public property improperly.

yea, it's when people drive out into the countryside, or anywhere really, and dump a load of rubbish.....it is often done by builders and other business to save on the cost of getting rid of it.

I saw a program where some people where going around houses, and businesses, offering to get rid of people's rubbish for a charge, and then dumping it somewhere.

 

[Joe]

From the Inspector Morse pre-quel "Endeavour":

"a rum lot"

2 chiefly Britain a : characterized by queerness, peculiarity, or unusualness <writing is a rum trade T and what is all right one day is all wrong the next— Angela Thirkell>

Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary

A conviction on an amphetamine charge would only have gotten him a fine of "ten knicker."

Noun. One pound sterling. Cf. 'nicker'.

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/k.htm

 

[Joe]

From "Call the Midwife":

"It's been yonks since I did that."

(informal) a very long time; ages ⇒ I haven't seen him for yonks

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/yonks

Could you "do with a kip?"

chiefly british slang:
...
3. kip (n): "nap;" "rest;" "bit of sleep."

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kip

 

[Alice-Bee]

Haveht heard 'rum' and 'knicker' could be more of a regional thing, like London slang. Up North we're more likely to say 'quid' for money...he owes me ten quid.

Yonks and kip. yes. I use those all the time

 

[Joe]

They are showing the BBC show Silk on public TV here. One episode dealt with cottaging.

(British) homosexual activity between men in a public lavatory

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cottaging

I don't think there is a word for this in American English.
I did have a friend who did an academic paper on this subject. He titled it: The Tearoom Trade.

 

[Second Summer]

Could you "do with a kip?"

"kip" reminds me of "kipper" which is a word I've only heard on Red Dwarf:

Ace Rimmer: Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!

Apparently, a kipper is "a whole herring, a small, oily fish,[1] that has been split in butterfly fashion from tail to head along the dorsal ridge, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold smoked over smouldering woodchips (typically oak)." (From Wikipedia.) Ugh. But Rimmer's quote make a lot more sense now.

 

[hungryraccoon]

I could definitely do with a kip.

 

[Joe]

Was watching an episode of the TV show Sherlock. In one scene a friend of his brother offers him a business card and says "Here is my cell number."
Sherlock deduces from this that the man had spent time in America. Do the British use some other expression for their mobile phones other than "cell phones"?
Is cell phone an Americanism? If so, what expression do British people use for these kind of phones?

 

[Blobbenstein]

mobile phones...

 

[Joe]

mobile phones...

Ah, thanks. The expression "mobile phone" is still used here, although it may conjure up (for some people) the image of one of those "brick" phones like Don Johnson used on Miami Vice in the 1980s.

 

[SummerRain]

A lot of people just say "mobile", i.e. "let me find my mobile and I'll text you".

 

[Freesia]

We use both cell and mobile here.

 

[Freesia]

Gobsmacked is used here.

 

[Joe]

Gobsmacked is used here.

Saw a movie called The Sapphires. Set in Australia, it featured a fellow of Irish descent. Lots of interesting vocabulary, but I'm not sure it is British. At any rate, one of the terms used was gobshite. A dictionary said this was an Irish word. Is it used by the British too?

 

[Blobbenstein]

I have heard it on TV in the past.

 

[Joe]

Two Briticisms from the BBC TV program Foyle's War

One of the roomers at a boarding house "took a shufti" and (improperly) looked at/through another roomer's quarters.

A sexually active couple were described as "rubbing the oh-bejoyfuls."

 

[SummerRain]

Well, Northern Irish people are British. (The word is kind of confusing, Great Britain: Scotland, Wales, England, but "British" usually means from the United Kingdom [of Great Britain and Northern Ireland], i.e.: Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland).

But I've heard people in England use the word, but they may or may not have been from Irish decent. I don't think if I heard somebody say it, I'd have said, "Oh Irish!".

 

[Freesia]

I wouldnt go to Ireland and say that. They get REALLY mad. It is a sore subject with a lot of Irish.

 

[SummerRain]

I added in a second Northern, to be explicit. What I meant was Northern Irish people were British! Although still probably wouldn't go to Northern Ireland and start up a conversation about it...

Although, generally Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh prefer to be called that (in my experience), not British. Definitely not English. Most English people say British in my experience.

 

[Freesia]

I have a friend who lives in Northern Ireland and she calls herself Irish. But then she is Catholic. Only the protestants identify as British.