Language fun – English (UK vs US)

When you travel, even if the country you are in speaks another version of English, you may find that different words have the same meaning, and the same words have different meanings.

Here are a few examples

This one is one that is hard to watch out for as you won’t know what it means because there is little context in the statement. If you say someone is quite pretty in the US, it is taken as a compliment, but in the UK it means they are ok looking. Another is rock vs stone. In the US those mean basically the same thing. But in the UK, a stone is small and a rock is very large. So if you say you have a rock in your shoe as we would commonly say, it sounds odd to them

Thankfully, most confused words can be understood by their context, as can be seen below (although you will likely ask for a diaper at some restaurant just from habit).

UK to US

pants – underwear
trousers – pants (trousers is a rarely used word for nice pants)
jumper – sweater (the word jumper is used for many non-clothing things in the US)

dear – expensive (dear means someone close to you)
plaster – bandaid (plaster is something you put on walls)
biscuit – cookie (a biscuit is a type of bread roll)

pudding – dessert
custard – pudding

trainers – sneakers (a trainer is someone who trains you)
bonnet – hood of a car (a bonnet is a frilly woman’s hat worn in the 1700s and 1800s)

chips – fries
crisps – chips

post – mail

brolly – umbrella (we have no idea what a brolly is)
torch – flashlight (a torch is something that is on fire)

And here are two that can cause some odd looks from either side:
napkin – diaper (a napkin is what we use to wipe our hands with at a meal)
rubber – eraser (a rubber in the US is a condom)

So even when you travel somewhere you speak the language, you sort of don’t, lol.