8 Words Americans Surprisingly Don't Use - Part 2
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- Last month I began a series looking at English words I was surprised to discover Americans don't use very often. Here's part 2.
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The reason why we don't call Corn Starch Cornflower is because it's not made by simply grinding corn (as you would with wheat). It really is starch that is extracted from ground, cooked corn and made into a powder. Corn flower (in the traditional sense) is called Masa, which is whole corn that has been ground to the consistency of wheat flour.
A corn flower is a type of blue flower so called because it thrives in the same conditions as maize and therefore - before the widespread use of herbicides - was commonly seen in corn fields.
Masa is one variety of flour made from corn and used in Mexican cuisine.
Corn flour is flour made from maize. We do have it in the U.S., but it isn't in common use. It is more finely ground than corn meal.
Corn starch is in more common use.
Corn meal is used to make corn bread.
Actual corn flour is called cornmeal here.
corn meal and corn flour are two different things.
It's all in the consistancy. If you keep grinding corn meal, it would become corn flour.
@@jkelley14701 this is the answer.
I am curious what that call flour made from corn in the UK if they call cornstarch cornflour.
Okay, a piece of cake: Easy peasy, Easy as ABC, easy as pie, a cakewalk, a walk in the park, child's play, like stealing candy from a baby, like falling off a log, like shooting fish in a barrel, a breeze, a cinch, a snap, no sweat, and when it is an easy decision it would be a no-brainer. It's not rocket science. I could do it with my eyes shut (or my hands behind my back) There's nothing to it. Oh, and Simple Simon.
It's not rocket surgery.
A lesser-used variation on "It's not rocket science" exists in the form of "It's not brain surgery." However my favorite is when people mix the two together, giving us "It's not rocket surgery."
@@kaikaichen I like to play it the other way "it's not brain science", though that actually is a real thing.
if your a fan of baseball: "can of corn"
I do believe you covered everything. (except walkover) Well done!
As an American, I've used the word dawdle all my life - meaning to be slow about something. Almost exclusively I have used and heard it used after the word "don't".
I use the word dawdle all the time. I walk dogs for a living and will often leave in my notes that so and so was dawdling today (sometimes interchanged with "pokey"). I once said it to my sister when talking about my own dog and she thought it was funny since I guess only old people use it. 🤷♀
My aunt used to always accuse me of dawdling on my way home from school. (She was not wrong).
And a lot of people both sides of the pond may be unaware that "doddle" and "dawdle" are homonyms in most of America, but not in most of Britain. The old cot/caught merger strikes again
And that's why it means an easy activity. It was so easy that one is able to casually saunter through it. A difficult activity would be akin to a stressful motion.
Well I don't believe he means dawdle.
My 10th grade English teacher marked me down by 5 points on an essay because I'd used "amongst" and she claimed it was not a word. I showed her the dictionary entry which said "archaic" and was told that was enough to make the grade stand. I was extremely upset and remain so 24 years later. XD
Philistine
Grew up in Sacramento in the 70s and 80s, and "amongst" was definitely a required word. You could either choose between (which is extremely clearly binary) two, or choose amongst three. That's still how American English works. I had classmates who got marked down for not using "amongst" for groups greater than two. I'm curious what your clearly unqualified English teacher considered acceptable use for >2?
This is the first I've ever heard of "amongst" being an outdated word, as I know of no other word to replace it. If anything, using "amongst" instead of "between" would be more appropriate to make the language easier.
That’s a way to take the wind out of someone’s sails.
Yeah, my 10th grade English teacher also liked to mark words wrong any time I used a perfectly good word that she didn't like. It's that sort of attitude is why you never hear of English teachers becoming famous authors. Of course my attitude is why I was seldom on the dean's list, but you know - since I've graduated not one person has asked me whether I was on the dean's list - whereas several college professors have asked if I didn't have a Ph.D.
Archaic and rare words are nothing to be jerran of. Used judiciously they give language a little spice.
I’ve said “amongst ourselves” many times. And my iPhone even auto completes to that so your teacher was wrong.
In the US we do use the term cornflower, though. It's a flower. It's blue and some people call it bachelor's button. There's even a Crayola crayon color for cornflower.
I giggle every time I hear “Bob’s your uncle”. I was watching tv with my niece and someone said it on tv and my niece looked really confused and ask me how they knew we were watching. Cracks my up to this day.
I enjoy the phrase. My dad's younger brother's name is Bob, and my dad's younger sister married a guy named Bob. So I could say to an English person, "Yes, Bobs are my uncles." 😉
Bob actually was my dad. Yes, I was named after him.
Ride that 'dad joke' (or uncle joke, as the case may be) as long as you can! Classic!
I prefer the long form of "Robert's your fathers' brother"
Never heard it till I got to Canada, still find it weird.
I was really confused by the corn flour one because I live in Utah, and there's a lot of Hispanic people, so corn flour is very common, but I don't think corn flour and corn starch are quite the same thing.
They aren't.
Corn flour is a finer grind than corn meal.
And then there is cornmeal for making cornbread with and keeping pizza from sticking to the baking surface
They are.
Corn meal is the most coarse, then corn flour and corn starch is the finest.
I think "amongst" is still pretty common in the South. But I seem to mostly encounter it when dealing with groups of people. "Lost amongst the crowd", "amongst my friends", etc. When speaking of inanimate objects it is often replaced with "among".
alright this makes sense, when i heard him bring amongst up i thought nah we definitely use that, as a southner however i could agree with your theory lol
I’m from Ohio, but I use “amongst” occasionally. To be fair, I do have family in the south.
I cannot think of any examples at the moment because it happens to be 4:00 a.m. (don't ask) and I need to get back to bed but from a British family living in the states for a third of my life I have noticed that there are more similarities between the south, specifically the southeast of the US and England ... or at least the south of England.. amongst is one of those.
If I think of any before dawn I'll jot them down and add them, or a quick addendum..
But even cultural habits in dining, and dancing, chaperones, I didn't stick out amongst my southern friends but northern friends would query.. okay query is not one of those words but I still use it more often than question it!
I lived in the Southeast for most of my life and heard amongst a lot. Like “we divided the money amongst ourselves.” I wouldn’t say among ourselves.
@@IntriguedLioness I’m American and I knew what query means. Not super common in every day language but not unheard of in the USA. And I usually hear it used in professional settings and used more as a noun rather than a verb.
To an American (North, Meso and South), "corn flour" denotes a coarse yellow flour made by grinding corn (a variety of New World maize; not Old World wheat), as to make tortillas or tacos.
That’s cornmeal, isn’t it?
@@WyattRyeSway that's what I know it as.
Masa.
@@WyattRyeSway Yes, but it's also corn flour in the Southern US sometimes and it's more like flour than cornmeal, especially when it's blue, although when it's blue, it looks grayish blue.
I’ve literally never heard someone call cornmeal “corn flour”.
On the other hand, I have always heard "doddle" used in the US meaning "lag behind" or "taking too much time", primarily towards children... as in "Don't doddle" to a toddler who is getting distracted and not keeping up.
(Edit: Someone else actually pointed out it's spelled "dawdle" in this context... but it is a homophone)
I would pronounce these two words differently, the "daw" in "dawdle" rhymes with "awe". But I think we're talking about regional pronunciation here.
Dawdle is to walk slow, aimless. That's why an easy activity is a dawdle: one is able to casually wander to competition.
Spelled "Dawdle"
I've used and heard of dawdle like the OP mentioned as lagging or to me, wasting time. The oddest word ive ever heard with the same meaning is Pussyfooting.
He's saying "doddle" meaning something easy, not "dawdle" meaning to lag behind or take your time.
I'm Irish, married to an American lady. When we lived in Ireland 🇮🇪, she sent me to TESCO for poppy seeds.
I thought it was odd that we were gonna grow potatoes. Needless to say I came home empty handed. The TESCO worker had no idea what she wanted.
Now that I think of it.....I'm still clueless.
Thanks for the great videos.
So long, cheerio for now.
What? Don't you have seeds from the poppy flowers [papaver somniferum] ? They're used in Hungarian cakes and strudel,.... very tasty.
Don't eat 3 pieces of poppy seed cake and then have a drug test, you may show as positive, even though opioid level would be low.
@@mer8795 yes! So good in or on many baked goodies.
@@mer8795 Lemon poppy seed muffins were all the rage in 90s. I was addicted to them. 😊
Poppy seeds are used in cakes. There’s a wonderful cake Germans make, Mohnkuchen. Poppyseed cake. Yum!
@@mer8795 I learned that fact from "Seinfeld " ( the one where Elaine eats a poppy seed muffin & fails a drug test for a new job)
*walks around Chicago* I didn’t hear anyone say gobbledygook or wingardium leviosa once 🤔 🇬🇧
I know only gobbledygook here in Ohio.
@@sharene411 Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has a weekly podcast called "Science without the Gobbledygook". But then, she's German (but married to an American).
I’m from Texas, I’ve always said both among and amongst. Like “amongst the crowd” but also “among us” you know?
Precisely!
Same in Wa
Same in the Bama. Use a lot of these words.
Sus
Not form Texas, but I have used both interchangeably.
I'm from the southeast US, and I have heard "corn flour" (occasionally used the term myself) used to refer to "corn meal" which is not the same as corn starch. Corn starch is a thickener; corn meal is used to make cornbread.
technically, both are used in cornbread, but yes, corn meal is the main ingredient.
@@patrickrano8797 I have never seen cornstarch as an ingredient in corn bread, not that I've read tons of different recipes for it ( but a few), also I'm in Wisconsin. Corn flour technically is more of a finer, normal flour grind than the coarser corn meal. Our local natural foods store carries both. Usually, corn bread recipes call for wheat flour and cornmeal. Other ingredients are a buttermilk ( or milk &/or one can add 1 tbl. vinegar and let sit for a min.) , baking powder, salt, sugar and an oil or butter.
Lawrence,
You might want to check out the SNL skit "Coffee Talk". When the host gets verklempt, she says " talk amongst yourselves".
Yiddish is also a big part of our everyday language in the US . Oi vey !
yes, your cornflour is our cornstarch, however we have corn flour that is called Masa Harina by our southern neighbors and is used for making tortillas so it depends on what part of our huge country you are in. It wasn't unusual for the wave to be done in the US in a highs school or university sporting event in the 1970s, it just hadn't reached its apex yet. and yes, I am old enough to have practical experience with that. I hope you feel better soon.
Yes, and it's called corn meal when it's a coarser grind, and corn flour is ground to a fineness like a typical wheat, rye etc. flour. Our local natural health food store has both in their bulk bins, otherwise it's fairly rare to see corn flour in my part of WI, or used to be before as many Mexican foods were "on offer" as the English say ( I watch Escape to the Country on YT a lot :) ). The typical corn bread/corn muffins recipe uses some wheat flour and then corn meal, but I have one that calls for corn flour, for a smoother textured result.
I'm from Montana and we use the word amongst, especially in the phrase "Talk amongst yourselves." We also say "Bob's your uncle" all the time. (And for the record, I do have an Uncle Bob, but I've always known that was unrelated.)
Also Montana and can attest to amongst, but Great Falls area "Bob's your uncle" not so much in my experience. Though I find a number of words that I find common Firefox throws a fit over because they are obscure or archaic.
Aha, more Montanans. Born and raised there lol
Corn starch is less likely to be confused with "cornflower" (Centaurea cyanus), a type of flower (ironically native to Europe and not America), and a very descriptive shade of blue.
"The Wave" was invented by "Krazy George" Henderson on Oct. 15, 1981 at the Oakland A's and New York Yankees, ALCS playoff game 3. Naturally, we don't wrongly give Mexico credit for an American idea. Do Brits ever use the term "Mexican standoff", a situation where neither sided has an advantage?
*i prefer Snake Plissken's interpretation as seen in the Escape from L.A. Bangkok rules scene...such a classic*
Baseball rubbish from the 70s/80s as the origin of common gestures is implausible (see also high five), however true it might turn out to be.
Yes, we use the term Mexican standoff in the same sense.
@@gurrrn1102 He actually first did it at a hockey game, NHL, in the 70s before he was able to get it filmed in October 1981 at a baseball game. It was done again a few weeks later at a University of Washington football game (American football) where it became a staple for cheering for the rest of the season, thus becoming a sports staple in American culture. Any sports movies from the 80s and on features a wave happening in the audience. Usually at a baseball or football (American football) games. Even When Harry Met Sally features a wave several times. That was 1989, and not even a sports movie. That's how much of a staple it was in American culture.
The first time it was seen internationally, was in Pasadena, California, in the 1984 Olympics. Solidifying it was always an American thing. However, most of Europe cares more about Fifa than other sports, so only picked up on it after it had already swept the Americas as a cheer, and was used in 1986 Fifa finals, in Mexico City.
3:46 the word *Doddle* is used, though it is spelled *Dawdle* but said the same way it is used here in Wisconsin. Though it is used more as a synonym for procrastination.
Isn’t that dawdling, not doddling?
@@shorelifeliving4858 You are right, said the same way but spelled differently I'll edit it to reflect that.
@@RKNGL easy to confuse one with the other, especially as they’re words you’d more normally say out loud rather than write/type
As an American, I've totally used the word "amongst" a few times. In America, "among" vs "amongst" is very weird, but it's mostly a word tense thing. It depends on how you use the word that determines when you use "among" or "amongst", but generally speaking "among" is present tense and "amongst" is past tense. E.g.: "Today I am among friends", "Yesterday I was amongst friends". There's a lot of words like this in America, we''ll use them it just depends on when and where.
I think "amongst" might have arisen by combining the words "among" and "amidst", which both mean the same thing as "amongst".
I have never once heard this distinction made in my life, and I'm kinda old, and have rarely ventured outside the US
I use the world "whilst" a lot.
Hmm, I've never thought of amongst in terms of word tense. I do use it, but it seems to be more often at the beginning of the sentence, ( e.g. Well, amongst other things. .), and only for giving greater emphasis to the words that follow.
I’m sorry but “get among it” just isn’t the same.
Not sure if you've done it in another video, but if you do American words not used in the UK you should add "gotten". When I was in the UK several people were amused by my use of the word. A friend over there who is a linguist told me that it was a a proper English word but one that hasn't been used in the UK in a long time. I guess Americans took it over with them early one and kept using it while it fell out of British use.
I stopped using the word gotten when I moved to Wisconsin and people didn't understand it. I had a few people tell me it wasn't a real word
My US elementary school teacher actually marked “gotten” wrong when I used it because she said it “wasn’t a good word.”
Like soccer, another British word that is rarely used.
I’m a US native. I’m quite fond of “amongst,” and use it regularly. 🤓
Same. Didn't realize that one was falling out of fashion.
Amongst is still used in the southern states along with reckon.
I'm from the Midwest, Missouri specifically if that makes a difference, but I think Bob's your uncle is probably more of a generational thing. I used to hear it commonly when I was a kiddo but not so much anymore.
Bobs your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt. Still hear it my market town .
This is weird. Not only did I watch this episode today for the first time, I also made cornbread for the first time. And instead of using cornmeal, I bought Bob's Red Mill corn flour to use in it's place. Of course, corn flour is just a finer type of ground corn than cornmeal... at least on this side of the pond. But I do use cornstarch to thicken sauces etc...
Caster sugar confused me when I started baking UK recipes. I had to Google it. Lol
I’ve learned a lot of British cooking terms watching Great British Bake Off.
@@jenniferlawrence1372 yes! I have seen every episode of every season. Love that show. I've learned a lot about baking bread and my boys are very happy about it ❤
I enjoy how you carefully RETURNED the pretend cheerio after it made you sad. 😂
We do say cornflower in referencing the color "cornflower blue".
It's also a flower plant.
For reference I’m from the US but of Mexican descent from both parents. You are correct that here we simply say “the wave” and in Mexico it’s also simply known as “la ola” (Spanish for the wave). From my experience (unless they are very young) Mexicans are usually aware that the rest of the world calls it the Mexican wave because of the exposure during the World Cup transmissions. On the other hand Americans don’t have that connection between the two and I’ve actually heard someone instinctually grimace at the term because they assumed it to be mildly racist in some way. It’s obviously not so either “Mexican wave” or just “the wave” is perfectly fine.
Well, it’s confusing to Americans because it was invented in America. So why would we call it the Mexican wave?
I mean hearing the term with no context in the US, most listeners would assume it's some racist great-replacement-type nonsense.
I expect "amongst" vs "among" is a similar situation to "whilst" vs "while". I've had people swear up and down that there is a critical difference in meaning between "among" and "amongst" but I have yet to encounter a case where there is any possible confusion from just using "among". The same for "whilst" and "while". It's just easier to say the words without the "-st" ending.
Disagree. I routinely use amongst, and occasionally will say whilst (although, much less frequently on that one).
I would say that sometimes, somehow, it IS actually easier/rolls off the tongue better, to say whilst :) ! Or, maybe it's just in my head when I've watched a few Richard Perkins vlogs... he says it a lot. I'm an American in WI btw. .
I was so surprised when watching “Escape to the County” on BBC and heard people comment nicely about houses they were touring as”homely.” In the US homely means kind of sad and woebegone. I finally figured out they are trying to pay a compliment, and mean our “homey.”
To most Americans, the only denotation of "Cheerio" is the General Mills breakfast oat cereal, each bit fitly alliteratively shaped into the letter "o." (New product idea for pets: "Ciao.")
Ta-Ta
Did he put the cheerio down on an invisible table?
Can't remember the last time I heard someone say cheerio and I have lived in the UK for all of my 62 years. I don't think it is used very often at all now, much more likely we would say 'see ya later' or just 'bye'
@@rosalynadams7006 I can only remember seeing it said in old movies like Rebecca
@@rosalynadams7006 it's pretty common in Scotland, they use it often
I use "amongst" all the time. We also use cornflour, but it's the stuff you'd make cornbread with.
Yeah, among is the default but amongst isn't that uncommon in America . I've never really thought about it before, but I suppose amongst has just a slightly fancier connotation. I would use it for example if I said something was popular amongst the upper class.
It’s usually called cornmeal.
I've always called the stuff that we make cornbread out of "cornmeal", not corn flour. Flour is something that is generally finer ground than meal which is coarser and used to make cornbread.
Have you done videos about American vs. British idioms? I recently learned of "can't be arsed."
Brilliant isn’t it ,
Upsy-Daisy
Whenever I watch a British show, I often notice the missing definite article “the”. For example, Americans say, “…at the university;” British say, “…at university.” Americans say “…in the hospital;” British say, “… in hospital.”
I think I may be the exception to a lot of these words. My mother was born in Anglo India and lived in London from 12-24 years of age before moving to the states with my American Navy Seal father. So I pronounce things and say words from both. Apparently I was not lost in the pond.
I actually just used some Corn Flour today in a recipe. Not cornstarch. You can get Corn Flour which is a flour through "Bob's Red Mill" online or in stores in the US.
Omg, your the first person I found who knows how common cornflour is. How can folks not know cornflour? It's such a common food product made in the US and elsewhere in the world too.
Domino's pizza's are made from cornflour.
The US has the "corn belt".
It boggles my mind how folks can't know such a common item.
@@TiredMomma I thought cornbread was made from corn flour, but I see in recipes it says cornmeal.The only reason I knew about it is because I found a recipe for sesame chicken and it said to use corn flour to coat it. Are you sure Domino's Pizza is made from corn flour? I find that hard to believe. I know they say to use corn meal under the pizza dough to make it release easy from the pan.
Yeah, you can buy Bob's items most places but you can get masa Haring, various brands, in West and SW stares. Generally, it is "nixtamalized" which means it corn/maze is processed in alkaline solution (Generally limewater) which will be listed as ingredient many times. This process helps people with digesting corn.
@@mer8795 Really? Never heard of that.
We don't use "doddle", but we do use "dawdle" 🤷♀️ and I do use "amongst", but I don't often hear others say it lol
We use dawdle too, but it means to be slow
@@BoomBoomBrucey yes
Amongst, amidst, whilst. The st at the end always makes the words feel more complete. Despite using the same language, you could make a hundred part bloody series on words and phrases lol. I don’t know why my mind went straight to the phrase, “you don’t get many of them to the pound”. I think I’ve been watching too many carry on films recently lol
Cheerio...from the Scottish Gaelic: Tìoraidh (pronounced like "cheerie") and meaning "Good-bye". 👋
I was curious so I looked up gorm. There are several meanings but one is a verb and is a variant of guam which means to understand; comprehend; consider. That makes gormless meaning unintelligent make a lot more sense.
I thought "Cheerio" also meant "hello" (like "Aloha" means both hello and goodbye). I wonder if the cereal execs also had that impression?
No, it’s just a friendly goodbye 🙂
When I lived in Australia (Brisbane) there was a small chain of Mexican restaurants called "Montezuma's" . . . Since it was locally popular we eventually had to explain to all of our local friends why we couldn't eat there.
Why?
@@justinking765 'montezuma's revenge', basically the world will fall out of your backside.
I love Montezuma's in Brisbane... it's probably the closest you get to authentic, even now in 2022... but yea, I always think of Montezuma's Revenge, LOL
@@justinking765 Mexico's water supply is less purified than in the USA, so people who aren't locals often succumb to severe diarrhea during their visits until they become accustomed.
It also helps to know who “Uncle Bob” was. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil was the Prime Minister of England. He appointed his nephew to the job of Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887. It was this nepotism that marked it as a done deal, if “Bob’s your uncle”.
I thought there were more incidents of nepotism with him, like he'd made a habit of it. It was really just that once?
The first time I heard the term "Mexican Wave" was on an episode of As Time Goes By when Madge was so excited she could do a Mexican Wave by herself.
Hmm... I don't remember that, now I'll gave to rewatch em :) !
I think you would find the traditional Appalachian accent interesting. Amongst is used often. Along with airish, yonder, reckon, hit(for it), haint(a ghost), buggie, poke(a bag), peckerwood...half my family was from the Young Harris area. Unfortunately, the accent is dying with the rise of the internet...Shakespeare would no longer feel at home in most of these hills...lol.
Wtf I use(d) amongst irl but I stopped because when I typed it spellchecker said it wasn't a thing which made me think I was just making the word up. And Appalachia is pretty close to where I grew up which makes a lot of sense now I think about it.
Thank you. Most interesting. I hear echoes of English dialects in those words.
American based spellcheckers are a major irritant to British users! Use your lovely words and celebrate your history. 👍🇬🇧🇬🇧
@@torfrida6663 Exactly. It was a population of Scots, Irish and English; mostly isolated from the late 18th until the mid 20th century. A language time capsule that is disappearing rapidly.
Oh, good. I'm glad you're not going to stop the videos. We would dearly miss you!!
Bob's your uncle is my favorite Brit saying. Now if I can only think of it when it's appropriate.
Anglophile me, I tend to use most of these words. All my life really. Born and raised in the US, been to the UK several times....
1.Amongst is a proper word in the States and is used.
2.bits and bobs IS an English expression I only use when I'm with Brits
3.Bob's your Uncle. (s/a)
4.cornflour and cornstarch. Hmmm, in the States, the former is for baking with flour ground from corn and cornstarch is a thickener in cooking
5.Doddle. Nope, you have me there. I'll just jot it down in my lexicon. Easy peasy is an expression used for something that is particularly easy...
6.I have heard and used gormless - again the context being I'm speaking with English friends
7.Never heard of The Mexican Wave (I'm not a sportie). Thank you for the history lesson tho'
8.Cheerio IS a friendly goodbye. Whilst Americans wouldn't use it themselves, I'd imagine they would understand the meaning from the context.
We have a homophone for doddle with dawdle (v.), (which the google ngram viewer shows is also used in British English), so there's likely some obvious misinterpretation of that word, should it be used in the states.
Yeah when he said that I was like "Wait.. I've been told not to dawdle." which is don't linger or take too long
@@SilvaDreams Not to sound too weird, but I used the word "dawdle" the other night when talking to my dog. He was dawdling in the woods sniffing at every branch to decide whether or not to pee on it and I told him to "quit dawdling". Finally, when he was coming back inside, I said that he was the "pokiest dog that I'd ever known".
It's the same word. A task being easy is the same as walking slowly in the way that easy = a walk in the park.
Born in KY, but raised in Chicago, I say "amongst" quite a bit. I always say "Bob's your uncle", but I do get some blank stares often when I do. I guess it's due to my fascination with British TV shows.
Also reading Brit. lit. too - especially mysteries !
One of my favorite Brit sayings that I actually find myself using is when you finish a project or something you say it's "done and dusted".
Another word we don't tend to use in the U.S, but I hear/see it quite often from England is "whilst." Perhaps you've already addressed this one on another episode that I've missed. Regardless, I rather like the sound of it and sometimes wish we did include some of the British words in our vocabulary.
Oregonian here. I use whilst all the time. Always have.
@@TeacherinTraining39 Good to know. :) Maybe it is more of a regional thing. I've spent most of my life in the mid-west and southeast portions of the states.
That is actually a word that I have used, but rarely. I'm currently in my 50's and was born in Maryland and raised in Kentucky. My Dad's Kentucky family were country folk. I believe that I may have picked it up from some of the older family members in Kentucky who died while I was still young. Currently, nobody else in my family uses "whilst".
@@gaylekenyon4693 Come to think of it, I never really did hear that whilst I lived in Ohio. Or Tennessee. Or Texas. Maybe it is mostly a PNW thing.
Virginian here. I say whilst. Not often, but I do say it.
I'm from California and Louisiana, and I use amongst all the time. I hear them all the time, both amongst and among.
Well, here in Iowa, corn flower is the common name of a flower that commonly grows in the ditches besides corn fields.
Here in the Ozarks you still hear "amongst" and many other older English words.
We used to watch Monty Python and used "cheerio", "blighter", and "poofter" all the time !!!
Amongst is used in the US. In sentences like "Argue amongst yourselves, quietly."
Cornflour is also used and is a separate thing from cornstarch. Cornflour, for the most part is a Mexican American ingredient.
Cornstarch is what they call it in the Americas. Both continents.
Doddle means slow, or lagging.
Love your videos Lawrence!!!
Equivalents of doddle: piece of cake, easy as pie, duck soup, simple. I'm sure there are plenty more, but these were the ones that came off the top of my head.
A British expression that really puzzled me was hearing "poorly" used as an adjective to describe someone who's feeling ill. Not that they're feeling poorly but "they *are* poorly," which just sounds grammatically dissonant to me. Now I know we Americans do the same mixing up of adverbs and adjectives all the time, like someone "is well" when they've recovered, or "I feel good." But to "be poorly" stands out because we never hear that one.
I have heard I’m feeling poorly, but it means I’m starting to feel I’ll, but not that ur sick
You'll hear "I'm poorly" said by older people in the American South as well as "Are you poorly?". We don't always use the "feeling" gerund.
It’s like in the American south they would say “I’m feeling puny” meaning ill and I always heard puny as an insult to mean really skinny and weak.
Lawrence just had a COVID booster meaning he is now immune to covid
Hearing about someone being "in hospital" has always been weird for me, even though Americans treat the word school the same way.
now I'm craving cheerios, I love the honey nut variety :)
Way back in the olden days I was at a Howard Jones concert at an outdoor amphitheater (coincidentally the Jones Beach Theatre). There was a moat of water separating the stage and the seating. The seating was in 2 sections, one lower, one upper.
There was a chunk of time after the opening act, and the audience got bored and began doing the wave. From the bottom around to the top, around and around. Picture painted? Onward:
After coming out on stage, Howard Jones asked for the lights to be turned back on, and asked us all to do the wave again as he had never seen it before.
We gleefully obliged.
Dang Lawrence!! I almost went in to a panic ,when you said cherrio thought I would have to do without your super sense of humor!
I use "Amongst" quite often.
I dust off "Gormless" when I'm particularly peeved. Likewise "Feckless."
I often say "amongst" and occasionally, "feckless." But now "gormless" will enter my vocabulary, I suspect. 😂
@@kathywiseley4382 I have to credit Monty Python for my familiarity with "Gormless." It's a very woody-sounding word. Not at all tinny.
I learned "Bob's your uncle" as a kid. OTOH, my grandma was a teacher (in a 1 room school in a rural area if Montana) and my family always valued learning everything we could.
A lot of other terms I learned bc of online friends in the UK.
OTOH, back before I sold my first short story for publication, I informed others at the same stage of their careers that even though some folks called them "Gormless wannabes", the term could never apply to me. Why? Look at my last name....
Any relative of Antony the artist ? Probably so far back the paint on the Ark was still wet 😂
@@dave_h_8742 Nope. Sorry. Although my mentor in the writing biz, who was also a racing enthusiast, teased me a lot when a horse with my name showed up a few years back...
Whhhhat! Ya'll just keep reinventing awesomeness, I'm still trying to come to terms with what I just saw. I love it.
Awesome video - thank you! I'd not even heard of a few of the words, such as "gormless" and "doddle", I do use the word "amongst", in writing, and also had to write out a short letter today and actually used the word "whilst". Your video was great and entertaining - as they always are! All the best from NYC.
I barely felt the booster but when I got my first two shots they messed me up for the whole weekend. Weird.
And a flu shot just makes me feel under the weather the following day.
Name checks out
Lawrence needs to get his Jabs
As a 40 something American that grew up watching Mary Poppins, "Bob's your uncle" has been a staple phrase for me. But I'm weird so...
Bits & Bobs makes me think of Mary Poppins
Dick Van Dyke , in Mary Poppins , is from my hometown in central Illinois ! Genuinely nice guy !
So, I just discovered you a week or so ago, I apologize if I state or ask things you’ve already discussed… I’m a bit of an Anglophile myself, so I watch a lot of British crime shows (not sure why you Brits are so obsessed with those) and British historical period pieces. Huge Jane Austen fan. But there are some words that flummox me (British origin, I believe). The chiefest of which is your pronunciation of a word we both, Brits and Americans alike, use and define the same: which is clerk. You all pronounce it “Clark.” It never fails to perplex me. Leftenant is another one. But it cracks me up the way we sort of miss each other on the words we both use but with different meanings. Chips for fries, crisps for chips, biscuits for cookies, and the biggest one, jumpers for sweaters. Our jumpers are dresses with straps that button in the front and are usually worn over sweaters, er, jumpers?? Anyway, those are mine. I like you. You’re funny. Wish I’d discovered you seven years ago. But then, I only really started serial watching CZcams a couple years ago.
I am in Arkansas and we do use doddle but I would use it as saying to a person "Don't Doddle" aka "Don't mess about" or "Hurry up". Aka " Don't pussy foot around" or " Don't dilly dally" just as a few examples 😊I have heard this quite often especially as a kid. Thanks Lawrence you always make me smile! ❤️
Have you done a video on British vs American phone numbers and addresses? As an American when I look at British phone numbers I feel like I'm looking at a random string of numbers and I feel like they feel the same way 😅
Same with there license plates.
I believe it's Utah that uses longitude and latitude for addresses
Dates are different as well. E.g. Christmas is on the 25th of December in Britain but December 25th in America. Why is that?
US phone numbers are pretty simple. I presume UK ones are, too...just with an extra digit, if I recall correctly.
There are different address schemes in the US (e.g. 1 or 2-digit addresses versus 4 digits like mine in the Midwest) but they're still formatted the same way.
@@samanthab1923 License plate numbers in the US are complicated. A main contributor to this complication is that each state designates its own license serial scheme. Some states have a six-digit serial standard. Others have 7 or 8. Some states have a code or number for the county of registration in the serial, others do not. It's worse now than it used to be since every date has a multitude of "special" plates available that people can order which have their own numbering schemes (usually ordinal). States have different rules for how long license plates are good for, too, so many serial schemes can be in play at once.
The UK appears to use the same license serial format everywhere: First, two letters, as the DVLA memory tag; next two numbers as a code for the age of the vehicle, a space, and then three random letters.
*Edit: Northern Ireland is an exception in the UK as it apparently uses its own serial format.
Hello Lawrence! I enjoy your channel a lot! However; occasionally you will mention a word that you haven't heard Americans use that I and my parents and grandparents do use. My ancestors settled in the Appalachian Mountains. They came from Ireland, England & Scotland and perhaps, being isolated caused them to keep their native vocabulary in use a bit longer than other people did.
Sometimes we find ancestral phrases in and amongst modern ones! It's always fun to learn that we are using those terms!
It’s funny you mention that. I’m of Irish background. Parents from NYC. Lots of “old people” sayings have filtered down to my son. It wasn’t till I watched Deadwood & heard Ian McShanes character’s way with words that I knew where I got them from.
I was gonna say that I was doing the wave when I was in high school in the 70’s but you beat me to it. And doddle probably isn’t used as many of us use dawdle which means to hang out or waste time. Last, some use toodles which is our version of cheerio.
Hey Lawrence, I love your vocabulary related videos. I have lived in the US for over 30 years and just this week discovered that Americans pronounce the word shone (shown) rather than shone (shon)!
Well, there is that pesky old silent e at the end. Generally when a word ends with a silent E, the vowel has a long sound rather than short.
@@salyluz6535 there are no hard and fast rules in English
Here in my hometown in Florida, we've had a restaurant since at least the 1960s called "Tally-ho!" Normal American fare of burgers and fries, plus Cuban sandwiches and such. Wonderful little place with what we think of as an English-sounding name. Is "tally-ho" something really said in England, or is it just in our imaginations? :)
Not heard much anymore , more of a rallying cry when hunting on horseback , to let other know the quarry has been sighted together with a hunting horn😢. I remember the term being used in old World War II films about the RAF. The flight leader would say something like “Jerry’s at 6 o’clock Tally Ho boys “. Find any movie of Douglas Bader or The Dam Busters it’s sure to pop up.
@@Upemm It was used as an expression to move forward on horseback particularly but not exclusively by country folk hunting foxes with hounds. This practice has been banned for many years in the UK. Tally ho!! Let's go!
A British expression that I wish would catch on here is "go pear shaped" when things go badly wrong.
Like my waistline.
I’m a fan as well.
Bits and bobs, we have bits and pieces. As you mentioned cornflour I thought you were talking about cornmeal or are you talking cornstarch and I saw the picture definitely cornstarch. In the south we used amongst.
I looked it up and I think you are correct about the Wave. It actually started in the U.S. in the 1970's.
Here in Australia we also use most of these British words, including the Mexican wave. Thanks for telling me know where it originated, I always wondered about that.
It was actually invented here in the U.S.
Wierd, the Mexican wave in Italy it's called "Ola", which is not an Italian word. Don't ask me where it comes from or how it started to be called that way, I have no clue! I just grew up with "Ola" imprinted in my brain 😁
@@cristinalivi-harris3267 La ola in Spanish means "The wave" so that's probably where it came from.
In the US corn flour is word used interchangeably with corn meal. Corn meal being ground whole corn kernels which is used as the primary ingredient in making various corn breads. On the other hand corn starch is, not surprisingly, starch extracted from corn kernels. By contrast, it's only used as a thickening agent in food products.
We also use bits and pieces at times as well.
"It's as Big as Dallas". I always add "but not as far".
When I was in college, almost 50 years ago, one of my friends had a roommate who was an American citizen but had been educated in English language schools in South Africa. He would say amongst and amidst, and we thought he was being pretentious. I've since noticed that it's just the normal word for such concepts in the UK. Still sounds pretentious when an American uses it.
It’s either pretentious, or it’s severely low-class Appalachian hillbilly. Same with “whilst”. Which is kind of funny.
I don't want to be that "young 'un" but "When I was in college, almost 50 years ago," makes * me * feel old lol.
They are still used in the Southern region of the USA. Just not very often. I've used them myself although more often for written communication than for oral communication. BTW: I'm currently in my 50's. Between the two words, I'm more likely to use "amidst" in spoken form.
Brit born but in the states for a third of my life now, many of these words were with me for years. *Whilst* is still one of them.
I choose to use that word but it often raises, or shall I say *oft* will raise a brow. Whilst is simply practical but in the states it's regarded as pretentious. Or *posh* as one would say..
@@IntriguedLioness The folks that I've always heard using these archaic words were far from posh. They were country and hill folk.
Besides the more commonly used "odds and ends", we also use "bits and pieces ". (Which is also the name of a popular and catchy song from the Dave Clarke Five.)
I have watched you for a long time.... Love your Brit sense of humor. Over the last 12 months you have helped me laugh and keep learning about British life and your pros on The USA. Literally recovering from a heart attack. Got a new lease on life and ready to live out my days in humor and joy. Because.....
' Daylights a-burnin'. Gotta make hay while the sun shines! "
Whilst is another word Americans don't use.
4:16 "It's a breeze."
"It's a cinch."
"Easy as pie."
"No problem."
I love the Brit's use of 'Cheers' for goodbye or thank you and have hear a lot of 'Godsmacked!' Another great video btw!
We use cornflower - as opposed to cornflour. Cornflower blue is a beautiful shade of blue.
And we eat Cheerios. Yeah, you said that. Love your videos.
No, we literally use cornflour, to make food. Cornflour is a very common word said. Maybe only in the midwest and south I guess.
The cornbelt in the US, is common for cornflour. I thought that would seem like common sense.
Fun video.Thanks!
I think I read the phrase "Bob's your uncle" in the comic strip Get Fuzzy. If I remember correctly, I think gormless is one of the many words that old English borrowed from its cousin old Danish.
Lawrence I enjoyed this episode but I have to take issue with “amongst“. Growing up in Missouri teachers would tell students to speak amongst themselves whenever they had to go out of the classroom. “Amongst“ is quite common in the Midwest. I think maybe you haven’t encountered the proper cross-section of Americans in that regard. Hit me up when you get to Missouri about words foods and such
Same in the South, too.
Instead of British "doddle" (that I'd never heard), Americans say (as you said), a "piece of cake," "slam dunk" (a basketball metaphor), "easy as [baking] pie," or a "no-brainer" (a task that demands no to minimal intellection).
No brainer is perfect for Americans
@@sandersson2813 Your comment is a shallow, untrue cheap shot that overlooks the multiversity of kinds and applications of intelligence (e.g., fast and practical) in the USA, and dearth thereof in your country.
@@JudgeJulieLit Stop trying to sound clever. No one is fooled.
Why is it Americans can't laugh at themselves. No self deprecation.
Growing up I heard bits and bobs used by women who did a lot of sewing. They used it to refer to things like trim, beads, decorative things you added on to dress something up.
Are there cornflowers in the UK? The botanical ones? Maybe calling it cornstarch was a disambiguation... although we don't seem to bother much about other homophones.
Say wot m8? Americans don’t say “oi bruv cheerios innut” like in Bri’In??? 🇬🇧
I had my Covid booster on Monday, so I know exactly how you felt when you were making this video. But you made it through (I was tempted to say “Bob’s your uncle, you made it through,” but that would imply making it through the booster was easy, which would not be the case).
Happy clotting!🍝
@1:50 10 bob = 10 shillings, not £10. A 'bob' was the slang term for the pre-decimal British shilling, equal to 5 new pence. It's also where the expression 'He's worth a few bob' for a person of wealth comes from.
I have loved the phrase "Bob's your uncle" ever since I first heard it. It just seems such a random and whimsically humorous expression, which I like to use to express random and whimsical humor. I first heard it used by a couple of Brit co-workers. Those guys were a lot of fun. Thanks for listening! Cheerio!