British Words Quiz #1

chips and fries are different things, aren't they? chips are the thick proper ones and fries are the really skinny american ones like you get in macdonalds

1. you spelt british wrong. 2. Cigarette, exit, lawyer and thanks originated from the UK. 3. Barristers are a type of lawyer.

copied this from JVIR

Funny how being British means we use some of both, if your parents say chips for dinner, you don't think twice, you go to get fish and chips from the fish and chip shop. However nobody goes to McDonalds and says Chips please, they ask for fries. We also say Bathroom (more than we say Loo, though I assume it depends where in the UK you come from) Lorry and truck are both used as much as each other and most don't really have one they always use. Whinge is more of a moan, complain can be used in the same place but not really. Some people say gas but nobody says gas station. We say Ta and Thanks a lot. Polite people say Drunk, not the other. Same with cigarette, no polite person says 'fag'. Some brands are cookies and some are biscuits, nobody says Digestive Cookie. We say pharmacy as well. And to be honest I think most people say Bumper Cars not Dodgems.

In conclusion, you Americans are all wrong! But I love you none the less!

In Britain fries and chips are two different things. Chips are proper bits (chips) of potato, deep fried to crispy wholesome loveliness, then smothered in vinegar and eaten with fish, or if you're feeling flush - steak. However fries are those horrible thin over salted things that you get in McDonalds, and always feel a little bit worse about yourself after you've eaten them.

Really need to accept Main St for Main Street

One word used in Britain, but never in U.S. - PLEASE.

kept thinking about flat as in, not raised... (funilly a flat is..)

pretty sure i did type baked potato but apparently wrote patato... which I often mistakenly do..

Somehow trolley made me type lorry, em sorry, otherway around. I thought it was a cart you could move like heavy stuff with..

Wait, Americans don't say full stop?

I could not get Jacket Potato.

In my experience a Jacket Potato is a whole potato that is baked in its skin i.e. its jacket. A Baked potato is a peeled potato cut into portions and then baked in a shallow pool of oil .

Which version is the American "baked potato" referring to?

Surely this should be called the "American words" quiz... I got all but "muffler". I've vaguely heard of it, I think, but didn't really know what it was...

I got 100%, not bad seeing as I'm neither British nor American :)

Lawyer is an umbrella term for both solicitors and barristers

First thing that comes to mind when you say pissed is angry, though.

I'm British and I say line, bathroom, complain, thanks, drunk, cigarette, exit, second floor, pharmacy and bumper cars.

I speak American but live in England lol

We British people don't often call a pharmacist a chemist. Also, most people I know say exit not just Americans.

I'm half British, so I basically had problems with the American words.

Almost everyone in the UK uses Bathroom instead of Loo

I'd swap out 'ta' for something like 'pram' because even our cousins across the pond aren't unanimous on 'ta' but a pram - no disputes on a term like that.

Maybe add tennis shoes and running shoes for sneakers?

Eh, so many of these are incorrect. Very few British people say 'pissed'. A biscuit is different from a cookie.

As an Australian, many of these are used both ways here. The exception was crosswalk which (thankfully) has not taken on here at all. Hood and bumper cars are very rare here, but probably have been spoken on American TV shows broadcast here and so I knew them even if I've never used them.

Got 14 of 27. nice quiz!

In Australia, we have plenty of cars (including a lot of our taxis) that run on "gas" but are using liquefied petroleum gas (LFG). How would an American describe this without mixing it up with gas(oline)?

We Americans don't even all agree on what to call a lorry, which I'm only assuming is the really large vehicle that pulls an enclosed trailer. Some of us say tractor-trailer, some say eighteen-wheeler, some say big rig, some say semi-truck (or semi for short), and a few (like me) say transfer truck. It really depends on which region you're from.

I use ta all the time and im in the south. I thought they meant pissed as in annoyed lol also, a barrister? I thought that was someone who works in a bar?

Thought Crosswalk was somewhat obvious

Who puts too "E's" at the end of "Z"?

As a Brit, I have to point out that most of these are interchangeable - that is, we use/understand both forms, with the exception of Zee, Crosswalk, Diaper, Period, Hood and Gas. I mean, let’s name a liquid after a completely different physical state!

As for chips and football, well, enough said…

I wonder how much of my mistakes were due to Canadianisms. Trainers wouldn't accept 'runners' or 'running shoes'. Is that a Canadian term?

In school the teachers told us we learn British English because it is more universally understood. Thanks to my love for NASCAR and country music I quickly adopted American English. I never heard almost half of the words in this quiz.

Some of the British words are used in the US, like queue.

16

The words translated into Australian:

Fries = chips (to distinguish you can say hot chips)

Chips = chips

Soccer = soccer

Line = queue/line

Flat = ? (normally in Australia a flat is a small house you rent but not an apartment per se)

Bathroom = bathroom/toilet/loo (depends; if you need to go to the toilet then toilet or loo but for other purposes bathroom)

Truck = ute (a truck in Australia is a truck is a big vehicle with a trailer)

Lawyer = barrister/lawyer (both used in different contexts)

Main Street = High Street/Main Street (depends on the city/town/suburb but often we have names for our main streets, e.g George Street in the Sydney CBD)

Complain = whinge/bitch/complain

Gas = petrol (in Australia gas is a state of matter)

Thanks = cheers/thanks/ta

Z = zed (you must pronounce this right or you will be seen as Americanised and stupid)

Drunk = drunk (pissed off/pissed means angry/annoyed)

Cigarette = cigarette/smoke (in Australia fag is short for faggot, a homophobic slur)

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