7 Harmless American Words Brits Might Find Rude
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2024
- In the second part of this series, I now turn my attention to harmless American words and phrases that the British might find rude.
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We can't talk about British cigarettes here without getting banned.
Haha, I know what you mean. Three letter word.
That’s actually hilarious 😂😂😂
Most Brits will ask you to “bum” one.
Fag meaning cigarets was used in the US in the 1960s. That back when gay meant happy.
It's actual meaning is a collection of wood/sticks, bundled together.
To be fair, most Americans are well aware of the double entendre and/or innuendo that a lot of these phrases have, and some might even delight in using them for that reason.
yeah, i think fanny pack is the only one americans would be truly surprised about how it sounds to others
I dont think so. Im an American and thought it sounded funny when I was younger.@@careless_daughter
Agreed, hump day is definitely an innuendo that is just accepted in offices
@@hiVanderLinden i mean most americans immediately think "hump day" is something sexual the first time you hear it. nobody goes to "over the hump" for hump day. bum rush? as a kid i thought bum rush was quite literally bum rushing them in the butt. took me a bit to figure that one out. so yeah americans do see the innuendos too, same with blowing someone off. there can easily be a follow up "thats what she said" behind that one.
I think the same is true the other way around. Though apparently some people (Brits, Americans or whoever) inexplicably go straight to the least acceptable meaning where there are multiple possibilities. I mean, we often love to do that for a laugh but the amount of manufactured outrage that sometimes results is baffling.
I knew a French woman years ago, and she said that her dinner guests arrived early once, and she told them she was going to take a quick douche. Shower, in French.
It means both things in French.
My grandmother, from Britain (waaay back in the day), told me not to say, "I'm stuffed." Apparently, when she grew up it meant (in an unclassy way) you were pregnant.
Maybe sometimes. But definitely acceptable and probably more commonly used to mean full of food. Cos if we are really looking for less appropriate meanings, it might also be taken to refer to the act that can lead to the pregnancy in the first place (or more recreational variations thereof).
Interesting, lol. Maybe regional or outdated slang because I've never heard that before. I'm British, 51 years old, and have always used it to mean 'full of food' - and would never have guessed it wasn't a British expression!
@Fledhyris yeah... she's in her later 80's.
I'm American. I went to a place in Australia with Australians to watch rugby. I don't know any of teams so I jokingly said, "I'm just gonna root for the team that you guys aren't." That got a bigger laugh than I thought it would. Rooting in Amsrica means cheering. I didn't know that in Australia "having a root" means sex. I basically said that I'm gonna fuck the other team. We all had a laugh. Good times.
We had a crew of friends from Australia travel to Minnesota for a wedding. Every time we’d go out to eat they would ALL order the root beer because they found it uproariously funny.
So did you or no
Only found out recently the Aussies use Sheila as a slang for girl.
So did you get any?
😂😂😂
“Bum” also means to borrow-or ask for-something, as in “Hey-can I bum a cigarette off you?”
"Then he bummed a cigarette and and asked me for a light." (The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers).
Imagine asking your friend named Randy that same question except pairing it with the British slang for a cigarette as well. British heads explode. Demonetization City. :)
You bum something like a cigarette from someone because that’s what a bum (the homeless hobo type) does.
It also means upset, for example "He was bummed because the rain cancelled his trip."
@@malindastevens1016 Good one!
I was always told that "hump day" was really just in reference to the fact that Monday and Tuesday feel much more like an uphill battle, due to low office morale, and thus the 'hump' was the metaphorical point when you reach even ground, as Thursday and Friday feel as easy as walking down-hill, due to much higher morale since the weekend (the thing we probably hold most sacred), which seemed an eternity away on Monday, is right around the corner.
That's so similar to the idea of being over the hump (the hard part), that I think it should be impossible to say for sure which it came from
I often think of it like someone being "over the hill" with regard to age.
In the working world (day shift), Wednesday afternoons are the top of the weekly hill climb. That simple .
Yep, I am pretty sure it's for all those reasons that Wednesday became associated with being the "hump day", since "hump" means "a bump on or pile of something", not just canoodling.
@@Roccondil What's funny is that it was a perv friend of mine in High School who first told me about it being called this -- obviously he found out, laughed uncontrollably, and then told all his friends to relive the comedy moment.
To blow someone off can also mean to ignore, be dismissive towards, or otherwise being unwilling to engage with someone or their concerns. Like, “I told my boss about the faulty sink, but he blew me off.” I would say that’s more common than being a synonym for ghosting someone.
I blew off a term paper in college. Frankly, the professor should have failed me.
I almost exclusively hear it used in the context of "we planned to meetup but they didn't show"
Yes, blowing people off used to mean standing them up or not showing up.
It simply means ‘ignoring’. Your age group didn’t invent it
You missed spunk and spunky. Telling a British man his daughter is full of spunk is NOT a compliment. 😅
What does it mean?
@@jessyjulie5506spunk is also slang for semen, even here in the US but I suppose it's more prevalent in the UK.
I think the word spunky for a personality trait is going the way of thongs for your feet.
I've used spunk as meaning jizz for decades now and I'm American. Though not my most common use for the word splooge
Also an older one. I like My Little Pony, & always did, since they first came out. There was a playset for them called, in the UK, The Perfume Puff Palace. When I found out it had a different name in the US, I was shocked!!! The US called the playset The (oopsie) & Puff Perfume Palace. Where the (oopsie) is was a word which the States consideres harmless, but to the UK it is, or at least was when I was younger, similar to UK slang for a cigarette is to the States.
In the '70s a friend's British aunt was visiting and while driving her around touring the neighborhood, they passed a beauty parlor with a sign in the window: Shag and blow $15. Shag was the name for a particular longish layered haircut then. Blow meant blow-dry. Friend's British aunt's reaction? "Oh my!".
😂
What a deal! Did she want to pop in? 😂
😂😂😂😂😂
Only $15? That's a very good price, even for the 70s!
all that was done by Randy... lol
While it's a phrase, not a word, we have a famous family misunderstanding. Apparently, when my mum first came to the states, she would make plans with friends to "knock her up". As you can imagine, clarity was required!
That's a beautiful inside joke for the family.
Same happened to a friend whose teenage niece was visiting from the UK and staying at his house. She asked him if he could knock her up in the morning.
That’s hilarious!
😂😂😂😂
"Hit me up" and "knock me up" might sound like synonyms to an ESL learner, but they couldn't be more different!
A family story that my wife and her mother DELIGHT in telling at every major family gathering is her move across country for grad school. Her dad and brother drove the moving truck and she and her mother were in her car. They passed a Come and Go and her mother laughed and said the name out loud, then paused and said, "What if I don't want to come and go? What if I want to come and cuddle?"
To this day they both devolve into a fit of giggles at each retelling.
I had a "Who's on First" moment in college when the European guy I shared an apartment with came home one night and said, "I'm so pissed". I asked why? He said I was at a party...I said and? He said I was drinking... I said and? He said I'm so pissed…but why? After several minutes of this I figured out that pissed means drunk!
😂
Were you pissed when you found out?
I don’t drink, or get angry too easily
The Clash had a song called "What's My Name" and in it there is a line "Dad got pissed so I got clocked". I think both English & American slang would understand "clocked" as meaning slugged or smacked or some other violent act. But an American would think the kid got clocked because his father was angry (or pissed off) while and English person would know Dad clocked him because he was drunk. The cool thing is it made sense either way.
Also, when I was a teenager back in the 70s, "pisser" was a common slang word meaning something different. You might say , "That was a pisser", meaning it was funny, but in a nasty way. You wouldn't use it for something funny & nice, but if you saw something that was bad for somebody else and thought it was hilariously funny (like an old lady slipping and falling on the ice) you'd say, "That was a pisser." I think this has fallen out of use.
I have heard Americans say it as piss drunk or pissy drunk so I guess we specify. 🤣
In Southern California “bummer” is surfer lingo for “that’s too bad” or “no fun”. Example: “You just dropped your ice cream cone? Bummer, dude.”
I’m in Massachusetts and have also used bummer in the same way my whole life.
Actually, bummer or bummed out could simply mean anything that is a downer.
Been around for decades
not just socal! surfer slang spread to the rest of the country decades ago
Bummer has been normal in American English since at least the 60s.
Alot of people in Cali, and those subcultures influenced by them like surfers, stoners and skaters just usually elongate the word more
On a business trip, a British male colleague told an American female colleague he was going to "knock her up in the morning" it still makes me laugh. 😂😄🤣
What? Really? What does that mean because that's easily grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit if the speaker is American.
Would have seemed a bit more absurd had the American colleague been male.
@@SpidermanandJenyI assume it's like "call you up" except in person, so knocking on a door??
Bum used to mean "can I borrow" as in can I bum a smoke? And, around that same time, bummer meant a drag/downer/negative, as in "you lost your dog? What a bummer"
Bum a ride.
@@anndeecosita3586 Basically can I borrow a ride
I can't stop thinking about my English friend talking about "Knocking up the neighbor."
My late Hubs found this term to be highly amusing!
I remember hearing this from a friend, and I can remember it so clearly because I had one of those laughing fits where you just can’t stop. Didn’t help he kept saying, things to the equivalent of, “what is so funny about me knocking up my neighbor?”, to which I died further laughing and crying. Ahhhh, good times.
Lol! I would die laughing!!!!😅
An American friend told me that when she went to visit another friend in England back in the early 80's, they were going out and she innocently asked the ( English) friend's boyfriend if he could give them a ride in his car. Her friend got really angry, and she had no idea why. Turned out that giving someone a "ride" was a euphemism for s** , and that in England the proper term would be to give them a " lift".😮
Really? I’m American and we use both ride and lift, and we also use ride the way she means. We just don’t use it in such contexts. I honestly don’t know how she thought that’s what was meant. Do British people not use the term “ride the roller coaster”? Did British people get offended in Aladdin when they talked about going on a magic carpet ride?
@@IsaacMyers1 This was told to me in the early 80's, I have no reason to doubt it. Since I've never been to Britain, I have no idea,(except for a couple, thanks to the internet)what terms they use regularly. I think, like in the US, there may be regional and generational differences in " acceptable" terms. That's why I enjoy learning from Laurence's channel.
😮
Ride can be sexual in the USA but usually context and tone will tell you what people mean. Songs like “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy” or Little Red Corvette use these analogies.
@@anndeecosita3586 Thanks for your reply. Both of the songs you mentioned came out decades after my friend's event. So this may be an example of "generational" norms changing.
As an American, I’ve never heard the phrase “double fisting” before, but I can assure you that the word “fisting” alone definitely refers to a sexual act
It was quite common in college, to refer to it as drinking with two drinks at once. I’m sure as we were in college and it usually being around alcohol, the innuendo was intentional.
It used to be 'so and so is a two-fisted drinker'.
Double Fisting is more used with the younger (now a lil older) crowd. It was a college thing for sure. I’m sure we started it that way on purpose
@@Where2bub Omg 🤦🏻♀️ I read your comment after posting mine which is basically the exact same thing. I’m 34, first heard it around ‘07/‘08
What about "hamfisted"
I was surprised not to see sod on the list. In the U.S. sod is new grass that you can unroll or place down in rectangles. I worked with a guy who's sister was in England for a while and he went to visit her. They were having new grass put in and he asked the crew how the sodding in the back yard was going. Let's just say he didn't get the reaction he was expecting.
In UK rolled up grass is called turf but "cutting the sod" can be used for pushing a garden spade into lawn or undergrowth.
Interesting…in the US, we use turf to mean the fake grass you put down for indoor sports of mini-golf.
@@shaniseglynAstroturf is sometimes used to describe the fake grass in indoor stadiums if they want to strongly imply that it's polymer.
A sod is also used to refer to certain type of men
@@user-kp6we9qw7i Its more a generic insult these days as far as I'm aware, not aimed at any particular group or category. Though it is one of a number that do seem to have somewhat homophobic roots and have become divorced from that over time to the point that they manage to be still pretty acceptable to use. Probably more or less equivalent to "bugger".
Haha I once worked in a tourist town with lots of older tourists. One sweet little old lady tried to call Fuddrucker's ",Fuckin" Burgers" 😅
I mean she is not wrong
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Surely you can remember the commercial with the camel talking about Hump day?
That's probably when I first learned the term.
Mike Mike mikemike mike
It's been a low use term for decades. That ad just made it annoyingly common
One of the more amusing misunderstandings around "bum" happened on the TV game show Password, back in the 1970s. One of the celebrity contestants was the British actress Lynn Redgrave, and the group of words she was trying to get her partner to say were related to comic strips. She got totally flustered when Dagwood's last name came up, and passed on it, but the moment the round was over, she turned to Allen Ludden and demanded, in a very cross tone, "WHAT is a BUMSTEAD???!!" 😀
I feel like you watched that show when it came out
What is Dagwood's last name, and what IS a bumstead? This is confusing for a Brit, please explain!
the half-second cut to a flower gave me a solid chuckle. Great as always.
"Fanny" = same latitude, opposite longitude
could be flatitude, could be thongitude
Bummer is also a term of being depressed by something or bummed out by something or someone. "Having to work all weekend really bums me out"; "Losing to the Bears soccer team is a bummer (depressing)!"; "Being sad all the time is a real bummer"
That could easily come from that same German origin, filtered through military usage/slang. Easy to imagine a 'Lazy' or poor soldier being described as, "He is a bummer, and nobody wants him around." I can easily see how 'bummer' could come to mean anyone, or anything that just sucks, and one would be better off without.
In the 1860s Bummer and his friend Lazarus were renowned rat-catching dogs in San Francisco. City Supervisors officially exempted them from canine control ordinances.
A friend of mine was on a trip to the UK (his wife is from there, and this was when they were dating) and mentioned that something was "a bummer" with this meaning, but found that he had offended the people around him.
I first heard that usage in the 60s--it was hippie slang, but I have no idea where it came from.
@@donnaj9964 In the hippie era, "bummer" was originally short for "bum trip," meaning a bad drug experience. Eventually it came to mean any bad or depressing experience.
"Blowing off" has other meanings than just standing someone up. It's often used when someone disregards your statement or actions, such as disregarding your opinion, or cutting you off in traffic.
Never the cutting you off in traffic usage. I usually hear it and use it to mean cancelling plans last minute or standing someone up, ignoring an assignment, or dismissing someone's concerns.
"We had plans to go to a museum, but she blew me off when her good friend's birthday party was scheduled for the same day.
"I completely blew off the assignment, and now my boss is angry."
"I asked them to investigate the issue, but they blew me off, saying I was overreacting."
When at school in UK it meant flatulence.
a British friend taught drawing and painting here in the US and on his materials list for class was 'rubbers,' (erasers) which caused big snickers in class
It also means galoshes or rain boots. 😂😂
Yup, that is a common mix-up, and “to knock someone up” which in the UK just means “to come get me for an event or appointment,” as in “come knock me up at 6 am for the fishing trip.”
@@Itried20takennames Is it possible that is a regional thing? Not sure I've heard that one personally and mostly just come across "knock up" in the pregnancy sense.
@@Karras353 Probably regional (northern) but mostly outdated, it originated before people had automatic alarm clocks and a professional 'knocker upper' was employed to go around everyone's houses to knock on the doors and make sure they got up in time for work. So it's very much working class, factory slang from before most people on the internet were born. I must admit that these days it would give me a double-take too as the pregnancy meaning would come to mind first!
My Australian friend and colleague, a brilliant guy, was leading a training class of business people and used an unfortunate example, where someone was trying to purchase "rubbers" he kept saying it over and over, I didn't want to interrupt and embarrass his pencil eraser example, but by the 4th time I started laughing 😊😂.
He meant erasers I suspect? Even non-native speakers would have guessed that because that is how erasers are called the world over.
@@klimtkahlo But, in the States, rubbers are condoms.
@@GurtBFroe1 When I was a kid when they said to "put on your rubbers" it meant the rubber overshoes (galoshes) you wore during a heavy rain or snow storm. I don't even know if people wear rubbers (meaning galoshes) any more.
@RRaquello my dad always had these and always felt the need to "I had to put my rubbers on today."
@@ChaquetaB Like most kids I hated wearing those and one of the reasons I wanted to "grow up" was so nobody could tell me I had to wear them anymore. I didn't have to grow all the way up because by the time I was about 11 years old my mother finally gave up and said, "All right. Don't wear them. Let your feet get wet. Get pneumonia!"
The weird thing isn't that fanny means something different across the pond, what's weird is that we think of 'fanny (as in butt)' as a very fussy, proper britishy type word.
I had a granny who was named Fanny.
@@PatsySegars Which part was she named after? LOL
In the US, Fanny Flag was an entertainer. That was her name. But let's not pretend James Bond didn't know what Pussy Galore was all about. Same reason Austin Powers was so excited by Allotta Fagina.
Not necessarily. Growing up in Detroit I always heard it from southern transplants to mean buttocks. As in my Granny saying if I passed her again she would whoop my little fanny.
@@NotSoMuchFrankly I feel like "fanny flag" would be a funny term for somebody's underwear hanging on a flagpole.
I feel like we could use "Booty Bag" instead of "Fanny Pack" and it would still fit for its purpose.
Booty being both pirate slang for treasure and casual slang for butt. The latter being the American version of Bum. It also stores your "booty" (treasures) so you don't drop them.
Let's make Booty Bag a phrase!!!
Waist pack or lumbar pack avoid the misunderstandings.
As a Brit I’ve always found the name “bum bag” off putting even if it’s not as rude here as “fanny pack”.
“Booty bag” is a fantastic alternative that I could definitely buy in to. Let’s make it happen!
@@judyb4155I’m American and I say booty a lot but I think the uptight, reserved folks wouldn’t like it. Booty is usually something I use when I’m checking one out. Oh he has a nice booty… uh bag. Nice booty bag. 😂😂😂
Where's the fun in that?@@bethhentges
I would submit that Fuddruckers sounded just as bad in America when it first came out. Now that it's been around for awhile though, we've become used to it.
Still makes me giggle when I hear it though.
Another meaning for “bum’s rush” is to do something quickly or suddenly to get rid of a person who is persona non grata.
So, for example, if you went to a job interview and it seemed rather hurried or more superficial than expected, you were in and done in record time, you got the bum’s rush. (More than likely the boss’ son already had the job but they had to make a show of interviewing to keep up the pretense of being an equal opportunity employer.
Suddenly remembering a lot of very short job interviews.
It's just bum rush he was talking about, the one you mention is probably extremely region specific.
I don't hear "gave 'em the bum's rush" much anymore. I wonder if it's fallen out of fashion
@@CalLadyQED I’m a senior, so I use it frequently. Youngsters probably are unfamiliar with the term.
I often use "bum rush" to mean I did something quickly and sometimes carelessly, usually due either to laziness or time constraints. "I bum rushed that essay," for example.
Im an American but the phrase, " screw the pooch 🐕 " for make a mistake, shocked me the first time I heard it. It still makes me laugh.
That one does have a rude origin though...
That is the polite version. In the factories people use the rude version which is actually quite vulgar.
I've always thought that they named that restaurant "Fuddrucker's" just to screw with their customers. It's very easy to accidentally swap the F and the middle R. Your explanation about the founder makes me think I might be right. Whenever I hear "Come and Go" I immediately imagine a long row of port-a-pottys.
Fudd is to the UK an uglier sounding word for Fanny so there's that. I never liked the word at all
'Rudd*uckers' could be a restaurant founded by Marvel movie fans who like Paul a little too much.😂
That one reminded me of the American brand Smuckers, which just sounds filthy to my Australian ears.
@@hughcaldwell1034 The ad slogan for several years was, 'With a name like Smucker's, it HAS to be good!'
@@hughcaldwell1034 LOL I agree, but that one is a family name, so they have an excuse. (And for a huge company, their jams, jellies and preserves are pretty darn good!)
Funny thing about Fuddruckers. I work in greenhouses and have for 3 decades. Many years ago at a regional Christmas party I won a gift certificate to eat there. But I had never heard of it before. So when they said I had a $10 gift certificate my 1st thought was is this a fertilizer company?? Someone had to tell me it was a restaurant.
There was a song popular during the Great Depression called "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," written and recorded by Harry McClintock. He also recorded "The Big Rock Candy Mountain."
This was from a 1933 movie of that title. As I already mentioned in a comment to Lawrence's previous video, this had to be released in England as "Hallelujah, I'm a Tramp"! Also, I remember reading about a woman who misunderstood "bum rap" (an unjust accusation) as a diaper!
I remember that song as my mother used to sing it to me. It used to make me laugh. Still does when I think about it.
Haha “he got a bum rap” “uhhh, so he has a diaper?” 😂
@@angreagach In old American slang the word "bum" could also be a synonym for "bad". For instance, during the depression one might say "conditions are bum"., meaning "bad". I think that particular use of the word probably went out with the depression.
@@RRaquello Not quite. It survives in "bum rap," at least.
You left one out, at least in Australia it is dirty and got Crocodile Dundee a R rating. I was there on business for a month and went to a upscale dinner with a bunch of couples including older women. about half way through the meal they asked me if I wanted more to eat and I said "NO I AM STUFFED" The women all gasped so I repeated what is the problem I am really stuffed! After the meal one of the people let me know that stuffed in Australia is the F word... LOL
Seriously? 🤣🤣🤣🤣👍
I did not know that!
Nah. Sure it can mean that - like, you can tell someone to "get stuffed" and it's a pretty mild insult (you're less likely to cop a blow in response than some other choice phrase), and "it's stuffed" is basically "it's FUBARed". But if you're full, you're also stuffed.
It was the older ladies who were upset I wonder if it was their generation that it was worse than it is now
What do aussies call the bread concoction you put inside a bird before roasting? Or what do the call the fluffy white stuff inside a plush toy?
We still use “bummer”, as in, “That’s a bummer” or “Bummer, man.” In context it’s like saying, “that sucks, I feel sorry for you.”
I was in England with my friend Randy. Some locals were too embarrassed to say his name.
The first time I heard it, I did wonder why anyone would give their child such an inappropriate name!
@@nataliebutler it's not any worse than somebody named Dick.
Randy VanWarmer is a particularly unfortunate name.
It makes me wonder if the UK has any nicknames for Randolph or Randall besides Randy?
@@Mick_Ts_Chick I've actually never met someone with those names. Perhaps it was more popular in the past.
Bummer is also a commiseration, such as, “she blew me off.” “Bummer!”
Doubly funny if you apply British slang to the first sentence, because 'bummer' is definitely not the expected response! Congratulations would be more in order😂
In 1988 I met up with a guy from New Zealand who was now working in New England, and looking for local knowledge about hiking and climbing in the White Mountains. We did a lot of ice and rock climbing, on which trips I not only heard the term “bum bag,” and also just said “what?” a lot because of his New Zealand accent.
You should ask him if he has a big deck back home.
Sweet as bro.
@@johnleo2668 I crack up every time when watching Living Big In A Tiny House (here on UA-cam) and a Kiwi or Aussie talk about their deck.
"I took a deep dive into bum" was NOT a sentence I expected to hear today!
The expression "hump day" was current in the USA at least as far back as 1976. It had been made popular by a song called "Friday" released by Oklahoma-born singer J.J. Cale in 1975.
Marge Simpson: "I keep feeling like I'm going to get the bum's rush!"
Hank Scorpio: "We don't have bums in our town, Marge. And even if we did, they wouldn't rush, they'd be allowed to go at their own pace!"*
Been a while since i watched the episode, so I might not have gotten the dialogue perfect.
I attended an international conference in Australia, but I was with my dear friend at a place called the Three Sisters up in the mountains, and needed a smaller pack to lessen my stuff. While in one of the various stores, I asked a female clerk if they sold any Fanny Packs. The woman blanched and gasped, and my friend then informed the poor woman that I meant a Bum Pack. Needless, to say I apologized profusely, claiming my American ignorance.
You didn't know the difference between Fanny and Bum?
Will Guthrie: "I've heard that many Englishmen have that same difficulty".
I loved that movie.
Wouldn't a tampon be a fanny pack in this example? 😊
@@michaelrogers2080 That's awful! Was Australia recently conquered by a foreign power and I didn't hear about it?
@@Kerithanosno. Probably a huge portion of them have their first language as the language of the natives. I also think there’s a German speaking group.
@@KerithanosWhy would that be awful? There’s just a lot of linguistic diversity because of immigration and native groups. They didn’t even give a stat for how many don’t speak english at all
I hope you read this one because it is a goodie. 30 years ago, a co-worker transferred to one of our American offices from the UK. There was a software program that was referred to by an acronym. It was called SLAG (it was used to generate license keys for the software we sold). My UK buddy found that pretty funny since it is a word used to describe a loose woman in Britain.
Hayyyy…a shag in the 70’s was a wonderfully popular and becoming haircut, as well as a trendy style of residential wall-to-wall carpeting (typically in fun bright colors such as orange or green)!
shagging was also a popular dance style in the coastal Carolinas in the 50s and 60s. As an older North Carolinian if they like to shag and they'll think you mean dancing (and not the horizontal mambo, either)
To "SHAG" also referred to a dance: "Dancin', shagging on the boulevard".
still is, both are trendy again these days!
@@Cricket2731I never heard “Shag” in reference to a dance till I moved to the South! I had to ask what kind of dance it was!
@@sandybruce9092I'm a North Carolinian and I know most people in the US don't know the dance, much less people from the UK. Since it originated in Myrtle Beach and we used to go camping there when I was a kid, I have always been familiar with it. Beach music is different to us than the what the west coast knows it as.
Canadian here. Mother Tucker's was a buffet style chain that was fun to say but sadly they changed the name to a safer Tucker's Marketplace. Then the pandemic put them out of business.
A friend had a vintage fashion store with his mom, Mother Fletcher's,which was their surname and also a euphemism for...well, you can figure it out.
@@wideawake5630 To put feathers on an arrow, surely? :)
When I first heard of knockers-up or knocker-ups (ie a person whose job it was to go around the neighborhood in the early morning and tap on people’s windows to wake them up in pre-alarm clock days), I think my eyebrows and hairline temporarily merged.
Don't worry, lifelong American and 9 year-old me was also horrified when first encountering a Fuddrucker's; I was completely convinced that the rest of my Girl Scout troop was saying something horrible and the adults just up and decided they didn't care for some reason. As for hump day, surely I can't be the only person here who had never heard anyone use that term before that commercial with the talking camel? Somebody back me up, here.
I can back you up. I'm American and I didn't hear it until that commercial either. The first time I heard it I was shocked, because it sounded rude to me 😂 I couldn't believe people were allowed to say that on a commercial, lol.
The talking camel is also when I first heard about hump day.
The commercial was the first time for me too. I thought the entire expression was just made up by an advertising team.
I’m a very old A Eric an and I’ve heard “hump day” used for many, many years years - as I back in the 70s😄
The funniest thing I ever read was a Sherlock Holmes book where Sherlock knocked on Watson door early in the morning and apologized for "knocking you up". 😂😂
We all knew that they were more than just friends. We just didn't say it out loud. 🌈
Funnier than the frequent use of ejaculated?
@@glenncordova4027men can’t get other men pregnant.
The original stories have a lot of ejaculating in them because at the time they were written it wasn't a sexual term but simply meant speaking with force, emphasis or suddenly remarking. I suppose that's because language poured forth and later it came to mean what it does today.
@@cleoldbagtraallsorts3380The British term "knock you up' means wake you up. It goes back before alarm clocks: people were paid to knock on bedroom windows to wake workers up to be on time for their factory jobs.
Honestly, double-fisting sounded rude to me too, and I'm American.
Do a google image search with safe search off. Also the words creampie, ATM, BBC, and teabag conjure up totally different picture in my head than they did 20-25 years ago
yeah, i’m pretty sure that rude/dirty vibe is why people use it lol
The saying is: a "two fisted" drinker... I've never heard the term double fisting.
@@jjohn4874 I have but not for drinking
A pastor friend told of a colleague guest preaching in England having to stop mid sermon because some children in the front row aere so rowdy. He chuckled and said, (probably ironically), cute little buggers. Collective gasp.
In Massachusetts a store that sells alcohol is sometimes referred to as a “Package Store.” This is usually shortened to “The Packy.”
So when somebody casually states that they are going to “hit the packy” they are simply planning to buy some alcohol and (probably) not planning a hate crime.
Wow, that would be seriously offensive in the U.K.
@@cleoldbagtraallsorts3380 Yes, the first time I went to the UK an elderly cashier at the first shop I went to used that word (to describe how she thought the neighborhood had gone downhill), and it wasn't until much later that I realized what she meant.
@ttintagel Unfortunately, there are some racists here, but not nearly as many as the media makes out. Practically no-one under 60 is a racist, and not many older people are. I suppose that lady may have just not adapted well to the changes in the population demographic and not be a true racist. The U.K has changed drastically since the 1950s.
@@cleoldbagtraallsorts3380 Oh, I didn't mean to imply that sort of thing was common! I only brought it up because of that unfamiliar word that I only learned about later on.
@@cleoldbagtraallsorts3380lmao. i can assure you there are loads of racists of all ages, all over the world. if you think 1950s racism is the only flavor of racism that counts, you are being willfully ignorant.
It's not just distance, it's time as well, even within the same land. "Cornhole" today is the innocent name for a beanbag game played in family-friendly environments. But fifty years ago, it was among the vilest of verbs, the equivalent of what you took "double fisting" to mean. It disappeared for a time; evidently a generation or two of Americans grew up never hearing it.
Oh, it's back.
It never really lost that meaning. It's just more regional in the saying ( more county vs city).
I thought it meant anus. But I'm a Brit.
Cornhole still means anal sex!
NO, I think Cornhole has always been dirty. When I was a kid, Cornhole was just called "beanbag toss," Cornhole became the name because it was a bit more risque sounding.
Relating to "bum," in American English there is the expression "to bum (someone) out," meaning to make someone feel disappointed. Is this present in British English as well?
I was thinking of that meaning when he mentioned “bummer”-as in “well, that’s a bummer” meaning that whatever was referenced was disappointing.
And...don't harsh my mellow!
@@bevwest7428 , I liked to change it to, "Don't marsh my mallow," just to be "clever." Much to my chagrin, no one has ever commented on it.
Short answer, no. LOL.
Longer answer: we're pretty used to 'bummer' by now, from American media, but I haven't heard this one before and it does make the mind leap in... interesting directions!
I think the first time I heard the term “hump day” it’s was on that old Geico commercial where there was a camel in an office announcing it was “hump day”.
The "hump day" expose reminded me of an American phrase which was common in the 1970s which I almost never hear anymore. To "get over the hump" means to get past the hardest part or halfway point of a task. Looking up its etymology, it originated from WWII when the Himalayas were referred to as "the hump". And planes carrying cargo there announced they were over the hump once they'd crossed the mountains.
Anybody remember "flying the hump"? (WWII)
Your style of humor has always been great! Always excellent to see an upload from you, Lawrence.
Lawrence, I’m glad you didn’t get lost in the pond ! We’re better for having you here .
🇺🇸🇬🇧
In railroad parlance, to "hump" a freight car means to send it over an artificial hill into a yard until it collides with and connects to other cars already sitting on the track. So cars with sensitive cargo say "DO NOT HUMP" in huge letters on their sides to keep their contents from getting damaged. But then of course somebody made a shirt out of it, and then all sorts of fun ensued! 😉
That story reminds me of the former name of Fugging, Upper Austria. Before 2021 the middle letters were not Gs.
During my high school days, I became friends with a Swedish exchange student. My friends and I took her to her first American high school football game. Out of the blue, she began laughing hysterically, covering her mouth in utter shock. I asked her what she was laughing about. She pointed to some guy's jacket that had the word "Pitt" on the back, (short for University of Pittsburg). She whispered to me, "That word means [a man's personal part] in Swedish". I had to explain to her that it was an American University. 😂
My sister went to the College of William and Mary, and she later wore a “William and Mary” university short on a UK trip we went on. Several people asked if William was her boyfriend or otherwise why she had a shirt that said “William and Mary”…..even though it refers to Queen Mary and William of Orange, who were the UK totals in the colonial period.
@@Itried20takennames Hahaha!! Great story, and great name you have there. 😂Made me laugh, "I tried 20 taken names".
The new phrase for "they blew me off," is "they ghosted me."
Yes for the younger folk
Depends. Sometimes blew you off just means to ignore. Like you complain to your boss about needing a raise and he blew you off.
@@anndeecosita3586 Still works. "Complained to my boss about needed a raise, and they ghosted me."
Yes, we know. They were talking about (what is now only one) kind of blowing off. It used to be the main meaning of "to blow off" was to not show up when expected, which is now called "ghosting". Terminology has evolved, as it does, over time. People who were around longer experienced it in real time. @@anndeecosita3586
Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike, HUMP DAY!!
Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike!--Guess what day it is!
Haha we need to bring that commercial back!
🐪
*sighs* it's hump day
😂
Spunk or spunky has a completely different meaning over here in the UK as compared to the US. To describe a girl as being 'full of spunk' would NOT mean she is fiercely independent & bursting with self-confidence.
No I think it ultimately has the same meaning it’s like saying piss and vinegar
I love the way you dance around the naughty stuff. Funny and tactful.
HAHAHA! Thanks, now I will no longer think these normal phrases to be not dirty.
We've adopted 'hump day' in Australia in the last 20s years or so. I don't remember it being used in the 90s when I started work. Fanny packs are called bum bags here. Fanny means the same thing as it does in Britain, although it's pretty old-fashioned. In Australia we don't say bum rush. We say bum's rush. If you give someone the bum's rush, you're palming them off/standing them up.
So, my dad’s first name is Rand, and my grandmother and Aunt always called him “Randy.” (Which in England calling someone Randy is the same as calling them Horny in the United states.)
He was at a party as a young man and introduced himself to a young British woman as Randy, and she responded with “I don’t know why you’re so proud of it.”
Needless to say that is when he stopped going by that nickname.
7:33 To blow someone off can also mean to be completely dismissive of them or to disregard everything they say.
Like if you go to your boss and make a well-reasoned argument about the risks of a serious incident and the steps that can be taken to prevent it, and they say "I'm not worried about that happening and we're not gonna take any of those steps", you might go home and say "My boss totally blew me off today".
That's probably the only way I use the phrase "blew them off". Standing someone up might be a way to blow them off, but if a meeting is missed I will pretty much always use the phrase "stood them up" because I think it is less ambiguous.
I laughed when last I visited friends in Chicago. Signs in their neighborhood say "speed hump" instead of "bump".
Now those signs are appearing here in RI, too
@lindaC616
We've had those signs here in Florida for at least 20 years now. But, to be fair, they don't refer to the small bumps a foot or two wide, which are still called speed bumps. Our speed humps are 10 to 12 feet across. So, it may just be a way to differentiate between the two, down here.
The hump is a much wider speed bump.
@@tahliasgoddaddy Wow! These in Chicago were thr normal ones, and the ones locally are mostly the same. In my neighborhood, they installed 5 or 6 of those really wide ones a few months back; they lasted about one or two months before they disappeared
@@cdcollins9226 not those. Not the ones in my neighborhood
@@cdcollins9226I never knew that
I'm still having issues with cornhole without breaking out in laughter. Every time I hear someone uses the word, I remember when it wasn't a game.
Right? Still sounds off to me 😂
It makes me think of something from Beavis and Butthead.
What is worse is cornholing is now a game for the whole family. For those who don't know, it is tossing bean bags into a hole on a board.
@@ryansenft3315”I am the Great Cornholio! I need TP for my bunghole!” 😂
@@ryansenft3315 "The Great Cornholio!"
As a pure-bred American I have to say I’ve never heard the term “bum rush” and the sentence “they bum rushed him from behind.” made me think the exact same thing you were thinking😂
My mom's favorite example of this comes from when, back in the '60s, she spent the evening with a visiting English couple. They made plans for the next day. At the end of the evening the man said to my mom, "I'll knock you up in the morning." My mom: 'Uh, excuse me?" Apparently "Knock you up," meant "I'll call you on the phone."
My Irish friend used to say “I”lol collect you”, which for me was funny and cute because I associated with a collection of stickers or toys or something. He meant picking me up, which also sounds funny to a non-native English speaker such as myself.
Yes, it means I will contact you or come to your residence in the U.K. Usually, it's so you don't miss something, like a meeting.
Bummer is also used to mean "unfortunate occurrence", or mildly bad news. Flat tire = bummer. Bad car wreck = worse than bummer..... It's possible it's out-dated, but so am I, & I feel it conveys what I want to say, so I still use it...😅
The name Randy is another good example. Normal in the US, a little odd to call someone in the UK.
What does it mean in the UK?
Randy is short for Randolph.
@@klimtkahloSexually aroused. The American version would be horny, I suppose.
"randy" can be used like the word "horny."
@@klimtkahlo To be randy is to be crazy with sexually arousal, lecherous. "Keep your hands to yourself, you randy bugger!"
"How's your father" 😂
Where does THAT come from?
@@nager1997 It crosses my mind now that it might be Cockney rhyming slang.
The funniest thing about fanny pack/bum bags is that you are basically guaranteed to never get lucky while wearing one. They’re a universal coitus deterrent.
They always remind me of the bum roll, a kind of padding ladies used to wear before the invention of the bustle.
As time progressed I had to drop the aquired expression "mucking about" because that wasn't what my students heard any longer.
That just reminded of the time I saw a different English presenter use the phrase “knock it up” to mean getting something done. I was briefly confused about how he intended to get an inanimate object pregnant.
This episode was so funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you!
When my colleagues and I were working in the US, we'd occasionally go to Jimmy John's for lunch. The sign on the bin caused no end of amusement...."Toss Here'
6:35 Kum & Go... First time I encountered it was in college, and I had a good infantile giggle at the name.
At one point they released a cup you could buy to get cheap refills on fountain sodas, coffee, and such, called "The Go Cup", which infers a certain name that may have been suggested initially...
I think perhaps one of my favorite words it sounds like a swear but isn't would be: Flocculent
A substance which causes particulates suspended in water to fall to the bottom
It can also be an adjective. For example, flocculent yeast is prized by brewers because it settles to the bottom of the fermenter after having done its job, leaving the beer crystal clear instead of cloudy.
Machines that make use of such substances to treat water are called “flocculators.” Which sounds like one of two options, the other being “floccunow.”
@@jasonlescalleet5611😂
To us older Subscribers,
Your cadence is really reminding us of another Brit expat, Robin Leach from 80s TV show, _Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous._
I knew of a guy when we were stationed in England who walked up to a girl and said "hi, I'm Randy, would you like to dance?" and promptly got slapped in the face for his trouble.
Great vlog, learning differences is what helps most.
Most people from other places give a quizzical look when you say you are going to In & Out for lunch.
We don't use 'Off' as a suffix quite the same way, at least not always. If someone "Blew you off," it means you got ignored. If someone "Blew you," you owe them breakfast.
Same with when you say somebody's angry, you also don't use Off. We do, because without Off to us means drunk to us. Also, Dying. To us somebody has "passed on" or "passed away"; they didn't just "pass"
😂 ❤
@@elaineb7065 The thing about being Pissed is, off is always better than on.
Even as fellow midwest American, I had to do a double take when I first seen a Kum 'N Go service station (Iowa) and even more suprised to find out there was a competeing one with a different spelling of the name, Come and Go. My inner teenager was giggling like crazy over those.
As an Iowan, I can tell you we've always found it highly amusing, too.
I get bummed when I can't partake in word play.
The word "bummer" was really common at least from the late '60's in to the mid 80's. A bummer is a disappointing experience; pretty much anything that didn't turn out well could be called a bummer.
And certainly "blew him off" has a specifically sexual meaning in American slang.
Bummer has been a regular part of American English since at least the 60s if not way before, and it still is. It's essentially a permanent fixture now
@@whatabouttheearth It's been part of American English since the 60's--the 1860's. It was popularized during the Civil War and usually meant soldiers who had deserted, or fallen out of the ranks. They generally followed the regular army around and caused all kinds of mayhem once the regular army had gone on to their next battle, by robbing, burning, stealing, etc, in the area just left by the army. The most famous were "Sherman's Bummers" who raised a lot of hell during the March Through Georgia, following Sherman's army around and destroying and burning whatever Sherman's boys had left standing.
Another word that you could have mentioned is “spunk”. I was talking to my friend’s British husband about their cat and I said it had “spunk”… his face was priceless… 😂
A tomcat I presume?
This reminds me of how British slang forced Hasbro to rename a Dinobot. That Dinobot was named Slag, because in American English, it just refers to a byproduct of smelting ore.
It can also be a semi- synonym for slut if she's not very attractive.
Did they? I did not know that. I thought I remembered the name still being Slag in the TV series, movie and comics. The slang term might have been considered problematic by some but the conventional usage is still known and used in the UK.
Ah, maybe that was in a later series. Still weird though. Would be little different to forcing someone called Dick to change their name.
@@Karras353 The change happened post-G1. For a while, they did other tricks (besides not us8ng the character). IIRC Transformers: Animated even jokes about it. The character is named "Snarl" (a different G1 Dinobot, but one without TFA counterpart), with a joke about him originally being called "Slag" but not liking the name.
Yeah, I suppose it could be a bit like the name "Dick". Though, in a country where "Dick" is common slang for "penis", we still get characters named "Dick". Perhaps less so in youth targeted ones?
@@KamisamanoOtaku I meant it more as a double standard tbh. That is exactly the double meaning that I was referring to, plus the general use of "dick" as an insult. But I'm not aware of anyone ever forcing a name change for that double meaning. "Slag" is obviously not normally used as a name but it is still a word that has a completely innocent meaning. There was never much risk of people assuming that the Dinobot was a promiscuous woman.
I find it amusing that our term of fanny pack is more applicable in the UK, becaue most people wear them in front.
7:35 - another meaning of "blowing (someone) off" is to maliciously or appear to maliciously ignore someone. For example, if you go somewhere and wave to someone that you know (or to a store clerk, clearly asking for help as another example), and they turn around and avoid you, that can also be described as them blowing you off.
Blowoff is Carny slang for show after the show.
@@samanthab1923Blow off is also English slang for fart, but it's not used that much these days.
I love that as an American, I can watch these videos and learn something about my own country, and our slang. I never knew the origin of bum or bum rush. Cheers! I also live in the same general area as you, and I hope the great thaw this week has not led to your basement flooding.
While the explanation for "Hump Day" is ok in tying it to a midpoint of a training period, the actual metaphor is used in the saying, "Thank goodness. We're over the hump," is more akin to the idea of climbing a hill, or mountain, on one side, passing it's peak, and descending the other side. In other words, "It's all downhill from here."
Bummer here in Australia is usual used as a replacement for disappointment.