US vs UK English

Nothing to do with this thread really but a long... long time ago I bought a (Japanese) paper shirt fromBiba Clothing, Fashion and Boutiqueand it Rocked!
If you were shopping in London in the late 60's and early 70's Biba was one of the hippest in town.

If you want to catch the wave that is going to change your life you have to swim outside of your comfort zone.

Please Read The Rules!

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^^ I have this vision of you hangin round with Talitha Getty and ppl like that (minus the drugs). :P

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What exactly is a yard?

As my Grandfather used to say, "If you are going to have a woman, why not have a beautiful one who wants to fuck you."

A unit of measure, 36 inches, almost a meter.

OR

The area outside your house. What's called a "Garden" in the UK.

I'm out of my mind, please leave me a message....

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In financial services/accounting usage we usually say forty five spot seven three, for clarity.

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Except on the railway - where it is always a yellow light.

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Interesting that, in this whole thread, no-one has picked up on the Stateside use of 'gotten', rather than the UK 'got'.

This is always an interesting one because the archaic English is actually 'gotten' and it's an example of where UK English has evolved, whilst US English has retained the archaic form - rather than, as usually happens, the other way round.

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Depends where you are from in the UK and/or how much space you have behind your house. My grandparents (from the English Midlands) and all their relatives, always referred to the space at the back of the house as the back yard.

Mind you, they called 3 feet a yard too.

Did you know that a yard is also the average length of a penis in the UK ?

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Damn - I kept thinking of this one and then forgetting befoire I had a chance to post it. Has anyone yet mentoined "period" = "full stop"?

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[QUOTE=LaFemme;4107537]Re cheque

In Canada we 'check' our review mirrors and we use 'check' marks - a cheque is entirely different.

QUOTE]

"check mark" = "tick"

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"Trunk" = "Boot"

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IIRC the origin of the Imperial yard measurement was the distance between the tip of the fingers and the shoulder (hence the naval term yard-arm).

When Americans refer to a garden as a yard.To do so over here would be the ULTIMTE no no!!

And then there's the number/hash symbol – #– widely used in the USA but little used in the UK:

"Moving on to #6..." would usually be written "Moving on to no 6..." or Moving on to no. 6..." in the UK.

Sticking with numbers, there's the use of "zero", which is usually replaced in speech in the UK by "O" – e.g. in telephone numbers – "four five seven zero" would usually be "four five seven O" in the UK; only when there could be genuine confusion (e.g. in a booking reference number that contains both letters and numbers) would British people be moved to say "zero".

And speaking of telephone numbers, people in the US carry "cell phones", people in the UK carry "mobile phones".

And "period" (US) versus "full stop" (UK). And when it comes to abbreviations, US writers pepper their writing with periods much more generously than British writers pepper theirs with full stops – for example, "Mr. Smith", "Mrs. Jones", "Western Ave." in the US would be likely to be written as "Mr Smith", "Mrs Jones", Western Ave" in the UK.

And why will a US politician "run" for election whereas a British one will "stand" for election?

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It's changing though. A lot let use of fUK ull stops after abbreviations these days......

"Call Collect" = "Reverse the Charges" (although not used much in these days of mobile phones).