What trips you up when reading books from different English-speaking countries?

[maddz]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Or in books set in medieval times when a bundle of gathered sticks was called a faggot. Made me wonder how the name for a bundle of sticks got transferred over to gays.

Or how it also ended up being used for a type of meat byproduct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food)

I hasten to add that they didn't feature in the family cuisine when I was growing up. Black pudding was bad enough the one time my mother tried dishing it up.

[issybird]

Moderator Notice
Can we take it as read, please, that we all know the synonyms for pejorative terms for gays? And preemptively extend that to other marginalized groups as well? Thanks.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by maddz

Or how it also ended up being used for a type of meat byproduct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food)

I hasten to add that they didn't feature in the family cuisine when I was growing up. Black pudding was bad enough the one time my mother tried dishing it up.

Black pudding at least doesn't sound as weird (to me at least) as blood pudding. The British use of pudding is sometimes also strange to me; in the US a pudding is a sweet custard.

[JSWolf]

Try haggis is you think black pudding is odd. However, Scottish black pudding and haggis do taste good. English black pudding are too fatty according to my wife.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Almost non-existent as in extremely skimpy or unlikely to be found? And what would you have done if you found a thong in your mum's unmentionables?

As in skimpy. I don't think we used the word skimpy in 1960s.

Nothing. I was just curious. I also took apart alarm clocks.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by hobnail

The British use of pudding is sometimes also strange to me; in the US a pudding is a sweet custard.

As strange to me (and requiring effort to remember) is that "pie" in the US almost invariably refers to a sweet dessert, not a savory pastry.

[DiapDealer]

Unless it's a shepherd's pie, or a chicken or beef pot-pie. Whether sweet or savory, the word "pie" alone does not convey enough meaning for me to know if I want some or not. Regardless of my locale.

[Quoth]

Puddings are like pies in the sense that context tells you if a dessert/sweet or not.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Unless it's a shepherd's pie, or a chicken or beef pot-pie. Whether sweet or savory, the word "pie" alone does not convey enough meaning for me to know if I want some or not. Regardless of my locale.

Yes.
And a (singe serve) meat pie was not a 'pastie'

[ownedbycats]

Some more fun food confusion:

In Canada (and I think other Commonwealth countries), "Smarties" usually refer to Nestle Smarties, candy-coated lumps of chocolate (think M&Ms). But in the U.S., "Smarties" are dry fruity-tablet candies. In Canada, we call those "Rockets."

[Bembo]

I'm quite used to British-English terms by this point. What trips me up is translations from foreign language works. E.g., the prize-winning translation of 'The Discomfort of Evening' by M. L. Rijneveld was translated by a British translator, and consequently uses a lot of British-specific terms. The novel is set in a rural Dutch farming community, but at times it really felt like I was reading about a rural UK village instead -- it was quite jarring.