Why can鈥檛 the English ... speak as we do?
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When he was in college in the United States, my English father-in-law told a woman he鈥檇 met: 鈥淚鈥檒l knock you up sometime.鈥 She slapped him. In British English, to knock someone up means to call on someone, particularly to wake a person by knocking at the door. (In the Victorian era, a听办苍辞肠办别谤-耻辫 was a living alarm clock, going door to door to rouse people so they made it to work on time). In American English, of course, it means to get a woman pregnant. He thought he was proposing a date; she imagined a lot more than that. This is perhaps my favorite proof that Britain and the US are 鈥渢wo countries separated by a common language.鈥
Usually the vocabulary differences are less fraught, though they may still lead to confusion. An apartment in America is a flat in Britain. Eggplant and cilantro are aubergine and coriander respectively. Cars have bonnets and听产辞辞迟蝉 in the United Kingdom, not hoods and trunks. People wear jumpers there when we鈥檇 put on a sweater. A mean American is cruel; in Britain, a mean person is stingy. These differences can often be worked out from context, and are unlikely to offend.
Some, however, like knock you up, have the potential to embarrass. Having been married to a British person for many years now, I鈥檇 like to share my own list.
The No. 1 problem word is pants. I鈥檝e often found myself saying to various people 鈥淥h, I鈥檝e spilled something on my pants!鈥 or 鈥淲here did you get your pants?鈥 In the US, this works fine, since pants means 鈥渢rousers.鈥 In the UK, though, pants refers to underwear, and 鈥淚 like your pants!鈥 is a compliment that just makes people uncomfortable.聽
Another word that can cause trouble is toilet. Americans ask 鈥淲here is the bathroom?鈥 thinking it is not polite to inquire about the 鈥渢oilet.鈥 Though we use the word to refer to the thing itself, we otherwise prefer the euphemism, even when, as countless British people have pointed out, there is no bathtub anywhere near the room. For many people in the UK, however, 鈥淲here is the toilet?鈥 is perfectly proper. The word carries some class baggage, though, as many words do in Britain. Using it generally marks a speaker as middle class, while upper-class speakers prefer loo.
In my children鈥檚 eyes, the worst offender is biscuit. We know a biscuit as a kind of savory roll generally leavened with baking powder or soda. In Britain, biscuits are cookies. My children declined 鈥渂iscuits鈥 for years when kind people offered, thinking they were about to get a dinner roll instead of a delicious piece of shortbread. They no longer make this mistake.
I think this is all quite interesting. In America, that鈥檚 a pretty enthusiastic endorsement. In Britain, it鈥檚 not.