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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Minus 32 degrees Celsius!

    I can't even begin to imagine that.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Gracious Rebel - no idea about the availability of induction stove tops in the US. They are readily available here but friends who have them advised against them (they bought having succumbed to advertising material).
  • I have an induction stove and love it. It is second one as we moved. They are readily available in US. I love the easy clean up and find it simple to use after a few days.
  • I have an induction stove and love it. It is second one as we moved. They are readily available in US. I love the easy clean up and find it simple to use after a few days.

    It's a bugger for erroring whenever you spill water over the controls, which I do a lot.
  • edited December 2019
    Bad design puts controls at the front of the range. The idea was to set up a barrier at the front. I like the controls where spillage isn't a problem.
    Minus 32 degrees Celsius!

    I can't even begin to imagine that.

    -32°C is cold but not bad. There's a line at about -40 where it really stings to touch things metal. It is usually still, no wind, and moisture in the air begins to crystallize in the sunshine. At night many stars and the northern lights. Humans adapt to any thing. You have to shift bicycle gears slowly. Things behave differently. Cars get plugged in: electric heater for the engine block. Booster cables ubiquitous for helping frozen car people. Such things put everyone on first names and break down barriers between people from all walks and stations in life. Cold weather is probably the biggest influence on culture and being informal with each other here.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    mousethief wrote: »
    That's the best combination in my opinion.
    It's the one preferred by Julia Child. I find that even I prefer it, and I'm no Julia Child.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    That's the best combination in my opinion.
    It's the one preferred by Julia Child. I find that even I prefer it, and I'm no Julia Child.

    Are you a Beck or Bertholle?
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited December 2019
    "Hob" also means hobgoblin.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    "Hob" also means hobgoblin.

    Best ale on earth!
    :smile:
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Gee D wrote: »
    Gracious Rebel - no idea about the availability of induction stove tops in the US. They are readily available here but friends who have them advised against them (they bought having succumbed to advertising material).

    Stayed in a holiday let in Scotland once which had one - but no instructions. I worked out how to switch it on, but then it would just flash 'F' endlessly. I could indeed think of a word beginning in F but that seemed not to help. Eventually a helpful neighbour decoded it as 'Ferrous'. However, none of the pots and pans were accepted as such - bar one Le Creuset oven dish.

    OTOH, a gîte we took in France had one which was a) simpler and b) came with the proper cookware.

    But nevertheless, in the absence of a gas hob, I'd rather cook over an open fire tbh.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Cooking over an open fire is great (I'm going to this evening) but you need an alternative, at least here. We've had many days recently with a total fire ban, and that includes bbq fires, fuel stoves etc. Even a gas bbq can only be used with great precautions.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Sometimes, US ovens are built into a wall. You don't have to bend over to use them, 'cause they're roughly at chest height. Very nice.
  • We don't say hob or stove top, but rather the common term here is hotplates.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    That brings to mind a whole bygone era (possibly the 60s) of hotplates, hostess trolleys and fondues.

    We had a cookbook once in which all the recipes were food you cooked at table (probably in a cocktail dress and bouffant hairstyle). There was a lot of flambéeing involved as I recall.
  • hostess trolleys

    Had to look this one up. I guess you mean a buffet cart--some of them have warming elements.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    That brings to mind a whole bygone era (possibly the 60s) of hotplates, hostess trolleys and fondues.

    We had a cookbook once in which all the recipes were food you cooked at table (probably in a cocktail dress and bouffant hairstyle). There was a lot of flambéeing involved as I recall.
    Please don't forget your pearl necklace.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Yes (though I had to look up buffet cart). Although in UK usage a hostess trolley would be strictly for domestic rather than commercial use.

    Incidentally ‘cart’ is another difference in usage. In the UK a cart would be something large of the kind that you should remember to put behind rather than before the horse. (Even the traditional means of getting to hell -the handcart - tends to be a larger outdoor item.)

    Smaller things for your shopping, desserts in a restaurant, golf clubs*, sacks etc. tend to be trolleys.

    (*Unless it is big enough to ride on in which case it is a buggy.)
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I was thinking about 'buggy' the other day, and how it has morphed from small horse-drawn vehicle* to being either beach, golf or baby - with, I think, the last usage becoming dominant.

    Which also made me think of the demise of prams.

    *though I think in Ireland/Britain it would have been a trap. But there's a whole vehicle vocabulary that has disappeared. Who now would be impressed by a barouche-landau?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    You show me yours… :wink:




  • Firenze wrote: »
    I was thinking about 'buggy' the other day, and how it has morphed from small horse-drawn vehicle* to being either beach, golf or baby - with, I think, the last usage becoming dominant.

    Which also made me think of the demise of prams.

    *though I think in Ireland/Britain it would have been a trap. But there's a whole vehicle vocabulary that has disappeared. Who now would be impressed by a barouche-landau?

    Speaking of disappearing language. In some parts of Ireland they have jarveys. And across Britain dog-cart was used a lot. You still get a few Brougham Streets here and there, too!
  • Pull cart for golf clubs. You walk and pull by a handle.

    A hotplate is a small plug in appliance with 2 electric burners.

    "Let" isn't a noun. We're more specific with what's being rented: rental cabin, renting a condo. Cabins are never cottages in western Canada and are universally beside a lake or in a wilderness area. Condos are units owned in a multiunit building. "We rented a condo to go skiing in the mountains." is a typical way of saying things.

    We say "zoning permission" in place of "planning permission". Mostly you cannot legally rent a cabin or condo out as owners because zoning will say it's not a commercial development. Thus people rent out illegal rentals.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Sometimes, US ovens are built into a wall. You don't have to bend over to use them, 'cause they're roughly at chest height. Very nice.

    That was very fashionable here from the early-60's to mid-80's. The Sydney part of the movement started with the now-defunct building firm of Pettit and Sevitt, well known as a major contributor to the expansion of the suburb of St Ives. The houses were well designed and well built.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Something I hate is "new build" rather than "new building". My hatred is influenced by the first person I heard using the phrase, who was a hypocritical bully. Yes, I'm that shallow.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    Gee D wrote: »
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    That's the best combination in my opinion.
    It's the one preferred by Julia Child. I find that even I prefer it, and I'm no Julia Child.

    Are you a Beck or Bertholle?
    Alas, no. But I was a pretty good cook when motivated and when I had the time.
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Sometimes, US ovens are built into a wall. You don't have to bend over to use them, 'cause they're roughly at chest height. Very nice.
    Yes, they are, but they're pretty hard to find, compared to an ordinary oven/range. (I replaced mine a few months ago, so I know whereof I write.)

  • Firenze wrote: »
    Who now would be impressed by a barouche-landau?
    Most people because there's no such thing!

    A barouche only has a hood - usually collapsible - over the rear part because the coachman's seat is at the front end. A barouche was the model for the earliest types of perambulator.

    A landau has passenger seats at either end, a separate seat for the coachman on the exterior of the front end of the carriage, and collapsible hoods over front and rear. When HMQ attends Royal Ascot she and the rest of her party drive down the course in a series of landaus.
  • From PublicationCoach.com
    A barouche-landau is mentioned in Jane Austen’s 1816 novel Emma, as something combining “the best features of a barouche and a landau.”

    The vehicle was fashionable throughout the 19th century. It provides seats for four passengers, two of them sitting behind the coachman’s high box-seat. A leather roof can be raised to give back-seat passengers some protection from the weather.

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Apparently a barouche landau is a thing. A little internet searching throws up the fact that it is described in Jane Austen’s Emma (1816) as something combining “the best features of a barouche and a landau.”
  • Ford Automobile had a huge car they called a Landau. Picture here.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited December 2019
    Unless by some chance the joke was that such a thing did not really exist, and Emma’s nemesis was being subtly mocked by her constant harping on the (non)thingie?
  • Unless by some chance the joke was that such a thing did not really exist, and Emma’s nemesis was being subtly mocked by her constant harping on the (non)thingie?

    Wikipedia seems to think it existed through most of the 19th century. I know they're not perfect but I doubt they would extrapolate a whole century from one line in Emma.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    JA is letting you know just how much of a socially-insecure parvenu Mrs Elton is.

    You can amuse yourself by thinking of what vehicle she would drag into conversation nowadays.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Yes. Try telling Mrs Elton they don't exist!
  • Firenze wrote: »
    JA is letting you know just how much of a socially-insecure parvenu Mrs Elton is.

    You can amuse yourself by thinking of what vehicle she would drag into conversation nowadays.

    A Rover 800, for my money, along these lines.
  • Off topic, butI thought if you're interested in language this may appeal:
    Residents of an overwintering station in Antarctica provided linguists with evidence of the first small changes in speech that may signal the development of a new accent.

    ...

    And even during their short time in Antarctica, the way the winterers produced certain vowels began to converge, averaging out the resonances. ...
  • Not surprising. The longer you stay in an isolated culture, the more pronounced that accent will become.
  • I find it difficult to come to terms with the way different groups of people greet each other at Christmas. I grew up with saying Happy Christmas as I had English parents. However, in Australia most people say Merry Christmas. Our friends in the USA say Happy Holidays which seems really strange to me as holidays to me are taking time off work any time of the year and going away for what the Americans call a vacation. The strangest expression though I ever heard was from my late Mother in law who always said Compliments of the Season. That always seemed like something the business manager would write in a message to his clients.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited December 2019
    I think "Compliments of the season" is an old greeting, maybe from around Dickens' time.

    ETA: "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" in the US is complicated. HH is partly to accommodate non-Christians and anyone who doesn't celebrate any kind of Christmas. Also to include New Year's, Hanukkah, Solstice, etc. Some people consider that part of "the war on Christmas".
  • UrfshyneUrfshyne Shipmate Posts: 18
    May I wish Condiments of the Seasoning to all?
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    I think "Compliments of the season" is an old greeting, maybe from around Dickens' time.

    ETA: "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" in the US is complicated. HH is partly to accommodate non-Christians and anyone who doesn't celebrate any kind of Christmas. Also to include New Year's, Hanukkah, Solstice, etc. Some people consider that part of "the war on Christmas".
    Yes, but “Happy Holidays” does predate the so-called war on Christmas, going back at least to 1942 and the Irving Berlin song of the same name from the movie “Holiday Inn.”

    But yes, I think it cake yo be viewed as useful as encompassing Christmas or Hanukkah, as well as New Year’s, which pretty much everyone (well, except maybe JWs) observes. Then as observance of Kwanza, Solstice, etc. became more common, it continued to be useful.

    In the American South, though, I still hear it much less often than Merry Christmas, except in contexts where you know a group comprises people who celebrate different holidays, or maybe speaking to a stranger.

    On the other hand, calling the season “the holidays”—as in “what are your plans for the holidays?” or “Oh, There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays”—is very common.

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    "The holidays" is the period when work grinds to an end for everyone except retail workers, restaurant workers, delivery folk of varying descriptions, entertainers, and journalists.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    And clergy :neutral:
  • And church musicians.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    And clergy :neutral:

    Especially in a year (such s this) when Christmas Day falls on a weekday. That means they have to work two days in the same week.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    As a church musician and sometime preacher (I used to be given Advent IV AND Christmas Day on a regular basis), I'm now wondering how I left out those categories. It must be chemo brain! ;-)
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Urfshyne wrote: »
    May I wish Condiments of the Seasoning to all?

    :wink:
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Rossweisse, I suspect you'd make an interesting preacher! ;)
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    "Interesting" is such a useful word. But yeah, I did a decent job. This morning, I was reflecting on a sermon I did a few years ago on Advent IV. At that time I was the only woman on the regular preaching rota who had ever been pregnant, and I started out talking about Mary's journey to Nazareth: how she must have been in that I-want-my-body-back stage, riding on a donkey while nine months pregnant in that rough country. (The female parishioners were enthusiastic; the men were...quiet.)
  • Gee D wrote: »
    BroJames wrote: »
    And clergy :neutral:

    Especially in a year (such s this) when Christmas Day falls on a weekday. That means they have to work two days in the same week.

    Actually this year my work schedule has/ will run as follows:
    13th Rehearsal in evening
    14th Rehearsal in afternoon, concert in evening
    15th Service in morning, concert in afternoon,service (covering for another organist) in evening
    16th Carol Service afternoon
    17th Rehearsal afternoon, concert in evening
    18th Funeral morning, evening concert
    19th Carol Concert evening
    20th Memorial Service morning, rehearsal evening
    21st Rehearsal afternoon
    22nd Services morning and evening
    23rd Funerals (2)
    24th Service evening
    25th Services (s) in morning

    Some of those are "extras" because I'm covering for a colleague with 'flu but even so, its 13 days on the bounce. None of the clergy at the services involved, or school music teachers, will have done half as much.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    But you're not clergy, the class about whom I posted.
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