What is a word that the Brits use that other English-speaking countries use totally differently and how do you use it?

23 comments

1. Trunk/Boot

   Jelly/Jam

   Scone/Biscuit/Cookie

2. You goto america and tell them you’re going out to smoke a fag, it won’t go down well….

3. Personally I’d suggest just googling for this one – there are a LOT of idiomatic differences between British English and American English, and even within different regions of the UK or the US. The same is true for Australian English, Canadian English, or whatever other regional dialect you might choose.

4. This recent thread should help you:

   https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/z9lqy7/what_words_would_only_a_british_person_use/

5. Pissed. Drunk, not annoyed

6. Hanging, minging, rank – disgusting

   Scran – food or to eat food quickly ‘you can order scran but if you’re hungry you will scran it’

   Mint means great, minted means rich

   There’s also mardy, but for the life of me I can’t think what word other people use, it’s like acting annoyed or disheartened because you’re a bit upset, I think Americans would say “sourpuss” or something weird

7. Fanny, popular girl’s name in a number of countries.

8. Smoking a fag.

9. Entrée
   Absolutely bizarre that in the U.S. they use it to describe the main meal. Utterly missing the point!

10. In UK we say chips, in US it’s fries In US chips are what we call crisps

11. ‘Quite’

    Quite means ‘very’ in US english, while it typically means ‘somewhat’ in the UK.

12. Cheers mate

13. In UK rubbers can be erasers but also refer to condoms fwiw

14. Nosebag/ packed lunch.

15. I heard teenagers on the train a while back talking about how he’s gonna “bang” his mate. My first thought was like damn kids nowadays are super accepting of being homosexual he’s openly saying he’s gonna bang him later in front of all his other friends.

    Turns out “bang” now means fight, I’m not even 30 and bang always meant to have sex with someone.

16. I’ve seen some other languages use the word “mobbing” to mean workplace bullying, but I’ve never heard anyone use that word here in the UK to mean that; I’ve only seen it used to mean surrounded by crowds e.g. a celebrity “mobbed by fans”.

17. UK, pants = underwear

    USA, pants = trousers

18. Might be an NI specific one this, but *boy* as a friendly address can get you into all sorts of bother in the USA.

19. Thongs in Australia being flip flops.

    Pavement in the USA being the actual road.

20. Spunk – ejaculate (ah mate, you’ve got some spunk on your chin) vrs Spunk – brave (my daughter is so full of spunk)

21. We get the language right, it’s our language and other people use it, but if they use words differently that makes them wrong. Especially if they’re Americans.

22. Those words are both used in places like Australia and New Zealand, so they’re not totally different.

    I think saying pants to mean underpants is unique to the UK though.

23. Pants . In America is trouser and pants. Is under pants or underwear