Telling time in U. K. English

[Bilbo1967]

From the BBC website; 50 least favourite Americanisms.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cmargm

Just to add another dimension to the deep fried conversation - at the Calgary Stampede this year they had Deep Fried Snicker's bars and Deep Fried Pop tarts. Every year they try to do something different. When I visited Stonehaven in Scotland one year, they had a sign outside a shop window that said that they were the "Home of the deep fried Mar's bar".

Complete with misplaced apostrophe?

[SeaBookGuy]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

From the BBC website; 50 least favourite Americanisms.

Some of them I dislike myself, others seem like general Anti-American gripes ("How DARE they use a different word/term!").

[wodin]

Mine is when someone prononces controversy as "kuhn-trov-er-see" instead of "kon-truh-vur-see".

And then, of course there is the old "guh-rahzh" vs. "gar-ij" kuhn-trov-er-see.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

From the BBC website; 50 least favourite Americanisms.

That was a good list. I have to agree that some of those Americanisms annoy me too! I also think some of them likely are regional expressions rather than typical of all Americans. I found it interesting that several of the items on the list like "to deplane" and "to medal" are similar to someone's comment about "gifting" earlier. I had never noticed our tendency to turn nouns into verbs before.

Linking #29 on the list back to the date/time discussion, yesterday I was told that meetings would be scheduled "fortnightly and antiphase". An American would say we plan to schedule alternating, biweekly meetings. It actually surprises me how many Americans don't know the word "fortnight". For some reason when I hear fortnight it reminds me of reading Shakespeare in high school.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by wodin

Mine is when someone prononces controversy as "kuhn-trov-er-see" instead of "kon-truh-vur-see".

Can't say as I've ever encountered that one. AFAIK, the second is the standard American pronunciation.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Linking #29 on the list back to the date/time discussion, yesterday I was told that meetings would be scheduled "fortnightly and antiphase". An American would say we plan to schedule alternating, biweekly meetings. It actually surprises me how many Americans don't know the word "fortnight". For some reason when I hear fortnight it reminds me of reading Shakespeare in high school.

Is "fortnight" still in common use in the UK? I was under the impression it was archaic, not a cultural signifier.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by taosaur

Is "fortnight" still in common use in the UK? I was under the impression it was archaic, not a cultural signifier.

Fortnight is in common use in the UK. It's really a very useful word. Fornightly is much better than the ambiguous biweekly and bimonthly.

And it means one can use that essential unit of speed, furlongs per fortnight.

[rogue_librarian]

Yeah, because 1 centimetre per minute is really much too complicated a way of putting it, isn't it? All those SI units ...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Yeah, because 1 centimetre per minute is really much too complicated a way of putting it, isn't it? All those SI units ...

1.6630952381 x 10^-4 m/s, please. Centimetres and minutes aren't base SI units.

[DMB]

Some time back in the 1970s I was giving a training course to some Americans and I used the word "fortnight". They assumed it was an obscure technical term.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by taosaur

Can't say as I've ever encountered that one. AFAIK, the second is the standard American pronunciation.
Is "fortnight" still in common use in the UK? I was under the impression it was archaic, not a cultural signifier.

Sure. I hear it used quite often by people of both older and younger generations. I don't hear antiphase that often. I suppose that's similar to the use of anticlockwise versus counterclockwise as we would say.

[issybird]

On another UK v. US front, I recently was fascinated to read an account by an American who just got her British driver's license. Apparently, driving on the wrong* side of the road was the least of it; she had to unlearn all her American habits. For example, when we turn the steering wheel, we cross hand over hand, and then let the wheel slide back on its own to straighten out. Verboten in Britain, apparently. Who knew?

*

[DMB]

Originally Posted by issybird

On another UK v. US front, I recently was fascinated to read an account by an American who just got her British driver's license. Apparently, driving on the wrong* side of the road was the least of it; she had to unlearn all her American habits. For example, when we turn the steering wheel, we cross hand over hand, and then let the wheel slide back on its own to straighten out. Verboten in Britain, apparently. Who knew?

*

I remember being taught that when I was young and preparing for my test. It was explained that one retained better control over the steering wheel by feeding it from one hand to another than by crossing the hands.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by taosaur

Is "fortnight" still in common use in the UK? I was under the impression it was archaic, not a cultural signifier.

Definitely not archaic - it's a normal word that's in common use. The corresponding word "sennight", however, is archaic and never used in current English.

[Bookworm_Girl]

One of my colleagues here in the US (who is English) failed his American test the first time because of differences in how we drive. He said one of the main reasons he failed is that we respond differently to yield (give way) signs.