Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    fineline wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    Though there has apparently been an attempt to get rid of the term, and I believe it's not used as much as it used to be.

    Domestic violence is, IMO, less of a joking matter now than it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago, comedians still joked about it - I don't think that happens much these days. 20 years ago, I used to hear groups of lads out on the piss ordering six pints of wife-beater with a bit of a smirk, as if the idea of getting drunk and slapping your woman around was funny.

    The attempts to stop the term being used for Stella Artois were not, however, motivated by concern for women, but by a desire to improve the beer's reputation.

    Yes, Stella had suffered from the Burberry effect, that is, dragged down market, when the company wanted a more upmarket image. At one point, every scally in London seemed to be wearing Burberry scarves, etc., but not now.

    Making it taste better might help.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Firenze wrote: »
    Cutlery, whether silver or plate, is what you use to eat your meal. Silverware is things like platters, chargers, salvers, salts, etc.

    And epergne of course. Never sit down to a meal without one.
    I was very surprised to find my wife had never heard of an ashet, a very familiar term from my own upbringing - but quite niche in England, I think.
  • fineline wrote: »
    Cutlery, whether silver or plate, is what you use to eat your meal. Silverware is things like platters, chargers, salvers, salts, etc.

    In which country?

    UK. That's why commentators refer to things like sporting trophies as "silverware".
    Firenze wrote: »
    And epergne of course. Never sit down to a meal without one.

    Really? To my mind, unless you have a very wide table they fall into the category of "clutter", plus many are hideous and hard to clean. A low bowl is much better for a few flowers.
    BroJames wrote: »
    I was very surprised to find my wife had never heard of an ashet, a very familiar term from my own upbringing - but quite niche in England, I think.
    Another leftover from the Auld Alliance, I think?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Firenze wrote: »
    And epergne of course. Never sit down to a meal without one.

    Really? To my mind, unless you have a very wide table they fall into the category of "clutter", plus many are hideous and hard to clean. A low bowl is much better for a few flowers.

    Yes, but where are you going to put the candied fruits and suchets?

  • You wouldn't want to put candied fruits in silverware, really not good for the silver and the fruits might not taste so great. It would be better by far to use glass, maybe a Lalique bowl?

    I would say cutlery for knives, forks and the rest of the eating irons, the silver set being kept in their own baize-lined canteen; pots and pans for the cooking containers and silverware for the silver that needs all the cleaning. Crockery conjures up jumble sale or charity shop piles of china and earthenware or the broken crocks used at the bottom of plant pots.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    All of this reminds me, can anyone recommend a good boot boy? My present one keeps leaving smears on the silver, so I must replace him. For some reason Amazon don't supply domestic.
  • You wear silver boots?
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Mine is a modest establishment. The boot boy cleans the silver as well. One does not wish to be ostentatious.
  • Ah!
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    I have to admit I've never heard of an ashet either. Looking it up, it appears to be what I'd call a charger.

    On 'silverware' I wonder if it's an instance of a word that has expanded its meaning to become something more general on one side of the Atlantic than the other. Another example is 'ship' as a verb. It was quite odd to discover when sales over the web began to became more widespread that 'shipping this week' didn't have any specific connection with despatching by sea. From outside, 'ship' in the US appears to have expanded to mean 'despatch' rather than 'send by boat'. So presumably, things can be shipped by air, by lorry, by train or overland.

    I think over here, the meaning of 'silverware' is still controlled by the 'silver' ingredient. So it has to be describing things that are either made of silver or at least would like you to think are pretending to be.

    I'm sure there'll be examples the other way round, but it's much easier to notice when somebody else is using a word outside the sense one understands by it, than when oneself is.

  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    The O.E.D. suggests indeed that the word 'buoy' may come from Spanish 'boya' or Italian 'boa' or French 'bouée' but that all these come from Old High German 'bouhhan' which had the meaning of modern English 'beacon' (Modern German obviously taken from Spanish or French is Boje and Dutch is 'lichtboei'
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Anything for eating/drinking from that is earthenware, but not china, is delf* where I grew up.

    *Definitely 'delf' and not 'delft'.
    You wouldn't want to put candied fruits in silverware, really not good for the silver and the fruits might not taste so good.

    It's alright: they're nestling on beds of tender beech leaves freshly picked from the avenue of trees planted to mark the visit of Elizabeth I.

  • I would call an ashet a platter - I have a large collection of Wedgewood Stonehenge ones which I use all the time and they make great Christmas dinner plates too.
    I must admit to having never heard of an epergne before and now wonder how I had missed such an opportunity to irritate my husband’s sensibilities.
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    ' ashet' is, or certainly was, a fairly common word in Scotland, obviously coming from 'assiette' but the two words no longer have exactly the same meaning.
  • PigwidgeonPigwidgeon Shipmate
    I've heard the term "asshat" used on the Ship and elsewhere -- perhaps just a spelling variation?
    :wink:
  • BroJames wrote: »
    I was very surprised to find my wife had never heard of an ashet, a very familiar term from my own upbringing - but quite niche in England, I think.

    Thanks for bringing up ashet. It's a word that my grandmother would use often, but I haven't heard in a while. So hearing it brings back fond memories.
  • Mine is a modest establishment. The boot boy cleans the silver as well. One does not wish to be ostentatious.
    My younger son once played an Edwardian hall boy during a World War One re-enactment at a Tudor manor. The butler made him polish the silver and he hated it, it was a tedious and hard task (it was far more fun the time he played the Tudor tramp’s boy and tried to crawl through the manor windows to steal things).
  • Firenze wrote: »
    You wouldn't want to put candied fruits in silverware, really not good for the silver and the fruits might not taste so good.

    It's alright: they're nestling on beds of tender beech leaves freshly picked from the avenue of trees planted to mark the visit of Elizabeth I.
    I suspect you've been sold a pup with the beech trees, 150-200 years is their expected longevity, so planted in the time of one of the Georges at a pinch, Victoria more likely. (They are currently coming down like nine pins locally whenever there's any wind at all, and they aren't that old.) If you're using leaves from trees planted in the time of Elizabeth I you're either trying to poison your guests with oak or yew, or mistaking sweet chestnut or most likely walnut tree leaves for beech, although walnut trees rarely live to 400 years.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Lyda wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    As I understand it a tank top is equivalent to a British "vest". An undergarment with oval neck-hole and sculpted armholes -- ends in straps, so to speak. A wife beater is like a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. A crew neck, and shoulders completely covered.

    Hm. That sounds like what we used to call "muscle shirts". Like this http://starteeapparel.com/2150-mens-cotton-muscle-tee/

    Yeah, that's a wife-beater.
    FWIW, that would not be a wife-beater here. As used here, a wife-beater has narrower straps at the shoulder, like this.

    I would call that a tank top.
    So would I. I generally don’t use “wife beater.” But what I’m saying is that here, a “wife beater” is applied to a white tank top that might be worn as an undershirt. Part of the implication of saying someone is wearing a “wife beater” is saying that he is just wearing underwear. As used here, using “wife beater” is as much a comment about the man wearing the shirt—that he lacks class or is uncouth—as it is about the shirt.

  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    I've heard the term "asshat" used on the Ship and elsewhere -- perhaps just a spelling variation?
    :wink:

    Not worthy!
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Mine is a modest establishment. The boot boy cleans the silver as well. One does not wish to be ostentatious.

    My younger son once played an Edwardian hall boy during a World War One re-enactment at a Tudor manor. The butler made him polish the silver and he hated it, it was a tedious and hard task (it was far more fun the time he played the Tudor tramp’s boy and tried to crawl through the manor windows to steal things).
    Sadly, the family had come down in the world. Things were not as they were. To put it bluntly, they were poor. The father was poor. The mother was poor. The children were poor. The grandmother was poor. The governess was poor. The butler was poor. The cook was poor. The footmen were poor. The housemaids were poor. The kitchen maids were poor. The groom was poor. The gardener was poor. Even the stable boy and the boot boy were poor.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Firenze wrote: »
    You wouldn't want to put candied fruits in silverware, really not good for the silver and the fruits might not taste so good.

    It's alright: they're nestling on beds of tender beech leaves freshly picked from the avenue of trees planted to mark the visit of Elizabeth I.
    I suspect you've been sold a pup with the beech trees, 150-200 years is their expected longevity, so planted in the time of one of the Georges at a pinch, Victoria more likely. (They are currently coming down like nine pins locally whenever there's any wind at all, and they aren't that old.) If you're using leaves from trees planted in the time of Elizabeth I you're either trying to poison your guests with oak or yew, or mistaking sweet chestnut or most likely walnut tree leaves for beech, although walnut trees rarely live to 400 years.

    The trees have of course been refreshed (Like the 50 year old cricket bat which had 3 new handles and 2 new blades) but it's still the avenue planted for Good Queen Bess.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    @Enoch, are you Enid Blyton?
  • Graven ImageGraven Image Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    Growing up Southern USA the silverware is what one uses to eat with at the table, no matter what it is made of. On the other hand the good silver is the sterling stuff most often saved for special company and holidays. The Silver was everything else, punch bowels, vases and such. At this point in the Image household the silverware is stainless steel and is used for all occasions, and the silver is one sterling silver toast holder we received as a wedding gift and I use to hold the mail, and never polish.
  • I hope no-one thought I was being unduly dismissive when I mentioned my brief experience of Saskatoon -- when visiting a country the size of Canada you can't see everywhere properly. (And I saw enough of Saskatchewan in passing to know that it's not just flat wheatfields as the less knowledgeable might imagine the Prairies to be).

    Back on topic, I've noticed some linguistic differences when talking with my cousin's other half, who is French-Canadian but grew up partly in Ontario and speaks fluent (and as far as I can tell normal-accented) Canadian English. The differing meanings of 'corn' have probably already been mentioned on this thread, and I probably knew about them anyway, but I hadn't previously come across 'siding' as part of a building (I gather that it means something like 'cladding' or 'weatherboarding'), only as in 'railway siding' (which I think is also used in North America but with a range of meaning that only partly overlaps with how it's used here). And does 'yacht' in North America usually refer to the kind of vessel used by Russian oligarchs? Here it can have those connotations, but more commonly it can refer to almost any recreational sailing boat big enough to have a cabin.

    I don't remember noticing such things with my British-born Canadian relatives; living in Quebec they talk about things like autoroutes (motorways) and dépanneurs (convenience stores or corner shops), but the first of these is obvious if you know a little French, and the latter is non-English enough that it was explained to me the first time one of them used it.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    The differing meanings of 'corn' have probably already been mentioned on this thread, and I probably knew about them anyway, but I hadn't previously come across 'siding' as part of a building (I gather that it means something like 'cladding' or 'weatherboarding'), only as in 'railway siding' (which I think is also used in North America but with a range of meaning that only partly overlaps with how it's used here).
    As used here (American South), “siding” means the material used for the exterior of buildings—so the siding might be wood, vinyl, aluminum, etc. Weatherboarding, board-and-batten, etc., would refer to the style of the siding.

    I’m not familiar with railway siding.

    And does 'yacht' in North America usually refer to the kind of vessel used by Russian oligarchs? Here it can have those connotations, but more commonly it can refer to almost any recreational sailing boat big enough to have a cabin.
    Maybe not as far as Russian oligarchs, but yacht here definitely implies large size and luxury.

  • That's a gin palace (the large yacht of an oligarch or the like)
  • edited May 2020
    Siding is indeed two things. It's a railway track that allows a train or some cars to be shunted aside on for another to pass, or to store rail cars to be filled, say with wheat or lentils. Siding is also cladding on the outside of house. Usually with an additional layer of styrofoam insulation under it and house wrap to increase the warmth in cold climates.

    Which leads me to quonset. Which is a metal building to store very large things, or perhaps an arena (ice surface to play hockeyon) semicicular. Looks like this: https://www.quonset.ca/
    Never said with the word "hut" attached.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Up thread someone asked how one could eat soap with a flat spoon. I immediately thought of the tiny flat wooden spoons one would get when eating a small plastic cup of Dixie Ice Cream. An example: https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/bj2k5k/ice_cream_cup_with_the_wooden_paddle_spoon/
  • The5thMaryThe5thMary Shipmate
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but why do Americans pronounce CARAMEL as CARMEL? Other English speaking countries say CAR-A-MEL. This just doesn't make sense to me.

    I have NEVER pronounced caramel as carmel and I am an American. I get mad when I hear other of my countrymen/women saying that and have been known to get in arguments about it.

    Yeah, I'm one of those "Grammar/Spelling Police"
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Siding is indeed two things. It's a railway track that allows a train or some cars to be shunted aside on for another to pass, or to store rail cars to be filled, say with wheat or lentils. Siding is also cladding on the outside of house. Usually with an additional layer of styrofoam insulation under it and house wrap to increase the warmth in cold climates.

    Which leads me to quonset. Which is a metal building to store very large things, or perhaps an arena (ice surface to play hockeyon) semicicular. Looks like this: https://www.quonset.ca/
    Never said with the word "hut" attached.

    The use of siding is much the same here, save that these days the word "cladding" is more often used for sheets on the outside of houses. Siding in that sense has fallen out of favour.

    I don't know when I last heard quonset used, but it would have been a reference to a hut as you describe in Arctic or Antarctic regions, and with the hut added.
  • MMMMMM Shipmate
    Curiosity Killed, I’ve never heard of a yacht of any size being called a gin palace.

    A gin palace to me is a rowdy uncouth Victorian or pre-Victorian pub. Presumably from the 18th century, before the Gin Act.

    MMM
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    That's a gin palace (the large yacht of an oligarch or the like)

    'If Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against hunger, filth, and foul air, or could establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of bottles of Lethe- water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things that were.' Sketches by Boz 1835.

    Was Dickens the first to coin the expression?
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Up thread someone asked how one could eat soap with a flat spoon.

    I don't think any of us would like to eat SOAP at all with any shape of spoon!😃

  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    You would be foaming at the mouth if you did.
  • I did double-check to see if "gin palace" to name overblown oligarch yachts wasn't an esoteric home use before I posted it: a Google of "gin palace + yacht" pulled up scads of images of the kind of unstable monstrosity mentally conjured up. I hung about in boats a lot when I was younger and heard several scathing comments about gin palaces, often in response to their arrival in the harbour where we were at the time. They are a completely different shape to the ocean racing yachts that are more to my taste.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I'm sure that's what a gin palace is now, I'm just wondering how it migrated from the London slums to Monte Carlo (or similar). I suspect the common theme is gaudy opulence underpinned by moral murkiness all floating on human misery.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    'Gin palace' is definitely here a slightly (but not very) old fashioned term for a flash pub. Using it to describe a boat would be a live metaphor likening it to a floating version of the original.

    À propos of nothing in particular, my family, who liked a drink, were quite scathing and looked down on people who kitted out their sitting rooms to look like a cocktail bar, with a little domestic bar, kept their drinks on shelves behind it and drank them sitting on stools at it. I assume such a boat would contain one.


    Never heard of a quonset and I think the only other term for cladding I know is 'weather-boarding'. It's usually lapped like a roof so that the rain runs off each piece. Sidings are only found here on railways., though the term is available for use as a metaphor.

  • Firenze wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    And epergne of course. Never sit down to a meal without one.

    Really? To my mind, unless you have a very wide table they fall into the category of "clutter", plus many are hideous and hard to clean. A low bowl is much better for a few flowers.

    Yes, but where are you going to put the candied fruits and suchets?
    You obviously keep a far more lavish establishment than me.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    We've had this on another thread - that should be "establishment than I."
  • According to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, than6, you're assuming an ellipsis of than I (keep) but you can use than me without that assumed ellipsis. It depends on whether there would be ambiguity in the sentence. The example given in Fowler is You treat her worse than I means something other than You treat here worse than me
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    Enoch, you've obviously never heard 'Get Your Gin Palace Orf My Mooring' bawled across a quiet harbour.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    According to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, than6, you're assuming an ellipsis of than I (keep) but you can use than me without that assumed ellipsis. It depends on whether there would be ambiguity in the sentence. The example given in Fowler is You treat her worse than I means something other than You treat here worse than me

    Yes, totally agree with your last sentence. I started to give that sort of example, but could not quickly think of one as neat. Far from sure about the conclusion Fowler reaches - it records much public usage but does that make it correct? Possibly, to some.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    According to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, than6, you're assuming an ellipsis of than I (keep) but you can use than me without that assumed ellipsis. It depends on whether there would be ambiguity in the sentence. The example given in Fowler is You treat her worse than I means something other than You treat here worse than me

    Yes, totally agree with your last sentence. I started to give that sort of example, but could not quickly think of one as neat. Far from sure about the conclusion Fowler reaches - it records much public usage but does that make it correct? Possibly, to some.

    Well, if you disregard usage, how do you establish correctness? There are a few alternatives, e.g., what my mother/teacher taught me, what's in the dictionary, or grammar book, my local dialect, snobbery. But they all seem to founder, since usage in the long run conquers.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    How does a quonset relate to a Nissen Hut?
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Maybe not as far as Russian oligarchs, but yacht here definitely implies large size and luxury.

    Come to think of it, a motor yacht would probably be quite large and expensive -- if smaller it would be a motor cruiser -- but 'yacht' on its own in the UK more commonly refers to a sailing vessel, which as I say needn't be all that big.
    Siding is indeed two things. It's a railway track that allows a train or some cars to be shunted aside on for another to pass, or to store rail cars to be filled, say with wheat or lentils....

    Here a railway siding is a subsidiary track for parking trains or loading/unloading freight; commonly it would be a dead end (one accessible for trains at both ends would often be called a loop), although you might refer to sidings in the plural without assuming them all to be dead ends. A track provided for trains in opposite directions to pass each other on an otherwise single-track route is a passing loop, accessible at both ends; if it was single-ended, so trains had to reverse either in or out, it would be a passing siding, but such an arrangement would be very unusual here.

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Penny S wrote: »
    How does a quonset relate to a Nissen Hut?
    According to Wikipedia Quonsets were derived from the design of the Nissen Hut, and take the name
    from the site of their first manufacture at Quonset Point at the Davisville Naval Construction Battalion Center in Davisville, Rhode Island
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Which leads me to quonset. <snip> Never said with the word "hut" attached.

    That is surprising! Here it is always said with the word "hut" attached, so that it is pronounced as one word: "kwonsetutt" for Quonset hut.

  • Nissen huts are incredibly versatile and long-lived - much of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital is still accommodated in some put up by Luftwaffe PoWs and the famous Italian Chapel on Orkney is a nissen hut.
  • Siding made of wood boards which are over lapped. We call this ship lapped wooden siding. If it's on a boat I'd call it straking.
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