Lost in Translation--US vs UK English words

[###KILTEDKIWI###]

U.K. - knocked up - calling on
U.S. - pregnant

Kiwi ism's (not hijacking, promise)

"Knock off time" - to finish work. (not a gang hit)(for the above quote)

"Kick her in the guts" - press the start button.

"She'll be right mate" - quite possibly, this may or may not be the single greatest disaster produced by man kind.

"What could possibly go wrong?" - certain calamity and imminent death.

"Bugger" - it appears my arm has fallen off.

"Chur" - bstardised version of "Cheers", can be positive or negative depending on the situation.

"just up the road, or just around the corner" - between 100 mtrs and 160 Km's away.

"A 2 and a 4" - 24 pack of beers

heres a 3rd one for you we use
pissed off as in "bobs pissed off home before his shift was done"

Back to the topic UK - US

We use all three also,

Pssed / pssed as - drunk
pssed off - angry
To pss off, or pss off home - to leave.

oh and the ever famous

"he got the living pss kicked out of him" (copped a hiding in a scrap)
"Are you pulling the pss?" (are you having a laugh at my expense)

and that leads to...

"He pulls pss for a living" - his chosen occupation is a bartender or publican
"lets go and get us some pss" - shall we have a quiet drink? (1 -24 beers)
"lets get on the pss" (we shall not be able to feel our faces due to the volume of alcoholic units consumed)
"that scared the pss out of me" - (gave me a fright)

[Rob]

US: I could care less.
UK: I couldn't care less.

I think the UK version is gramatically more correct for the implied meaning.

[KiltedCapt]

US: I could care less.
UK: I couldn't care less.

I think the UK version is gramatically more correct for the implied meaning.

Not really a "UK" or "US" thing as I've heard both nations say it both ways...

The grammatically correct way is of course "I couldn't care less"

One I always have to "think" about since moving to the states is "eraser" when I really just want to ask for a rubber.

Used to really crack my wife up...

[Rob]

Not really a "UK" or "US" thing as I've heard both nations say it both ways...

The grammatically correct way is of course "I couldn't care less"

I must admit I have never heard anyone in the UK say: "I could care less", but I have heard it many times in the US and I have seen it written by Americans in forums such as this one.

[ccga3359]

Sideburns vs sideboards.

[KiltedCapt]

I must admit I have never heard anyone in the UK say: "I could care less", but I have heard it many times in the US and I have seen it written by Americans in forums such as this one.

When I was in the RAF and stationed all over, I heard many a fellow Brit say "I could care less" and it used to drive me nuts! Thankfully my beautiful American wife says "I couldn't care less"

Aye, she's a good lass!

[fluter]

US: I could care less.
UK: I couldn't care less.

I think the UK version is gramatically more correct for the implied meaning.

You are correct, except (oh dear, I'm indulging in pedantry) it's not grammar, I guess it must be syntax.

The cited US usage only seems to have evolved in the last 35 years or so. I always want to ask, "How much less could you care? "

[O'Callaghan]

Kiwi ism's (not hijacking, promise)

"Knock off time" - to finish work. (not a gang hit)(for the above quote)

"Kick her in the guts" - press the start button.

"She'll be right mate" - quite possibly, this may or may not be the single greatest disaster produced by man kind.

"What could possibly go wrong?" - certain calamity and imminent death.

"Bugger" - it appears my arm has fallen off.

"Chur" - bstardised version of "Cheers", can be positive or negative depending on the situation.

"just up the road, or just around the corner" - between 100 mtrs and 160 Km's away.

"A 2 and a 4" - 24 pack of beers



Back to the topic UK - US

We use all three also,

Pssed / pssed as - drunk
pssed off - angry
To pss off, or pss off home - to leave.

oh and the ever famous

"he got the living pss kicked out of him" (copped a hiding in a scrap)
"Are you pulling the pss?" (are you having a laugh at my expense)

and that leads to...

"He pulls pss for a living" - his chosen occupation is a bartender or publican
"lets go and get us some pss" - shall we have a quiet drink? (1 -24 beers)
"lets get on the pss" (we shall not be able to feel our faces due to the volume of alcoholic units consumed)
"that scared the pss out of me" - (gave me a fright)

That's a much more complete list. In general, though, if you want to tell someone to go away and wish to be offensive, you could tell them to p*ss off, b*gg*r off, f*ck off, s*d off, and probably other swear words followed by 'off' that don't come to mind right now. (Just thought of another one - bog off was originally coined by the TV series The Dustbinmen to use instead of a 'real' swear word, and ultimately became real in it's own right). That's looking at it from the perspective of the British Isles, and I'm not sure how many of them would find common usage in the US, but certainly not all of them.

I think all of them would get used in Ireland (both sides of the border), although the Irish often bowlderise the F word as feck, whereas the English equivalent (in as much as there is one) is fudge. Feck sounds a lot more forceful, though.

It's funny how any discussion of language differences drifts onto the subject of cussing sooner or later.

[O'Callaghan]

Dragging the thread back out of the gutter, there are a lot of regional variations within countries that complicate this issue. For example, in the British Isles a single storey house is called a bungalow (a word borrowed from India), and in various different parts of the US it is called a ranch, a rambler (in the South) or in fact a bungalow (in California), but some California bungalows have an upstairs ...

[WClarkB]

USA: "I'll come come by and see if you are ready to go in the morning"
UK: "I come 'round and knock you up in the morning"