Linguistics

[resonant]

I'm compiling an American-to-British phrasebook (because reasons Sherlock). You can find decent dictionaries online (nappy, lorry, etc., etc.) but I'm not so much finding speech patterns -- word choices, syntax, where an American says 'on' and a Brit says 'in,' that kind of thing.

Oddly enough, most of what I've got here (that didn't come from Arctic Monkeys songs) came to my attention because I'd be reading a story in a fandom with an American canon, and I'd hit a phrase that made me go, "This author must be British." (The drawback of this is that some of it might be Australian or something.)

Anybody want to offer input? Here's what I've got (American on the left, British on the right).

Brits use a lot of 'got,' but I can't quite formulate a rule.

to see if you had my number -----> to see if you'd got my number

(also Americans say 'gotten')

Brits don't like to let helping verbs hang out alone.

"You'd eat a horse." "I have." ---> "You'd eat a horse." "I have done."

"That joke gets old." "It must." ---> "That joke gets old." "It must do."

The two dialects handle prepositions differently.

"in the hospital" ---> "in hospital"

"lives on Baker Street" ---> "lives in Baker Street"

Different vocabulary.

"we went to college together" ---> "we went to uni together"

"toss it" or "throw it away" ---> "bin it"

There are a number of things that Brits treat as plural that Americans treat as singular.

"the band wasn't very good" ---> "the band weren't very good"

"I'm no good at math" ---> "I'm rubbish at maths"

"the jury wasn't paying attention" ---> "the jury weren't paying attention"

Comments

[eyebrowofdoom]

As an Australian I live in a street. Wonder if it's a British regionalism originally (or Irish even).

[arduinna]

(US Northeast here)

Huh. Would the UK version really be "he wants his head examining" and not "his head wants examining"?

The second one makes grammatical sense to me, and works as an alternative to "he needs his head examined", even though I don't think I'd ever say it.

The first one, though, looks totally ungrammatical, or at least that there's a lot missing. It sounds like it should be transitive, but there's nothing there to fill it in. ("He wants his head examining the possibilities for supper, but instead it just aches". Or something.)

[spainja]

Ones that have jumped out at me:

"hire" vs. "rent"

"lot" to refer to people--as in "You lot, come with me." or "The lot of you." (Americans would say "you guys" or "all of you" or, in some places, "y'all.")

"rude"--Brits use it to mean "vulgar" or "obscene"; Americans use it to mean "impolite".

"holiday" vs. "vacation"

What exactly "snogging" means--I've seen it in fics to refer to casual kissing, which isn't right.

"have a lie in" vs. "sleep in"

"do the washing up" vs. "wash the dishes" or "do the dishes"

"High Street" vs. "Main Street"

[resonant]

I could swear I've read Brits complaining about that, too. Nobody wants to claim it!

[realpestilence]

Have you got my number? Yes, I do ("have it" is implied and understood).

[resonant]

Americans say 'stuff' too -- very very common here. (When the kidlet was small, she went through this hilarious phase where she thought 'stuff' was plural, so she'd say things like "It's under these stuff" or "There are stuff under the bed.")

About titles: In my writers' group there's a woman who wants to write Regency romance, but she obviously doesn't read Regency romance, and she drives me nuts with the titles -- I mean, I don't know reliably how to do it right, but it's very obvious to me when it's being done wrong. I also had to tell her that she couldn't name a Regency heroine Stacy!

When I worked with those guys from Preston, they told me it made them flinch when Americans would try to use British slang, because we have no feel for what's offensive and what isn't -- I mean, you can't reason that out, with slang; you just have to know.

It was my job to translate for them to the building office, so they'd come in and say, "The bulb in the gents' is knackered" and I'd call the building office and say, "The light in the men's room is burned out."

[resonant]

Apparently I know just enough about linguistics to ask a question that I can't understand the answer to! (I have the same trouble in Spanish.)

[resonant]

Strange -- I could swear I've seen the "in _____ Street" construction somewhere. Maybe it's archaic?

I love the hob thing! My college roommate used to work with kids with mild autism, and once she was exclaiming to one of her charges, "Put on your gym shoes! Where are your gym shoes?" and he (who had apparently never heard them called anything but 'sneakers') said, "What are my gym shoes?"

[resonant]

Those are both very useful.

[resonant]

The 'ring' thing made me think of something I see a lot on "Not Always Right" -- call-center calls that begin, "Good morning, you're through to X Company." Where an American would say, "You've reached X company."

And I've noticed that British slang uses sexual terms much more casually than American slang does. Like, you might call someone a 'cunt' in America, but that's a really serious insult and also your grandma would wash your mouth out with soap, and 'twat' wouldn't be used at all (though I suppose 'dick' is roughly equivalent to 'knob' and 'jagoff' to 'wanker').

I was really confused the first time I encountered 'well' in the sense of 'very' ('he's well fit') -- took me quite a while to figure out what even was its grammatical function in the sentence.

[resonant]

That's probably people like me who are trying to avoid sounding American and end up making everybody sound like Christopher Robin.

[jesse_the_k]

For values of "funny" = "of course".

Best thread ever and we get more resonant Sherlock.

[resonant]

Part of that may be regional in the US -- in the South where I come from, we'd say, "Your sweater needs washing," but here in the Midwest, people say, "Your sweater needs washed."

But the syntax of 'needs the operation of a whistle explaining to them' is something I would never hear in the South.

(A contemporary American would probably never use 'want' to mean 'need' as in your 'wants his head examining' example, either. It shows up in hymns sometimes, and sounds so strange to my ear -- "Bread of heaven, bread of heaven/feed me till I want no more.")

[jesse_the_k]

OK, that translated example has to feature in some Sherlock deduction opportunity!

[resonant]

OK, I know what Brits call a jumper, I call a sweater. But the other two ...?

I never hear any young person say 'housecoat,' but my grandmother used to use the term for a shapeless knee-length thing that buttoned up the front which she would wear for indoor chores. Probably something like an artist's smock except that I don't think it went over other clothes.

And I thought 'bathrobe' was the same? -- that thing Sherlock wears over his pajama bottoms all the time?

[resonant]

That's a good one!

[resonant]

That's useful! If you ever share your massive document, I'd love to see it!

[resonant]

Ha, when I cook scrambled eggs, they're always plural, even if I only scramble one!

This reminds me of another food-related thing I saw in a story: "I want eggs. Have we got any in?" where I would be more likely to say, "Do we have any?"

[jesse_the_k]

Grew up in up & down East Coast, adult life in North-central US.

"Your sweater needs washed" seems common to areas settled by Germans and Scandinavians.

[resonant]

I think of 'fix' in the food sense as a Southern thing, or maybe a country thing. Hard to imagine somebody in a big city saying that. "Sit down by the Mondrian and I'll fix you some foie gras."

[resonant]

These are useful, but I don't think Americans go marketing, either, so whose word is it?

I've heard "go to market," but only from my country relatives. We would "go grocery shopping" or "go to the grocery," if we didn't use the specific store name. One of the supermarkets here tried for a while to get everyone to accept "go Krogering" as a verb form, but it sounds obscene.

[jesse_the_k]

This fangirl is dying to know the difference between casual kissing (mother/son? on the lips no tongue?) and snogging and (as long as I'm asking) full-on snogging?

[resonant]

Those are truly excellent.

So what does 'snogging' mean? I picture it as fairly wet kissing in a close clinch (maybe because it has two G's in it like 'snuggling.'

[resonant]

See, to me that sounds like he's an object. Like my coffee table could say that -- it was sat in front of the TV, because I sat it there myself.

[resonant]

Well, central Illinois certainly qualifies.

Though this makes me wonder what influence the huge Lebanese population has had on the local dialect.