Saturday, August 15, 2009

Do you speak English?



Speaking English ought to be a fairly easy task, but sometimes it can be a bit baffling. I knew I was in trouble when using Facebook on my computer in England, when it kept asking me if I wanted to translate into English, and when my spell check kept telling me to spell "color" as "colour."
I've found there are a host of words which are not the same as they cross the Atlantic. Of course, the pronunciation of the words is another topic completely, but there is no way I can share those with you with only text. I can share with you some words that differ from one continent to the other, and let you learn along with me some of the differences. For example: a car trunk in England is the boot. And Boot sales would be comparable to our garage sales in the South. Participants will pull up their cars in a planned area such as a school yard, grassy park or community area. Of course, these would be outside of London, since there are so few places to even park a car in London, much less enough area for a boot sale. At the sale, sellers will sell their unwanted household goods for a little bit of spending money.
When my friend from Texas spotted gentlemen lined up outside a shop window peering through the glass at a TV, she merely commented that they were there watching soccer, but she was quickly reminded that they were there for football, madam, not soccer. The list goes on and on, so I've decided to add a section on the right sidebar of my blog, where from time to time, I will give you more samples of words that confuse. Check it out and you can be enlightened along with me!

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the cross-cultural enlightment! Is is amusing, isn't it? lol

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  2. 'psst...hey buddy!' That was Tim's comment on buying things out of the trunk of people's cars! Kevan says that those are the people we usually avoid around here.

    I'm enjoying reading your blog!

    Janice

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