And sometimes a word can have two different, but similar meanings depending on what country you are in. Biscuits vs cookies for example. I understand that what I call a cookie here in the U.S. is a biscuit in the U.K. So even though the word is spelled the same it has a different meaning. Over here biscuits are something eaten with dinner while cookies are a treat eaten for a snack.
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Originally Posted by dworth
You do still get variations in the names of things in Britain. Take, for example, the humble breadcake. The sort of thing you might slice in half to make sandwich. These are variously known as breadcakes, teacakes, batches, cobs, oven bottoms, muffins and so on, in fact just about everywhere in the country has a different name for them, even neighbouring towns call them something different to one another. This can make it confusing in sandwich shops.
English in Britain has become more homogenised, due to faster communications and the mass media but differences do exist. Many from the rest of the country often complain that those from the area around London are poorer at understanding the other accents and dialects than everyone else and southerners often claim that they 'don't have an accent' (sorry 'Doanavan ack-sent' as it sounds to my ears when they say it.) This is largely due to the media being chiefly based there, so 'standard English' is seen as the one from the Home Counties.
That said, broad Glaswegian (Glasgow) and Geordie (Newcastle) have been known to baffle me at times, the latter being closer to Norse.
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