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Irritating American names for things

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 35,339 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    Lets go to the Mall , I love the Mall

    MAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL


  • Registered Users Posts: 30,430 ✭✭✭✭~Rebel~


    In fairness to them, one I think they’ve nailed is ‘Hood’ instead of ‘Bonnet’.

    Since I’ve been forced to think about it after being questioned on it, I now can’t avoid the image of a large, floppy, probably floral, women’s hat whenever it comes up.

    I’m sticking with ‘Boot’ till I die though (even if ‘Trunk’ perhaps makes more sense).


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,088 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    'Flavo(u)rful' is very annoying and I hear it creeping into British shows too. Flavoursome is a much better word and does not sound made-up.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Rest room/Wash room/Bathroom (when there's obvs no actual bathtub in there)

    It's a bleedin toilet.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,445 ✭✭✭Rodney Bathgate


    Mall


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,863 ✭✭✭✭crosstownk


    cnocbui wrote: »
    Gas, for a flammable liquid that isn't a gas.

    Thing is, petrol, as it's called this side of the pond, doesn't light as a liquid. Only the vapours (gaseous) light. So in a way, 'gas' is correct.


  • Registered Users Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Jenna James


    Dope.. that's buggin'


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,519 ✭✭✭Dr. Bre


    Candy ! It’s sweets ffs


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Caucus and primary: seemingly endless presidential fcuking about.


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,017 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    Dr. Bre wrote: »
    Candy ! It’s sweets ffs


    Its not as bad as using sweets for desert


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  • Registered Users Posts: 718 ✭✭✭OscarMIlde


    The way American TV cooks say 'Parmejan' instead of parmesan. It is so irritating and pretentious.

    Also their love of honorific titles. Every TV cook is referred to as chef constantly, regardless of whether they really are one or not. Yes Chef this, no Chef that. You never see that snivelling kow-towing on UK cookery shows. It's part of the weird authoritarian streak running through their country.


  • Registered Users Posts: 718 ✭✭✭OscarMIlde


    spurious wrote: »
    'Flavo(u)rful' is very annoying and I hear it creeping into British shows too. Flavoursome is a much better word and does not sound made-up.

    They also use healthful which just sounds ridiculous. What's wrong with good old healthy?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,229 ✭✭✭mvl


    Downtown


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,017 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    mvl wrote: »
    Downtown


    And then referring to areas like South Downtown as SoDo


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    OscarMIlde wrote: »
    That weird vocal fry thing that every woman (and now increasingly every man) under 40 does.

    Oh God, I hate that. They sound chronically constipated.

    Pantyhose for tights. Panties for knickers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 651 ✭✭✭440Hertz


    Pants, ( it's an Irish thing as well unfortunately) - they are trousers. Pants are knickers.

    Pants in England seems to have come from a shortened form of underpants and forgetting that pants was used as a term for trousers.

    Seems in that case the English finding the term pants funny is just their take on it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    OscarMIlde wrote: »
    They also use healthful which just sounds ridiculous. What's wrong with good old healthy?

    Normalcy instead of normality. Using alternate instead of alternative. Those words do not even mean the same thing!


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,017 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    Sardonicat wrote: »
    Oh God, I hate that. They sound chronically constipated.

    Pantyhose for tights. Panties for knickers.


    Took me a while to get used to and for a bit there I thought it was mad how many American men I bumped into were gay till I realised that accent was just a thing now in the US


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    "urbs" HERBS :mad:

    Soccer is annoying to me but I understand it's origins and why those with funny football codes use it - Association football got shortened/bastardised.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 651 ✭✭✭440Hertz


    On the bathroom thing, same Americans: visiting my grandmother who had one of those houses that had the bathroom & toilet in separate rooms.

    “Can I please use your bathroom?”
    “OK - it’s up the stairs, turn left and second door on the right!” “Do you need a towel, love? There’s plenty of hot water!”

    (Look of total confusion and off she goes)

    “Oh Jesus! She means she wants to go to the TOILET!! I just thought she was one of those ones who keeps needing showers: you know what those Americans are like. Always in the feckin shower!
    Christ, I better shout up to her before she pi**es in the bath!”


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,584 ✭✭✭Day Lewin


    Fewtle for Futile. A-DULT for adult. And LAB-rat-ory for lab rats - I mean, labORatory


  • Registered Users Posts: 947 ✭✭✭Nodster


    After over 20 years happily married to a fine lass from northern California, I've heard them all. With the local fire station a stones throw from the backdoor she still informs me "The fire department just left on a call"


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,313 ✭✭✭Asdfgh2020


    LJ3103 wrote: »
    Erbs for Herbs

    Our Brit friends/fiends use that word also


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,681 ✭✭✭Porklife


    "erbs" HERBS :mad:

    Soccer is annoying to me but I understand it's origins and why those with funny football codes use it - Association football got shortened/bastardised.

    This wrecks my head to a ridiculous eye twitching level of rage 🀬
    I hate the word butt too..ooh cute butt 🀬


  • Registered Users Posts: 20,328 ✭✭✭✭dxhound2005


    Asdfgh2020 wrote: »
    Our Brit friends/fiends use that word also

    And they are guilty with Hour, Honest and some more. Herb is a French word so originally went to America with a silent H.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 651 ✭✭✭440Hertz


    Asdfgh2020 wrote: »
    Our Brit friends/fiends use that word also

    Yeah, but they insist on dropping all H’s as in “I live in an ‘ouse”.

    The Americans pronounce all the H’s then seem to think herb is in French and drop the H while pronouncing it nothing like French.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,707 ✭✭✭✭Hello 2D Person Below


    Watching Hell's Kitchen is always a dose, having to listen to them mangling the pronunciation of risotto.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,377 ✭✭✭✭Zeek12


    Sadly a lot of these have become commonplace in our workplaces:

    Reach out
    Touch base
    Leverage
    Uptick

    Then there’s the annoying everyday ones. Like

    Shopping Cart
    Faucet (where did that come from?)
    Oftentimes

    And my real hate.

    Monday thru Friday ( instead of to Friday)


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,543 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    crosstownk wrote: »
    Thing is, petrol, as it's called this side of the pond, doesn't light as a liquid. Only the vapours (gaseous) light. So in a way, 'gas' is correct.

    I know. For liquids and solids to burn, they first have to be pyrolized/vapourized and it is these 'gases' that actually combust.

    If an American offered you a glass of 'liquid', to drink, would you not want to ask further details as to what sort it was? Wouldn't offering you a glass of water be better? If so, then I think you and the Americans are wrong. Gas is a generic term applicable to a wide range of things and I think it's stupid to call a liquid 'gas'. All flammable liquids become gas in order to burn, not just petrol.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 651 ✭✭✭440Hertz


    Faucet came from an anglicisation of Old French and refers to a bung for a vent hole in a barrel or that sort of thing - like a bigger version of a cork.

    Faucet makes absolutely no sense in modern French. Tap is a robinet.


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