US - Broke - to be without money

UK - Brasic, another one is Skint (not sure of spelling)

Money slang in the UK:

quid - pounds(money)
100 pound note - a ton
500 pound note - a monkey

Not sure whether these have been done:

UK Garage
NA Gas Station

UK Cot
NA Crib

UK Toilet
NA Washroom

UK Flannel
NA Facecloth

This is the first time I dared to get on this thread. I must say it's getting rather arcane.
First, a comment: Someone, earlier on, contrasted "pavement" (OK) with "sidewalk" (US). Well, when I grew up in Philadelphia, we used "pavement" - mostly, but also "sidewalk." This may be a regional difference in NA, not an Atlantic one. What do you say, teaberry?
Here's one I don't think I've seen in scanning the entire thread:

UK: holiday (as to "go on holiday")
US: vacation (as to "go on vacation").

There are some other kinds of differences as well. In the US (and Canada?), we tend to use the articles "a" and "the" where Brits wouldn't.

Example: US: "He is in THE hospital."
UK: "He is in hospital."

Also, in NA English, collective nouns, such as "family" or "team" are treated as singular in more than just form. They also take singular verbs, as in, "My family IS going to the movies." In the UK (am I correct), such words take the plural form of the verb. Wouldn't you say, "My family ARE ...?"

quote:

.UK - Brasic, another one is Skint (not sure of spelling).

It's Cockney rhyming slang:

Borassic and lint = skint

UK: I don't mind
US: I don't care

UK: let a flat
US: rent an apartment

US: math
UK: maths

US: train station
UK: railway station

quote:

100 pound note - a ton
500 pound note - a monkey

If you come across either of those notes issued by the Bank of England you would be wise to refuse them. The highest is £50 although the Scottish banks go higher.

quote:

It's Cockney rhyming slang:

Borassic and lint = skint

Not quite: Boracic lint (a wound dressing treated with boracic acid - you can still get it I believe).

quote:

UK: I don't mind
US: I don't care

Are these really the same thing? In the UK, "I don't mind" could carry alternative meanings, depending in which sense you want to convey not being particularly bothered about something. It might mean "Carry on running across hot coals if you like, it's your funeral", but people often respond to an invitation with "I don't mind if I do" meaning "Yes please" - possibly with the sub-text "don't imagine this is going to be the highlight of my week, but I've nothing special to do", possibly a bit ironically: "I thought you'd never ask, but I'm not going to let you see just how desperate I was".

To a Brit "I don't care" means "Nothing to do with me/ I'm not interested/ Who cares?". It's a classic grumpy teenager line, which overlaps with the first meaning, but if a Brit said it in response to an invitation that would be a REAL brush-off.

quote:

Originally posted by paceaj:
Someone, earlier on, contrasted "pavement" (UK) with "sidewalk" (US). Well, when I grew up in Philadelphia, we used "pavement" - mostly, but also "sidewalk." This may be a regional difference in NA, not an Atlantic one. What do you say, teaberry?

I can honestly say that we say both pavement and sidewalk.

Terry

Thanks for the clarification, Patrick. I was thinking along the lines of making a not-terribly important choice - "Do you want to go out for Thai or for Chinese?" Under those circumstances, would they be interchangable? And my apologies for any inaccuracies!

Yes, as between choices, they're probably interchangeable, but (this may just be me) "I don't mind" sounds more likely to me than "I don't care" - which just sounds to me like a statement of existential angst!

I don't know whether this post violates the "none for 24 hours" rule or not, but I'll do it anyway.

I'm going to try to clarify the issue between KimC and PatrickLondon. I think there is a difference between the two expressions "I don't mind" and "I don't care" that would probably hold for most English-speaking populations. The exception would be "I don't care" used in the petulant or dismissive sense.

I think that "I don't care" would usually be used as a response when a choice is offered, i.e., "Do you want X or Y?"

"I don't mind" would seem to be used when a situation is of no particular concern, like when something doesn't bother someone. For example, a person might say, "I feel warm in this room, don't you?" The other person might respond, "I don't mind" (it, the heat, etc.)

Does this make sense?

Here's another one. When we went to Ireland many years ago, we visited a racetrack (of course! my husband loves racing, and we always try to make a visit in our travels). I believe they call it the same in Ireland as in England.

UK - turf accountant
US - bookmaker

Terry

That's an interesting one. It's true that a great number of the shops say "Turf Accountant" over the door, but I've never heard anyone call them that except to make a jokey comparison between accountants and turf accountants. Mostly people refer to them as bookies. Perhaps this is an example of where the Brits have adopted american slang, or is bookmaker perhaps British in origin?

Don't know but while I was looking it up on Wikipedia I found this. There's a link in the item to tic-tac which leads on to further examples of fascinating and arcane language.

The posts on money slang skipped over this basic translation:

UK: (bank) note
US: bill

In sports scores:

UK: nil
US: nothing

UK: spectacles
US: eyeglasses

beebee, they've always been called bookmakers or bookies in the UK, but until the 1960s, if you ran a book anywhere other than actually at the race meeting people were betting on, you were breaking the law. The courts were always full of people being fined a small sum for doing this. So when off-course betting became legal in betting shops, the big firms setting themselves up gave themselves a fancy name to shake off the old street-corner run-there's-a-cop image.

Incidentally, Macmillan, the Prime Minister under whose government they were legalised, once said people in Britain like their politicians to be bishops or bookies. No doubt about which one he was.

UK: the lead (for a dog)
US: the leash

and i cant believe no one said it yet:

UK: randy
US: horney

By the way an Italian fluent in English that was married to a British woman said to me during a conversation, "he got away with Blue murder" I corrected him as bloody murder but he said no blue murder. So what is the difference? No one can tell me so far.

Blue murder: here's your answer - http://www.bartleby.com/81/2107.html

A couple of minor ones:

US: Lookit
UK: Look

US: New Year's
UK: New Year

I don't recall seeing this one yet:

UK - bobbies
US - cops

Terry

UK he's stupid - an idiot
US he's dumb (or is this now not politically correct in case there are people about who cannot s