The thread to end all word confusion

[superboots]

I found this website.
it is very interesting

http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html

and it ends this discussion:
US UK
jelly No equivalent Spread for toast or bread not incorporating preserved fruit only fruit juice. See discussion under "preserves".

Jell-o jelly US term is proprietary. A wobbly edible gelatine based substance often flavoured with fruit and used as a dessert. In British usage it is often served with ice cream and is a children's favourite.

[superboots]

I LOVE this website!!!

M & M Smarties Both terms are proprietary and refer to small sweets with hard coloured sugary coatings. Both words are also sometimes used to mean any small item. Smarties have hard chocolate centres are shaped vaguely like flying saucers. A correspondent tells me there is a US sweet called Smarties that do not have chocolate centres.

pressure pressurise To try and force somebody to do something.
-how can you pressurise somebody?

private school public school You have to pay to go there. In BE "private school" means pretty much the same thing as "public school".
-ummm...private and public are antonyms. :shrugs:

public school state school You don't have to pay to go there. The state, in the guise of local authorities, pay. OK, you ultimately pay via taxes
-well, then I guess that makes sense.

[Blister]

Hahahaha.

OK, I never knew Jam was Jelly in America. Do you have Jam then? Like...your jelly WITH seeds?

I still don't understand Jell-o though. Is ALL...gelatine dessert called Jello, or is Jello a brand name that people have just adapted to other gelatine desserts?

We can pressurise people - making them do something they don't want to. Last night I was PRESSURISED into going to a club. We didn't get in though

And I've never understood the public/private school thing. They mean the same thing, but public and private mean completely opposite. It makes no sense, damnit.

We have smarties AND M&Ms. I'm not sure which is better. M&Ms are plain chocolate BUT smarties have orange flavoured ones. Hmmm.

This is actually quite interesting. But then, I'm a bit of a freak, really.

[superboots]

Jello is really the only gelatin dessert brand, unless you buy the store brand.
Jam and Jelly are basically the same thing here.
lol, i find this stuff interesting too.

[Blister]

donut / doughnut - "donut" is informal and is quite commonly used in BE to suggest that the bun is of a typical American character

Yes...thats immediately what I think when I see "donut"....

alligator pear / avocado

WOW. Alligator pear!


Looking at some of these, I actually use both. Like: baked/jacket potatoes. Some of them just mean different things to each other. Like: biscuit/scones.

I've just noticed that the person that wrote this is from Wolverhampton. Wow. It's a small world (Y). (Wolverhampton is like *points* over there. I support their football (SOCCER) team ).

This site is great.

[Blister]

Jello is really the only gelatin dessert brand, unless you buy the store brand.
Jam and Jelly are basically the same thing here.
lol, i find this stuff interesting too.

Ahhh. So if you buy the store brand...what does it have on the packet? "Raspberry flavour gelatin dessert"? Ewwww, lol.

[Blister]

cow pie / cow pat - Something you don't want to put your foot in.

[Soozy]

I like this thread I like words far too much!

Anyway, enough of me letting you all know how sad I am.

The one I can't quite get to grips with is pudding. To us pudding = dessert of any kind. But isn't it some wierd specific kind of dessert in the US? I can't see it on that website though.

And I've seriously never ever heard alligator pear instead of avacado in spite of there being far to much US tv over here!

[Soozy]

burglarize burgle ??????????

surely to burglarize is to make someone into a burglar?

[buzhwa]

Jam and Jelly are basically the same thing here.

The way I learned it, jam has seeds and jelly doesn't.

[Blister]

Haha. It does sound like that actually!

Maybe that's what happens to all the townies (scallies, whatever) - they get burglarized?

I kind of see how it works though. It just seems a bit....weird. *shrugs*

[Soozy]

goatsucker nightjar bird

um ... goatsucker sounds more like an insult than a bird - I wonder where that came from?

[I AM ME]

pudding is a creamy almost liquid dessert, comes in all the same flavors as ice cream, uh hmmm does anyone have a picture? anyways it's pretty common around here

[Blister]

Hmm. Angel Delight, perhaps?

DAMNIT. Nowhere has pictures. What is the world coming to?

[sandsleeper]

[I AM ME]

that's it

[Odin]

How come the site doesn't have a column specifying what Canadians use.

[christa lynn]

zee US / zed : last letter of the alphabet. Canadians call it "zed".

It does mention Canadian usage sometimes, though another column would be nice.

[happening fish]

I think this thread might be having the opposite of its intended effect

[christa lynn]

(American) Revolutionary War / American War of Independence : Spot of unpleasantness in the late 18th century.