7 Words Britain Coined and then Blamed on America
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
- It's no secret that Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language. And with this separation comes confusion. Sometimes, words that Brits perceive as "awful Americanisms" started life not in America, but in Britain.
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"...who wins in this debate? the answer is none of us, we're all losers and this is really silly" this cracks me up and I think applies to most of life in general.
Underrated.
It's almost as if American English originated in England.
😂😂😂😂😂👏👏
Stop! No!
Don't be ridiculous. America invented everything used in America, including the language. Everyone else just copies us because they're all jealous of our freedom. 'Murrica!
@@IceMetalPunk I hope you're joking.
@@minam.658 Yes... yes, I am... I would have hoped at least the "'Murrica!" at the end would have made that clear, but I guess Poe's Law is a thing.
As an American, I’ve used the words “Brackets” and “Parentheses” to mean different things. In my experience, I’ve seen them referred to as (Parentheses), [Brackets], and {Braces}. I’ve also occasionally seen {Curly Brackets} and rarely seen [Square Brackets] but () are almost always (Parentheses). But when they’re unspecified, they’re “Brackets” when used in coding, and “Parentheses” in Language Arts, Math and everywhere else
Yes.
There are (parentheses), [square brackets], {curly brackets or braces}, and the favorite of web developers, .
I teach a mathematics and programming class. Not only do I emphasize the difference between brackets, parentheses, quotes, braces, and angled brackets, I mark papers wrong on people that get them mixed up. And I push the terminology a bit because if you get lazy with the symbols you get confused on the concepts and nothing makes sense long, long before you get within spitting distance of a compiler.
And yes, I have had A LOT of people call "quotes"...almost anything else.
Because of the clumsiness of "parenthesis" when a programmer has to dictate syntax to another coder he will explaining "if (A==0) " contrasted with "IF A=0" as "The syntax is 'If paren A equal equal zero paren' in C, not 'if A equal 0' as in Basic".
I learned {} these as french brackets.
"There is one thing I hate more than lying. Skim milk, which is water that is lying about being milk."-Ron Swanson
Why does that dude have some of the best quotes 😂😂
I always call it white water,I only drink whole milk, raw if avalible!
@@kamicrum4408 I don't much like milk myself, at least not on its own, it just tastes icky; definitely a noticeable difference in what you add it to though
@@TS_Mind_Swept I'm not a big milk drinker, either. I've tried many times, but it has a sour taste to me that I can't get past. My mom gave me milk that was going bad when I was four, and I just can't drink it. You have to sneak it to me. I will use nut milks or coconut milk.
@@evadedenbach1226 That typo is actually kind of funny because it’s somewhat reminiscent of paste 😂😂 (at least it seems like it would be)
why do British politicians call a plan a scheme. The first time I heard that was during the prime ministers questions and I thought someone was doing something nefarious.
They're politicians, when are they NOT doing something nefarious?
“Plan” is the original english meaning of the word “scheme”, though more in the sense of a floorplan or other technical diagram, though the variant “schematic” has become more common for that purpose. It comes from the Greek word schema/schemata, literally meaning “figure” or “shape”.
A scheme is a plan but politicians are schemers . Nefarious is a synonym for politicians
Bigger word means more smarter
That's because they were doing something nefarious. Being out in the open about it is an actual political tool. Open corruption breeds public apathy, so it pays dividends, when the politicians no longer need to waste effort on covering their tracks, because no one feels as if anything could be done about it, so why worry about it?
You tell em Laurence! Americans get blamed for everything. There are plenty of things that we ACTUALLY DO to blame us for. There is no reason to go blaming us for things we didn't even do.😊🐝
@J LA yeah...I know it's human nature to bash the one on top, but dang....😪
Americans, we need to get over ourselves!
@@lizabethrobison4566 There is nothing wrong with having pride in who you are. There is something wrong with rubbing it in the faces of others or thinking everyone else is inferior. We do a lot of that, both internally between the different groups in the US, and externally to other countries. We need to understand healthy pride that isn't threatened, or threatening.
@@deborahdanhauer8525 that is true, but in my experience absolutely everyone on the internet bashes Americans and I have not found one comment of an American bashing anyone else. Americans generally don't have hatred to any culture, yet everyone does that to us.
@@standupyak I agree everyone hates us...some of it is deserved for the bad things we have done and some of it is not, because we also do a great deal of good things that get overlooked.
I have heard Americans bashing other countries, but mostly, I see Americans thinking The US is better than other countries. Of course, that's going to rub everyone else the wrong way.
britain: why do you call it football if you don't touch the ball with your feet?
America: why do you call it rugby when there aren't any rugs, or bees?
Then again, one of the top English rugby clubs is called Wasps!
And I ain't never seen Jiminy at no Cricket match
They do though, but not all of the time.
Theres a place called rugby, 'by' is old norse for like settlement or farm or village etc
Rugby game was founded in a town call Rugby.
Finally a Britt that I respect has the gonads to answer the soccer question properly. You are the man.
😐😶
He has technically referenced that one before.
I wouldn't have given this a second thought or pause if you had just used the word 'balls'. Your word choice isn't wrong, I find the 'g' word cringeworthy. (And, Brit has one 't', it is short for 'British').
Technically, it's "...a Brit whom I respect" or "...a Brit for whom I have respect" or "...Piers Morgan wears ladies' underpants."
Wow. Honestly, my mind is 🤯.
Fun Fact: Until 1965, at least half of the time the sport was mentioned in British publications, it was called "Soccer".
I didn't know that Brits said 'full stop.' I always imagined that it was something people in old movies said when dictating telegrams lol.
I don't think I've heard us saying full stop in films but I don't know the origins of how we got to full stop (that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it)
But the American one: period. Sounds so wrong to my ears as when I think of this word, I think of period of time, periods that girls and young women have etc
@@corriehingston6744 Random fact! The word 'period' was used for the first time to reference menstruation in a Tampax commercial from 1985. I knew this, but I did not know about 'full stop' lol.
@@valeriemcdonald440 1985 was the first time the word was used on tv. Those commercials were banned as inappropriate until 1972.
@@valeriemcdonald440 According to the Etymological Dictionary, the first known time the word 'period' was used for menstruation was 1829. Commonly thought to be a contraction of "period of menstruation"....The first time it appeared to mean "end of a sentence" was 1580...interestingly the term 'period' in punctuation initially meant the dot as used in any other way than the "full stop" (for example in abbreviations) and was used by the British as well. But Americans dumped the 'full stop".
@@corriehingston6744 Stop is 4 characters, period is 6 characters. from what I can tell, there was no specific sequence for a period until much later when additional codes were added. A stop would represent a period and you wouldn't bother with commas as the statements wouldn't involve complex or compound sentences.
As an American, I can say we call it both an "exclamation point" and an "exclamation mark" equally.
I'm American and have never heard another American say exclamation mark. Maybe its a regional thing. Where are you from?
@@jeffburdick869 I've lived in 7 states, so since it's not a word that comes up in conversation a lot, I can't really narrow down where all I've heard it - other than from my mom who grew up in the Chicago area. I've lived in the Midwest, the South, and the lower East Coast, and I can't remember which I've heard where. I just know I've heard both.
@@jeffburdick869 I'm born and raised in Florida, and I've heard it both ways here, too.
@@jeffburdick869 I've heard exclamation mark way more than exclamation point and have been all around the south/midwest. Exclamation point almost seems less common but I can't verify 100% because its not like it comes up in conversation often.
I'm an American, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the term explanation point before I heard it in this video. I've always used and heard others use exclamation mark.
I just realized that if The Oxfordians had used the first syllable of Association Football, we might be calling it Asser instead of Soccer.
That made me laugh far more than it should have
I feel like that would require quite a few drastic rules changes, and the sport would become far less popular...
Why would they name it after an Anglo-Saxon monk though ...
probably why they didnt go with that one
@@IceMetalPunk *far more
The world needs more of these etymological explorations. Word lovers unite!
🙋🏾♀️🗽🆒
The deadpan joke about Wayne Brady killed me 🤣
Same! Wayne Brady is awesome
That hit me out of left field. But Bo Jackson would probably throw me out at home as I'm laughing.
@@Avram42 Ain’t no “probably,” my nigga
I've long wondered if Shakespeare gets undeserved credit for coining so many words when he may simply have used words that were fairly new but not yet recorded.
It's a fair cop.
It is generally assumed that Shakespeare was writing more in the vernacular than was common practice at the time, yes. In general, etymological studies prior to the widespread adoption of the internet are largely limited to written sources and thus can only trace a word back to the point where someone first used it in print. In other words, they didn't have "know your meme" back then.
@@jonadabtheunsightly Knowen thine word
I read somewhere, that slang terms originate and are in use verbally an average of 15 years, before they appear in print. This was 40 years ago, so I imagine, that they're published much sooner than that nowadays, since the Internet and text messaging is in wide use.
Well he nicked most of his storylines from other people, so he probably did the same with words.
Funny story:
When I was a kid, my experience with skim milk was my brother talking about how much he hated it. I always misheard skim milk as skin milk, and I took it to be the case that it was called skin milk because it had pieces of skin in it, and it really made sense to me that my brother hated it so much.
I remember thinking it had something to do with milk getting a skin on it, too.
Worse was powdered milk. My mom keep some in the pantry in case we ran out of whole milk, the only kind we bought. Powdered was dreadful.
McFlingleson, now, that's funny!!
Ugh! Powdered milk is the worst.
My idiot boss got to age 60 still thinking that buttermilk was milk that had butter added to it.
I was taught in the 50s by Irish nuns. You can imagine how we giggled when we were told we may not use our "rubbers" when doing our math tests!
My father was too. Even though it was the Bronx NY he pronounced H hay-ch. Never heard it like that until I watched some stuff on BBC.
🤣🤣🤣
We had French nuns (Louisiana, 1960's.) One teacher amused us by using her middle finger to point out things on the blackboard.
"Do you find math to be so exciting?"
Did the nuns get the joke? I’m guessing no.
“Fall” was used in medieval English to mean autumn.
I love the argument that it's silly to name a season after falling leaves - despite the fact that spring is a reference to plants springing from the ground.
Medieval people were factually incorrect.
Ah yes but autumn is a french word and therefore used by educated English people what has learned to speak proper
@@frankmitchell3594
As I read your comment and my inner voice transitioned smoothly to Cockney.
@@frankmitchell3594 ...but as proper English people we must also add back a vocalized “h” to l’herbe (and take offense at those who retain our older pronunciation) so as not to be mistaken to be uneducated h-droppers who say ‘orrible things like “‘enery ‘iggins”.
Britain Rummages through America's cabinet and pulls out the word 'Soccer': This word, where did you learn this??
America: I learned it from watching you, Dad, I learned it from watching you!!!
I use "garbage" specifically for anything that will start to stink (or already stinks) and "trash" for anything that won't. So the kitchen has a garbage can and everything else (bedroom, bathroom, desk) has a trash can.
Yes, and "trash" is not an American word (as my British colleagues claim). It appears in "Julius Caesar" several times. So blame Shakespeare.
We are required to recycle here. So garbage/trash refers to only garbage that goes to the landfill.
My mother was always very particular about this same distinction, perhaps because we had a garbage disposal.
I think that would be very useful, if it were universal, I'd know what to put in which bin, and which bin to put out this week!
I've a load of apologies to hand out.
been telling everyone garbage is a Frenchmans snooty word for trash.
and I have no idea how little kid me got that impression.
guessing my older brother is involved or our cousins
perhaps texas public schools in wonderful harris county.
Britain: Here is our language, use it properly
Rest of world: uses it correctly
Britain: Wrong, use it accurately
Merica: we's going to use it the way we's want.
😂
No it’s Britain: changes shit but doesn’t tell us, gets mad when we continue to use it correctly.
Or 'nicely'... (Meaning accurate)
Yesssssss
'Pants' was one that always tripped me up when I lived in the UK. Trousers... but also underwear. Saying "Nice pants." has a whole different meaning in the UK.
That’s right up there with the phrase “knock you up“. My parents had a funny story from the 50s with a British man and an American woman that centered around the use of that phrase. The woman was quite taken aback when the man told her he would knock her up in the morning 😆. The man and the woman didn’t understand the translation issue although a number of other people at the table understood what had happened and got quite a chuckle out of it.
In parts of Northern England, they do say pants and underpants, like Americans. That's where the term underpants originated.
@@jimjungle1397 it's funny how there's often as much linguistic friction between different parts of Britain as between sides of the pond.
@@pjschmid2251 As a non-native English speaker, what am I missing here?
@@johanrunfeldt7174 Sorry should’ve included that. In the UK knock you up just means that I’m going to come and knock at your door to get you in the morning. If you say knock you up in the United States it means getting you pregnant
It is a fact that the American way of saying pasta is closer to the Italian way of saying pasta, probably because there is a large, multigenerational Italian immigrant community in the States, which probably also accounts for why there are so many uniquely American styles of pizza, among other decidedly Italian foods.
How about how the fact the English langauge is more historically pronounced as American english than modern british....
Actually, Shakespeare's English was likely most like some Irish dialects with some American and some dropped sounds thrown in for good measure
@@bobtheduck It was really more of a West Country accent, but I see your point
I don't know about that. I've heard that before, but you've got to then ask yourself: where, and for how long? Particularly because England was made of more isolationist pockets compared to now. That's why they have so many dialects now. You go two towns up the road and there's a different accent. That's with modern travel, television, and other linguistic influences that have erased a number of dialects, so back then, there was even more diversity in how people talked. What we have gleaned, primarily from the likes of Shakespeare and Chaucer and other people who wrote rhymes, is that English pronunciation has varied wildly through the space and time. And yes, in Shakespeare's day, English in London probably sounded a little more like English in West Country or Wales. There's a video called Shakespeare: Original pronunciation (The Open University) that explains it pretty well. That was just the span of one man's career, though, and the language probably fluctuated wildly in his lifetime. You go back far enough, and English is incomprehensible to most of our modern ears, save those of us who know a lot of archaic German.
And, well, American English and the way we speak it has changed a lot, even in my life, and I'm only in my 30's. I'm totally here for the idea of Mary Queen of Scots working upspeak and vocal fry into her speech, but there's very little evidence to support that.
The USDA renamed "skim milk" to "nonfat milk." Years ago, after the change, I heard a man argue with a grocery clerk that he preferred skim (which he couldn't find) to nonfat milk, even though they were the same thing.
Didn't know about the USDA changing the official name, but brands can definitely still name it skim milk. Hiland's (popular brand in the Midwest) 1% is called lowfat but its "nonfat" offering is called skim milk. And there are different additives per brand which could potentially affect taste, which could be why this man said he preferred skim milk--he actually was looking for a certain brand, e.g. Hiland.
skim milk is still on the labels in grocery stores.
Nonfat milk has additional sugars added.
@@james-cain right. And there’s still “part-skim” items like ricotta which you absolutely should not buy unless you like the feeling of dirt in your mouth.
@@james-cain There are official (industry) terms and then there are marketing terms on the labels.
You should make a merch shirt that says "Lost In The Pond. Done through the lens of truth, facts, and toilet jokes"! lol! 🤣
Here-here!
@@FVanth I think it's spelled Hear! Hear! As in "pay attention to what they said".
@@brianb7686 Or is it Hear Here ?
@@michaelhogan9053 as in .. look over here...
:)
@@michaelhogan9053 Oooo, that's brilliant! I may have to start using that because the other two versions always looked vaguely wrong to me but I could not put my finger on why
I have finally sorted out my most thorny/sticky British vs American spelling conundrum: grey versus gray. I had a wee/tiny epiphany that grey has an E like England and gray has an A like America. Whew. So now I can drink Earl Grey tea in my gray office of a morning without spelling distress.
Omg...I needed this earlier in my life. I'm not sure I've ever spelled that word consistently because I've never been sure which one it's "supposed" to be! The struggles of growing up reading British books in the US before the internet was a thing and my dictionaries didn't agree!
I've always preferred English spellings. Just more fun. And I always spell the colour: grey. It's just my favourite spelling.
I'm American and I just spell it either way.
It's the UK and "gruy."
I thought for years that "grey" was feminine while "gray" was masculine and neuter. Figured it was like "blonde" versus "blond," I think.
As a STEM teacher (who has taught in the US and the UK), I have to commend you for your complete coverage of the pronunciation and spelling of the 13th element.
Well done.
I've never gotten angry about any of it. Curious but not angry. Thank you for letting the origins be known and for the differences!
I've always wondered if Spain throws the same kind of tantrums over the way Mexicans speak Spanish that Brits do over Americans speaking English. Or if Portugal does the same in regards to how Brazil speaks Portuguese.
"Orientate": As an american, I find this word particularly galling. It should just be "orient"!
When I was a Boy Scout, we were taught that "orientate" referred to turning a map so that north was actually pointed north, making it easier to determine which way to go. It was often used in a phrase "orientate a map".
As an American I use "Exclamation mark" and "Exclamation point" interchangeably.
Same here in Canada.
I think when I was in school in the 60/70 in the South of the US we used explanation mark not point. I haven't heard the word cootie in decades. Girls will definitely give you cooties, LOL.
As a programmer I call it a bam. Outside the workplace it causes plenty of confusion and I have no idea where that version originated. But despite me learning it in the states I caused no confusion at tech conferences all over Europe.
I think some of these words might change by region in the USA like soda, pop, soda pop, or cola. Also, programming has lots of alternative names, as you know, but as it is literally another language it's never bothered me.
@@Losttoanyreason Yes, I was taught in the early 60's it was exclamation mark. Don't know when it became exclamation point.
"...for singer and entertainer Wayne Brady." This is why I follow you. Perfect non sequiturs.
"It was us. We gave Americans cooties." We were wondering where they came from. 😂
Do people give you crap for the upside down flag?
The girls in my grade school all had cooties, just saying.
That was funny . LMAO
I grew up in Boston, and while it is a bit less common in younger folks, "rubbish" is very much still part of the vocabulary in that part of the US.
Yeah, the northeast in particular is closer linguistically to British English than the rest of the US is. Most obviously, it retains tons of place name pronunciations that the rest of the country has dropped, e.g. Worcester ("woos-tah"). And then there's the non-rhotic pronunciation (i.e. the disappearance of the 'r' sound in the famous, "park the car in Harvard yard" phrase) that's common to nearly all British English dialects.
One time, I was at the grocery store. There was a young lady there who, by her accent, was clearly from somewhere in the Commonwealth, but I could not say for certain where. She was definitely not British, Canadian, Australian or New Zealandish, but she was clearly from some former British colony. Anyway, she was shocked and appalled at all of the choices she had for milk. There were, of course, at least half a dozen different brands, each offering full, 2%, 1%, 1/2% and skim milk. This was beyond her comprehension. She was declaiming, at great length and volume, to the effect of, "What is all this? There are two kinds of milk, good milk and fat milk! What are you supposed to do with all of this? What's the difference between all of these?" I've always wondered what she thought of as good milk and fat milk.
@Odysseus Rex : It's still different, in Britain we have 'whole' milk (full, or fat) milk, semi skimmed (round about 2%), and skimmed ( skim) milk. All the others you can find are new inventions, but those are the common varieties of cows milk, so not Vegan.
@@lesleyhawes6895 Well, over here, we've had 1% and 1/2% milk for decades.
Never seen 1/2% in the U.S.
Whole milk is the common phrase in the U.S.
@@theknightswhosay Whole milk is whole milk, then there are various grades of low fat.
"Definitely not British, Canadian, Australian or New Zealandish, but... clearly from some former British colony" is a good definition of the South African accent.
Humphrey Davy has an absolutely beautiful portrait painting of himself. The man had good taste.
Cecily Erker If he really looked like that, the ladies must have swooned at the sight of him!
Brains *and* looks? Swooning indeed.
I also recall reading that "soccer" originally referred to the players. That is, a soccer played association football.
Imagine if they'd used the first three letters to describe them. . . .
@@mortensen1961 saw a comment about that lol
I had a British friend that tried to argue that American usage tended toward literal descriptions, such as "trash can" instead of "bin," implying this made American English more simple-minded. This was before I was familiar with the most awkwardly literal British phrase of them all "washing-up liquid."
Alternate and alternative are both used in the U.S., but have two different meanings. An alternate is another one of the same thing while an alternative is something different that can do in a pinch. If you have two hammers and one of them breaks, the second one is an alternate. If you can get by pounding on the nail with a heavy wrench, the wrench is an alternative.
Alternative is only a noun in the US, while in the UK it's also an adjective. Like we have an alternate hammer, they have an alternative hammer. Alternate is already an adjective in the US. It's a matter of unnecessary suffixes, as in "commentate". One comments. There's no need to commentate because to comment is already a verb. Brits do that with a lot of words - pile on the suffixes. (I'm sure that's another Shakespearism, like double negatives. But he wrote lines spoken by characters, and they were not always scholars.)
I always thought that an alternate was a person.
Double negatives aren't a Shakespearism. They are a feature that works grammatically owing to the Germanic roots of English, and they serve to emphasize rather than cancel each other out. The only reason double negatives became frowned upon was due to a concerted attempt to make English more like Latin. This effort is also the source of the idea that sentences should not end in a preposition, another useless rule. Both constructions fail in Latin but actually work grammatically in English and communicate perfectly fine.
I've had to explain the term Soccer so many times. Even some people in the comments seem to have ignored the video entirely and opt instead to go on a tirade against all Americans in the comments lashing them for their "destruction of the English language"
Don’t forget about the imperial system of measurement, y’all made it.
Have you done the way Americans write dates yet? I was researching that recently and I was surprised to see that when people first started writing month/day/year, it was actually done in England first. A fun little rabbit hole.
Everyone's wrong. The proper way to write dates is ISO 8601 format 😁
Everybody knows that the best way to store the date is as seconds after midnight on the first of January 1970.
The look on Webster’s face screams “deal with it.”
In the chaos that is our current COVID life I just love Lost in the Pond, a chance to have fun and laugh at ourselves.
American here. (Pittsburgh,PA) "Cooties" to me has always been BOTH a general kid's term for an undefined "disease/germ" But also "cooties" referred to actual lice.
Same for me (I grew up in Massachusetts).
Interesting, I grew up in Boston and live in Philly and have never heard cooties used for lice (obviously Philly is pretty far from Pittsburgh but still). I wonder if it's a generational thing, I'm a millennial, maybe that matters.
@Rusty Wooden spoon I see, maybe it's a thing in the Midwest to use "cooties" in reference since most of Lawrence's experiences in the US have been in the Midwest
@@pampullmoose im from pa and never heard it mean that either (unless i was younger) Pittsburgh has a very different "dialect" if you will from alot of pa, anywhere south from Pittsburgh theres alot of linguistic differences. Like soda pop vs soda. Pittsburgh folks say soda pop.
@@ravenoctober9936 Pittsburgh only says “pop” not soda-pop
He said "Wayne Brady", "Tom Brady"!? Must be Carol Brady's other son.
Singer and entertainer Wayne Brady-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Brady
Wayne Brady can invent a song on any subject in any musical style instantly and Tom Brady cannot. Therefore, Wayne is better than Tom.
That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch~
As far as "Rubber" vs. "Eraser" goes, as a young man it was common to refer to the black overshoe boots one wore in winter as Rubbers. So Moms would tell their 7 year old sons to put on their rubbers before leaving the house!
My dad always called them galoshes.
I'm from the southeastern US and we always called them the particularly boring "rain boots" but now I've taken to using "wellies" because it's so much more fun to say and people around here look at you like you've sprouted an extra head😂
@@ashleejones1690 oh rain boots/Wellies are quite different from what we’re talking about. Willies are full on boots that come up at least mid calf these are tiny little rubber shoe covers that just come up over the shoe (generally worn by men). Look up galoshes and I think you’ll see what we’re talking about.
PJ Schmid Galoshes were the boots. Rubbers were black rubbers that went over shoes.
@@samanthab1923 I’m not sure where you’re from but where I’m from in the United States galoshes are a waterproof overshoe, typically made of rubber. Just to be sure I went and googled it and that’s the definition it gave.
When I was a kid win there was a game, sort of like Mr. Potato Head, called Cootie; where you would build your bug and win (or lose depending on your viewpoint). I've got Cootie! Oh Boy!
I remember that game.
Yes! We had the Cootie game, too. Fun times. Some might say it was a lousy game, but we found it scratched our itch for good, clean family fun.
Hahaha I've still got my box of cooties from when I was a kid in the 80's, it's in the closet with my kid's board games. All of the body and head sections are still in there, and even though there's a fair share of missing legs and eyes there is still enough left to make 3 complete cootie bugs!!
Still exists. You can pick one up at Amazon or Walmart. Am I the only one who would put all the cooties together and then just play with them?
@@jeanvignes Oh, you're good
They should have kept "Alumium". I honestly think it was the best option. It satisfies the criticisms of both sides.
Rather it doesn't satisfy anyone. Alumium neither sounds classic or latin. It sounds futuristic.
@@kaldo_kaldo It satisfies the people who say it should have "ium" at the end, and it satisfies the people who say it's ridiculous to have so many syllables as "aluminium" when another option is available.
@@kaldo_kaldo it sounds great.
I know you've actually said in another video about the word soccer but it is nice to see it again.
I play online games a lot and have friends in Britain that still refuse to believe America didn't name soccer, soccer!
I find it interesting when I watch videos that were made in England about fifty years ago (such as interviews with actors or politicians) and I hear the game referred to as "soccer"
@@tmhc72_gtg22c I believe that every person on the planet, including myself is crazy.
We can have absolutely irrefutable proof about something and still not believe it.
I don’t know why but I found so much joy in him calling Tom Brady, Wayne Brady 😂
Okay, so if these ( ) are what you call brackets, then what do you call these: [ ] ?
Square brackets.
@@janesmith1398 { } ?
@@kaldo_kaldo Curly Brackets
(parentheses) [brackets] {braces}
As a programmer, 'parentheses' always makes me think of the language LISP. The name actually stands for 'LISt Processing language', but a common joke when I was a student learning it (not a new joke, probably as old as the language itself) was that it stood for 'Lots of Infuriatingly Stupid Parentheses'. If you saw a LISP program you'd understand why. :)
I blame you, Lawrence, for Soccer, since everyone else is dead.
Those responsible have been sacked.
Poor Laurence 😄
@@matt475 or "fired".
I work for a British company editing audio and the number of times they've complained about confusion over American names for years in high school and college/university (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior) treating it as a silly American thing...when it originated at Oxford.
I was thinking that soccer was a reference to the South Oxford Collegiate Club players as SOCCer. So it would have gone from "He's a SOCCer" to "He's playing the game that SOCCer players play" to "He's playing soccer". Oh well.
Truth is stranger than fiction once again.
Well, at least it wasn't "assball" which is probably how americans would've abbreviated it (and I say that as an american)
@@killerbee.13
Consider the times. We have gotten cruder over the decades. Since the games being compared were rugby and soccer, a more likely delineation in American hands may have been football vs scrimmage or roundball vs oblong or handsoff vs punt.
I think you might have it!
It's true. Garbage is generally wet waste (food and such), whereas trash is dry waste (papers, stuff that isn't gross to touch). But them either can be used to be describe both collectively as in "Take out the trash" or "Take the garbage out". There could be anything in there and it could just easily be trash or garbage or both. The English language is confusing all around, no matter which flavo(u)r you speak.
Yes. "Garbage" is gross organic waste. "Trash" is mainly paper or cardboard. "Junk" is usually inorganic waste. We Americans have a lot of words for rubbish...Including...Rubbish!
Refuse is another common name for it too.
I always find myself saying “empty the trash” when referring to the bag in the kitchen. But then “put out the garbage” for garbage day when you take it all to the alley for collection. But then I still call the giant outdoor bin the trash can. 🤷🏻♀️
I wonder how many people observe this difference? I thought the words were total synonyms until I was like 25, and it blew my mind a little to realize they weren't.
@@chris7263 There's a difference, It's just not one that pops up daily, So we use them as synonyms. But- We "see" the difference when we say "Junkyard" VS "Garbage dump" for example.
Here's one that drives me nuts but probably isn't a British vs US thing: Nuclear.
I hear Nu-clear which makes sense from the spelling, but I hear a lot of people say "Nu-ku-lar". Grinds my gears every time.
Homer Simpson
“It’s pronounced ‘nu-ku-lar.’ The Q is silent.” -Peter Griffon, Family Guy
That's a 'southern accent' thing.
I used to think it was a US thing since George Bush did it, but I've heard British people doing it too recently so I think it's spread. Alas.
@@brianoneill7186 Not just a southern accent; that's how I heard and said it growing up in California in the '80s. It was actually Chekov's line about "nucleear wessels" in Star Trek IV that tipped me off to the proper pronunciation.
On a similar note, Doc Brown's pronunciation of "giga-" (jigawatts) was the more common version prior to the release of Back the Future.
And he called it alumium because it comes from alum rock. So, continually adding more and more sounds to the end to make it sound "classical" is arguably petty, as was pointed out.
I find the differences between British and American English interesting. One of my favorite differences in pronunciation is the word "vitamin". UK uses the short i, and America uses the long i. Who knows why? But it's fascinating! I certainly don't get angry, I just enjoy.
Vital Minerals - vitamins.
Wayne Brady!!!😂😂
Hello from Spring Lake Michigan! We are just north of you on the lake. Are you enjoying the snow?
I'm in western Michigan as well 🙂
We have a Spring Lake, NJ
Flint area here!
@@amymarvel5309 {waves} Hello!
Muskegon
Is anyone else old enough to remember the game "Cootie" from the 50's?
We had it in the 60s
We had it in the 90's as well...
My kids have that game. It's still around.
It's still around! I think the version my family has is either from the 90s or 2000s, I had no idea it was a game in the 50s!
I have often been amused by the vehemence of people arguing about how to say something. I salute you in your honesty and perseverance in where the words originated.
As an American I grew up with the word cooties meaning head lice. And I had to smile the moment you said eraser.
American here, and that is the first time in my 41 years I have ever heard that cooties meant head lice. Where are you from? 😂
@@adventuresinlaurenland first off I have children older than you are, second off I'm from West of the Mississippi all over.
@@chantellenew2331 sounds like a generational gap then, because I'm west coast all over and cooties are, at last check, a fictional excuse to tell someone to stay away from you.
I remember the old adage: "I pressed a kiss to her lips, what could I do but linger? As I ran my hands through her hair, a cootie bit my finger!"
@@chantellenew2331 I wasn't being rude, I found it funny...keep your panties on 😂
"Fall" for Autumn, used to be widely used in Britain. Apparently some toffs decided the French term sounded more posh, so....
Of course, the season used to be called "Harvest."
Don't know what to make of that.
I've always thought of rubbish as non-kitchen waste, and garbage as kitchen waste.
As a German who as an Austrian girlfriend (you see, again two countries divided by a common language) I can relate to some things, especially the punctuation. "!" is Ausrufezeichen (de) or Rufzeichen (at), "," is Komma (de) or Beistrich (at).
I knew a guy who consistently says "alunimum". Didn't even hear it when it was pointed out. He owned a transmission shop and, for those that don't know, most transmission housings are made from aluminum... I'm sure you can deduce where this is going. Drove me nuts.
The aluminum! 😂. When I was a teen I spent 3 weeks in London. We were a group visiting young cadets that were aspiring to be police officers. In getting to know them I explained that my family’s business was to build things from aluminum. They didn’t understand me. I said it multiple times & it wasn’t until I pointed to a soda can and said “the metal this is made of” that they finally understood.... 2 countries separated by a common language.
Angry? No. Bemused? Certainly. Thanks for brightening my day once again.
"Pastor"? That's how I say it what's wrong with.... oooooh, pasta.
And here I was scratching my head thinking when he said Pastor, it was the preacher from church!
@Gizio They do that weird long A that sounds (to my ear) indistinguishable from the way they pronounce the O in comma.
@Gizio I know, I'm from here too!
I guess you could say the Americans say "pahstah" (note the extra h).
I love your videos they are so entertaining and so fascinating better then most of the CZcams videos out there!
Aluminum/Aluminium don’t care.
Lead, though. I prefer the original “Plumbium”
Never angry, just curious and left with smiles and giggles. Thanks for the vlog, always enjoy listening/watching your channel.
As the guy who invented it called it aluminum I'm saying that's the correct spelling and pronunciation.
*alumium
He called it alumium.
Watch the video again. He "wanted to call it alumium" then published it as "ALUMINUM"
@@theprodigalstranger5259 Yeah, because he was pressured. So the guy who discovered it called it "alumium" and everyone else said "you can't call it that," so he changed the name when he published it. So if you're going with "it should be called what its discoverer called it first", then "alumium" is correct.
While I've noticed these differences, they've never made me angry. Live and let live.
I agree. Why on earth would simple word differences make people angry? I wish I didn't have anything but that to worry about. I think some of the things said in Britain are odd, but can't say it makes me mad. Until I watched this I never had a clue that the dot at the end of a sentence was called anything but a period. You live, you learn.
You're only as big as what can make you mad. If I have a problem it's my problem, right?😉🥴😖🙂🙃🤣
Yes, it's really strange. I mean, we don't generally have a problem with the Germans using different words for things, or the Greeks, or the Spanish - so why fret about the Americans doing so?
I don't get angry at differences, but I get annoyed at those who do.
@@craftsmanwoodturner Because Americans adopted English as their language and then made a pig's breakfast out of it, that's why. Just joking! (although completely true)
So glad you covered Aluminum and Soccer; those are my pet peeves.
I love learning about the origins of words. Great episode.
How about calling it Aluminumium and get everyone angry.
Hahaha, it's also bleddy difficult to say the first few times, but funny. hahaha.
Say that three times fast, and you'll sprain something.
Is that like cimmanim toast?
When I was a kid in New England, USA, decades ago, we had two kinds of trash. Garbage was what we called the kitchen waste, and it went into a concrete bin buried in the yard with a heavy metal lid that latched so wildlife wouldn't get into it. The non-kitchen waste was rubbish and it went into normal trash cans. Then we moved to the mid-Atlantic and garbage did not get picked up separate from the rest of the trash. Since then, I'd never heard the terms garbage and rubbish used to differentiate between two different types of waste. Till this video, that is.
Yes! I grew up in a northern suburb in Greater Boston, and we had a half buried barrel near our barn for garbage (our house was an old farm), but most of the neighbors had that buried garbage pail-usually installed between the driveway and front door, or near a garage door-with the heavy iron lid with an equally heavy bevel, both with foot pedals to provide leverage to lift them to remove the liner bucket, and the smaller lid so that you could throw stuff into it. The Town contracted for two pickups -garbage, which was exclusively food waste (including eggshells, banana peels, and coffee grounds, etc) what you'd throw in the barrel or in-ground pail (the garbage was then composted or sold to the local farms for pig slop), and regular rubbish, which was everything else. Later they added recycling, but stopped garbage collection. Trash was the umbrella term and the types (garbage, rubbish, and recycling) were the specific terms. You can read old articles and minutes from old Town Meeting warrants in many towns in the area that refer to the separate contracts for garbage and rubbish, using those specific terms.
On punctuation: seems of late that so many don't even use it! It's a paragraph long run-on sentence. Makes me wonder if they slept through that class or skipped.☺️
They're typing that ridiculously long sentence while they're *in* class!
They're classicists taking a cue from ancient Greek.
Another symptom of the decline of the education system. Imagine a college graduate needing a software program to correct their grammar, insert punctuation, etc. And the difference between their, there and they're.
@@brown-eyedman4040 or to, two and too. I realize though that that one can be the flipping autocorrect.
My husband is the king of run-on sentences. Drives. Me. CRAZY! Seriously? Throw some transitional words or clauses in there, jeez! It always makes me think of Schoolhouse Rocks’ 🎶”Conjunction junction, what’s your function? Hookin-up words and phrases and clauses!”🎶
Brother you are awesome, love your videos, and thanks for the laughs.
So much fun, Laurence, thank you for the effort you put into your videos! I especially appreciate your coming to our (American) defense about 'football'. I recently listened to Jeremy Clarkson bang on about American football, mocking not only our use of the word but also the American football game itself.
Mainly clicked this one to see if you included "Soccer".
Kudos!
I recently discovered your channel, and have been binge watching for the last couple of weeks. I'm completely enjoying not only learning about your country, but also my own. Reading the Comments is every bit as fun as watching. So I just want to say a friendly hello from NE Texas. I look forward to the next video :)
Well howdy fellow Texan! From the DFW area.
@@DonP_is_lostagain I have family in that area! I'm in a little town called Paris.
@@jdeeann I know Paris! It's not that far away. Hope y'all are keeping warm!
@@DonP_is_lostagain as warm as is possible. Hope y'all are too. I saw that horrible pile up accident on the news. Be careful out there.
@@DonP_is_lostagain I don't mean to inject myself into the conversation, but I find it amusing how if you get two Texans together -- even across the vast internet -- you will inevitably experience a "y'all" 😁
i find your content to be nourishing and delicious.
The complexities of our language are delightful. Thank you Lawrence!:-) 🖖
I absolutely love your humor Laurence!
How about the pronunciation of the word "schedule"? American's pronounce it with a hard 'ch' like skedule. When I hear that I ask, where did you learn to pronounce it that way, in shool?
Many instances of "ch", as well as "ph" and "th", in English words are really Latinized forms of aspirated Greek consonants leftover in the language from its transmission from Greek to Latin to English, through French primarily. The first letter represents the consonant and the "h" represents the aspiration. So, "c" represents the Greek letter kappa. (By the way, "c" is always pronounced hard in Latin, like "k", and hence the Latin writers transliterated kappa as "c".) The "h" represents the fact that the kappa is aspirated. An aspirated kappa was written in Greek as the letter chi. Pronounced, it would start with the hard k and soften into a rough, deep "h" sound. The Latins did not have any letters corresponding to aspirated Greek letters, like chi, theta, and phi, and so they just added "h"s to indicate the Greek aspiration.
So, the American pronunciation is far closer to the original Greek and Latin pronunciations. I have no idea where the British got the idea to soften "ch". It was probably born in some pompous British public school, where the little snots decided to adopt new ways of pronouncing things to distinguish themselves from the British rabble.
@@ClockCutter I think Bill Bryson wrote a book about how Americans use a lot of Olde English pronunciations which the British though odd when they visited the colonies years later. Lacking communication we kept a lot of the old styles while England being much smaller and more interactive moved on.
"Proper Canadian" isn't as prominent an accent across the country as it used to be, though some still have it strong. It sounds like flattened British with similar pronunciations. Best example is the host of CBC Radio's Saturday Night Blues show.
yes? skedule, skool, what's the issue?
@@ClockCutter English is derived from German, which pronounces 'sch' as 'sh'.
I was born and raised in Massachusetts. In our house we used both words rubbish and garbage because when I was young we had 2 collection days.. in my neighborhood Wednesday was garbage collection ( for mostly kitchen waste) and Friday was for rubbish ( cans cardboard paper etc...) . So to this day I use both words interchangeably for all household waste. Although I now have a garbage disposer..
In the 1960's and '70's in the southern US, we always used "trash" for waste that could sit around for a long time and not get smelly and garbage for stuff which got smelly with in a few days, such as kitchen waste. This may be true to this day in most parts of the States.
"Here's th kicker" pun 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
And you are always very interesting! I LOVE YOU
You're mention of Wayne Brady confused me so much. I was going "What does the Whose Line star have to do with football?"
"There’s only one thing I hate more than lying, skimmed milk. Which is water, that’s lying about being milk." - Ron Swanson
Ron would be appalled at you calling it "skimmed milk."
@@timg2727yes I am
I no longer know what to call the containers I use to take trash, garbage, waste, WHATEVER, to the curb. Are they still cans if they are plastic ? or bins if they are taller than they are wide ?
The US also has brackets, they are more angular than perenferences.............& easier to spell.
They’re a bin if they’re on wheels and made of heavy plastic. If they’re metal they’re a can.
@@christelheadington1136 Do you mean parentheses? Please check your spelling before you post. Brackets and parentheses have different meanings and uses.
@@cecilyerker but what about "SKIPS"
Glad you're back. Hope you're well.
Ha! " CZcams Sensation!" Great way to start your vid! Laughed out loud
Whenever I hear, "full stop," I think someone is pretentiously trying to be British. Period!
My British boss used the term full stop and I am embarrassed to say I had to look it up....I didn't know what it meant! haha!
I've only heard "full stop" in reference to when it is safe to leave a roller coaster.
Full stop is only applicable if you are sending a telegram
Whenever I hear "full stop" I think of a submarine commander giving orders.
Gobsmacked is another word anglophiles love to use
I'm dying "football boots" is so funny to me for some reason. Like they aren't even boots though? Guys?
They used to be, heavy stiff leather with laces, and screw in studs on the bottom for grip. Put me right off playing proper football when I was nine. In England soccer was never a girl's game. Until about 25 years ago.
This was very educational, Thank you!
Laurence, you are brilliant! Thank you for the clarifications.