Water vs Waters -=- why does UK pluralize it? And, which US things are odd to you?

[oh_so_blessed]

Okay, as a chemist I can't understand the water breaking being pluralized. It is all coming from the same place, no? Why the 's'?

One of the UK ladies pointed out the backwards usage of dating in the US, ie MMDDYYYY rather than DDMMYYYY. That makes total sense. Day < Month < Year. I don't know why the US does it with the month first!

Just for fun, what other oddities/differences are there?

 

[destynibaby]

lol i always think dating in the UK is the one thats backwards. we say dates like july fifteenth two thousand twelve. so to say it fifteenth july two thousand twelve is like broken english. I guess you could add fifteenth OF july. but you know how the US is.. who needs that extra word lol

 

[destynibaby]

i have seen the word "bloody" being used in so many references.
is it a curse word in the UK?
ive seen like it 'stupid bloody in - laws' and im like wth!
and what in the world is a pram? and why are diapers called nappies?
arent babies in them while awake too? lol

 

[oh_so_blessed]

lol i always think dating in the UK is the one thats backwards. we say dates like july fifteenth two thousand twelve. so to say it fifteenth july two thousand twelve is like broken english. I guess you could add fifteenth OF july. but you know how the US is.. who needs that extra word lol

Ah, maybe that is why they changed it here. I can see the extra word being too much trouble. lol!

I have a Brit in my lab, so I hear lots of British speak. It's actually pretty funny because he's recently started saying "awesome" and "cool", which makes me laugh a bit when said in his proper accent. But, seriously, I have never heard anyone speak more in slang than this man- well, slang, metaphors and similes. It's actually amazing, I wish I had this talent! haha..

 

[Sombra]

I noticed in the U.K. a "crib" is called a "cot". So then what do they call what we call a cot...a foldable bed you take camping or set up at a hotel?

 

[djbutton01]

I've wondered what a pram is, too! I could look it up but naaah. I always forget. Baby brain??? LOL

 

[drsquid]

pram is a stroller

 

[cheshire]

To answer your question destynibaby nappies are short for napkin, which is a piece of cloth that was traditionlly used. So urm.....why are nappies called diapers?

I noticed in the U.K. a "crib" is called a "cot". So then what do they call what we call a cot...a foldable bed you take camping or set up at a hotel?

A crib usually swings or is for smaller babies, a cot is larger/sturdy for bigger or older babies. What you call a cot we call a camp-bed.

These threads are always funny. I often wonder why Mathmatics is 'Math' in the US and 'Maths' in the UK. When teaching in the US I found it weird to say Math and my sons Canadian teacher makes the children chuckle when she says 'Math'.

Oh also Pram is a prambulator or I think it is called a Baby carriage in the US, but we use it now for both old large ones, modern smaller ones and even for strollers. Although technically a stroller is a called a pushchair or buggy/buggie. Like stroller, we now use buggy/pram for anything you push a baby in.

 

[minties]

Pram = perambulator. A stroller.

Bloody is a mild curse word.

Not sure about the UK but a foldable bed would be a camp bed here.

A crib here is either a small holiday home by the beach or used as some sorta slang word in rap music for a home(?).

The waters thing I'm not been sure about!

Nappy is from napkin.

 

[Emerald87]

I'm not British, I'm Aussie - some similarities and many differences.
The use of Z in the US baffles me hehe. We use 's' in place such as familiarise, standarise etc.

In Australia (and the UK) we like to add a's, e's and o's to our words, just to make things a bit harder lol
Oestrogen
Anaethesia
Anaemia
etc. etc.

The UK has some hilarious slang to us Aussies. Bloody is definitely common between us, we ALWAYS use it. Using the "bog" for toilet isn't common term here in Australia and it grosses me out lol.

I've been told a few words that the US doesn't use in the same context as us. An example is a very awkward conversation and friend of mine had:
(Mother doesn't pay for something)
Aussie: "Wow - your Mum is so tight!"
American "Dude? Don't talk about my mother like that!!"
Aussie: "Like what? She's a tight arse!"
American: "Even worse!"

"Tight" in a conversation above means "stingy" or very stringent with money. Tight in the US in any context means sexually tight, whether that be the front or back . Yes, we use "tight" in that context too, but we can distinguish it's use in sentences

I love cultural differences

 

[ticking.clock]

Elevator is lift, but with so much American tv a lot of our kids now say elevator,
When my son says elevator, I reply argh it's lift, your not bloody American hahahah ( please no offence intended )

 

[CharlieKeys]

You have dummy and pacifier

Crisps - potato Chips

Chips - fries

biscuits - cookies

Flat - apartment

Trousers - pants (Here pants are underwear lol)

pavement - sidewalk

Boot (car) - trunk

I'm friends with an American and I remember we were talking about car boot sales but only calling it a boot sale .... she had to ask what we all meant by boot as she had no idea. Bless her - it is funny how different it is, although we speak the same language. Even now she phrases things differently to how we'd say something

 

[Number3forme]

The waters thing probably comes from the fact that there are hind waters, ie.what's behind the baby, and fore waters, what's in front. Someone with better knowledge feel free to correct me, but pretty sure it's possible for one to break before the other, so that would be your 'water' breaking, and then when they both go, that's the 'waters' but we tend to just say waters anyway as it's difficult to know exactly where it's coming from!

 

[miss cakes]

the waters thing is because you have the hind water and fore water so actually waters is right lol and we brits say bloody as a curse word lol and pram is a carrycot style stroller x

 

[2016]

^^^ just what I was going to say.
My hind water went first (about a tablespoons worth) and layer the forewaters went which was about a bucketful!

 

[New2Bumps]

It's all already been answered! I only found out about front and back waters last time when my waters broke early and they checked that 'both' had gone and I was like 'wha??'

With things like parambulator, napkin, it's lovely to look back at the origin of words and quite a lot of English words come from French or Latin. I've never looked into the origin of the Americanisations though, I wonder where on Earth diaper comes from! Pacifier I can understand! Dummy is just a word used for a pretend anything isn't it, like a dummy boob I guess!

As for the date, It's wierd how American say for example August 10th as we'd say 10th of August, but don't you say 4th July?!?!!?

 

[GreyGirl]

I love these kinds of threads

The thing that confuses me most is the date thing. When I see it written out in words - no problem, but then when I see something like "12/10/12" I always read it as 12th of October 2012...but it might mean 10th of December 2012 :S But then if there's something like "10/23/12" then I get confused and have to really work it out...so it's 23rd of October 2012 right? I know there's no 23rd month of the year, it always throws me and takes me longer to read the date :S

I love the differences and similarities, I find culture and accent fascinating! I had a friend from America who came over to study in England for a year. We spent a lot of time trying to say "yoghurt/yogurt" in each others accent - it was hilariously bad!

 

[Mum0709]

I've always wonderd why Americans have jelly and peanut butter sandwhiches....

They sound vile lol

 

[x-ginge-x]

peanut butter and jelly is actually peanut butter and JAM in the UK haha!

and sodas being pop to us in the uk

and candy being sweets/chocolate

 

[sammy10kids]

Like we call it labour with a U as well!