You would think that two countries who are such close allies, whose residents travel back and forth between the two said countries ALL THE FLIPPIN’ TIME, and who speak the same language would be better able to communicate, right? But when it comes to the United Kingdom and the United States, nope, that’s not necessarily the case.
One of my closest friends, Pippa, lives on the southern coast of England. She and her husband, Pete come to the U.S. about once or twice a year, and Joe and I do our best to hang out with them a couple of times during their (usually) 2-week vacation. OK, OK….holiday. Because there’s a prime example. WE call it a “vacation,” but THEY call it a “holiday.” Really? REALLY? Pippa and I have had LOTS of conversations about what she calls this and what I call that and why can’t our two countries, who speak the same frickin’ language, call the same thing by the same word??? But until they do (and let’s face it – it ain’t gonna happen), laughing at the differences never gets old. As this video plainly shows…
(Heads up that there are a couple of slight NSFW words written in the very beginning of this)
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
5 comments
LOL, it’s not just the UK. One of my best friends is from France. They are taught the Queens English there, so when we first met, she, in spite of her complete fluency in four languages, had difficulty understanding my clipped North Eastern American accent. It taught me to slow down and listen more attentively. And yes, I still think we shared an apartment in our college years, while she says it was a flat at the university.
It’s amazing how we’re so similar but so different 🙂
Some linguistic changes are actually intentional. For instance, soccer was a term that invented in England. They loved the term until it came into use in the USA in the 80’s and 90’s, then they decided that the term was desperately in need of a change.
The link doesn’t work – can you send the article?
The original link had been giving us issues, which we thought we resolved. It should be fixed now.