British English in America

The BC have a list of words that people have said are now being used in the US. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19929249 Is this true or have these just been overheard by one person? Would anyone like to comment on this list? I find it hard to believe that Americans are now using 'innit' as a generic question tag.

I would say that some of the words are now cropping up in the United States because the country is a little less insular than it used to be -- and also the UK is coming back into 'fashion' again like in the early 1960's.

Frankly, I have never heard an American say 'chav' but I think the word is much more efficient and less offensive than 'white trash.'

I'm not so convinced about lumping Americans and Canadians together in that article.

There are definite differences in vocabulary, although Canadians have become more and more influenced by what they hear on US Tv shows. But for me, the word "bum" was always common usage -- only now do I hear "butt" among certain people in Canada.

I have never heard an American say 'chav'

The word 'Chav' often refers to 'Council house and violent'.
I don't believe The USA has 'Council' houses. Maybe that's why USA residents don't use the word.
Looking at the link (in the OP), the word 'Shag' gets a mention and quote.
However, it fails to add that in The USA (if I remember rightly) a shag is a dance. Is that correct?

The origin of "chav" is disputed and the "council house adolescent vermin" is probably a backronym.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav

I heard President Obama use the word "gobsmacked." How's that for a Britishism?

I hear it, instead, as an example of an educated and widely read American using a word that 99% of his audience won't understand. Some of the comments are ludicrous, others demonstrate the ignorance of the speaker.

Here's my take on some of those "Britishisms":

Autumn+ and +fall+ are both used here, and have been as far back as I can remember. +Fall+ may be the more frequently heard of the two, but I suspect that only a tiny percentage of Americans, if any at all, would think of +autumn as a "British" usage.

Flat+ has been in common use here since before I was born, and I'm retired. Chicago, where I live, has dwellings that are commonly referred to as two-flats, three-flats, etc., up to six-flats. (Something larger would probably be called an apartment building.) If +flat seems "British" to some of the respondents cited, it would seem to demonstrate their ignorance of American usage.

Frock+, although rare, has been in use here at least as long as +flat.

Gap year ? It's not just our "trailer trash" that don't know the term. I'd say that 99% of Americans couldn't tell you what it means.

I believe (without checking) that (UK) 'Gap year' is quite a new phrase.

One that isn't on the list that I hear occassionally (very occassionally) is "buggered" which in America means messed up or in diasarray (regardless on the English use of the term).

*8....
Often used as to mess things up here too. But officially, means something very different.

*11.... Brilliant ! !

Flat has been in common use here since before I was born, and I'm retired. Chicago, where I live, has dwellings that are commonly referred to as two-flats, three-flats, etc., up to six-flats. (Something larger would probably be called an apartment building.)

NA, I think that may be regional. From Wikipedia "In cities such as Buffalo, Detroit and Chicago the term Two-flat is used and defines it as a 'residential building that contains 2 dwelling units located on a single lot'." A quick Google search turned up mostly chicago hits.

Certain, around here, I've never run into a flat. A building with two units is a "duplex." There are also triplexes and fourplexes or quadplexes. (It's my understanding that in New York, a duplex is an apartment that has two floors.) A duplex is usually one story with the units side-by-side. A fourplex usually has two on the first floor and two on the second floor.

Those are usually purpose-built, rather than older buildings chopped up. I once lived in a big 19th C. house that had been converted to three units. That house wasn't a triplex, nor was it an apartment building; it was just an old house that had been converted to apartments.

"Frock" seems to be a returnee. I've run into it in fiction, etiquette books, and old magazines from about the 1920s up to the 1950s or so.

Some older folks in the U.S. still refer to jeans and slacks as "trousers" and you occassionally see advertisements for "trousers" whereas most younger Americans refer to such articles of clothing as "pants."

'Trousers' for trousers in the south of The UK.
'Pants' for trousers more so in the north.

A duplex is usually one story with the units side-by-side.

There aren't many duplexes in the Chicago area, but they tend to be two-story homes, side-by-side but within one structure. The drawback was when one owner didn't keep up his side of the building, so that window frames, eaves, etc. on one side might be freshly painted while paint on the other side was peeling.

Are there people in America who still think that the world is apartment? :-)

I heard a property description in Manitoba.... "Side by side".
Does that refer to what in The UK would be called a terraced property?

The drawback was when one owner didn't keep up his side of the building

A duplex here is always a rental. Sometimes the owner lives in one unit & rents out the other. So the owner is responsible for upkeep, not the tenants.

If it were two owned units it would probably be called a condo.

The 10-year olds who come to my volunteer program rarely know the word "trousers." They also don't know "Levi's" as a generic for jeans.

In the Chicago area, condominium denotes a particular kind of ownership under law that didn't appear until the 1960s. Duplexes were around soon after World War II. The ownership was some other form that may be extinct now.

In Toronto there were flats, which were dwellings rented out in somebody's house -- for example, the owner lived on the ground floor and rented the second floor, but it wasn't really closed off and they had a common entrance. This was often done to help pay for the house rather "unofficially", but in the want-ads, there were sections advertising flats and others advertising apartments.

Last time I was in Canada, I heard the term "granny flat" for a small apartment in the basement of a house.

A duplex in Toronto was a 2 floor building (that looked more like a house, so with one entrance and staircase) but with 2 separate apartments in it; a triplex would be 3 separate apartments, one usually a semi-basement, the two others above. I don't remember the usage of four-plex -- I guess it would have become an apartment building at some point.

"Frock" to me is a very old British usage that I knew as a kid in England. Lately, I have seen it used in the fashion pages of the International Herald Tribune but it strikes me as a bit pretentious.

Seeing #20, I add that apartment buildings used to have apartments that were only rented out, but since I left, they sell the apartments and they are called condos. I understand they have enormous maintenance fees. On my latest visits to Toronto, that's all I saw being built -- condos. But rental apartments still exist.

Frock is still used in the U.S. mostly in the context of clothing advertisements and usually refers to a somewhat fancy waistcoat made of woven fabric (in contrast to a knitted sweater type of affair).

bjd, in the States we'd call your "granny flat" a "mother-in-law" which refers to a separate, fully self-contained residence located within the main house's property. This usually refers to a separate unit, but can include such things as a room over the garage, a basement abode, or any housing in which you could stuff your mother-in-law separate from your living space.

Duplex in France means a two-level home or apartment. This can create a lot of confusion regarding places where duplex means "two dwellings side by side." I live in a duplex, because I have a staircase in my apartment to an upper room that I created in the attic.

I blame James Bond, Austin Powers, and Craig Ferguson.

Keouac (#25): "Then there is the case of a defrocked priest (défroqué) -- I have no idea exactly what the frock is in this context, but probably some sort of sign of distinction."

Orginally a frock was, "a loose, long garment with wide, full sleeves, such as the habit of a monk or priest." Hence the term "defrocked" meaning that a disgraced priest had his frock, a symbol of his priesthood, taken away from him. The term defrocked survives to this day in this context.

At least shag carpets have gone out of style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH_ODa805D0 - Banned in The UK for awhile.

http://www.dsds.org/Shag.

Not quite 80 years old.

Not quite 80 years old.

For heaven's sake. The Tams' song is a nostalgia piece!

I already acknowledged that the Carolina shag is still reasonably well-known in the Southeastern US, and may be occasionally done elsewhere among ballroom-dancing hobbyists. I can assure you, however, that your average American would have no more notion how to dance "the shag" than they would know how to Jitterbug or Charleston. The heyday of the various shag dances was during the Big Band Era, i.e. 70 years ago.

"Flat" was used in NY in my choldhood at least in the phrase "railroad flat", an apartment without a hall, just the rooms one behind the other, and typically fairly narrow.

Twenty-five feet wide! The wide open spaces of the west! My lot is twelve feet wide. You could spit across my living room, although I try to discourage it.

VinnyD's description of a New York "railroad flat" perfectly describes the Chicago two-flats, three-flats, etc. The typical city lot was 25 feet wide by 125 feet deep, but at least a couple of feet of that width was taken up by a sidewalk that led from the front of the house to the rear; that narrow walk was called a gangway.

Just looked up 'Flat (UK)'.

Described as.... 'One unit of accommodation on one floor'.

That would describe most bungalows too. I think to be a flat it has to be in a multifloor or at least multiunit dwelling.

Yep - an upstairs and downstairs flat in one building.

That would describe most bungalows too.

These are what I would call a bungalow. My neighborhood is full of them, including my own home, built in the 1920s.

Commonly two-bedroom, one bath. Some have an additional attic bedroom.

Right. That's the kind of thing I was thinking of. One unit of accommodation on one floor. Some have an additional attic story. But not most, in my experience.

That's what I call a bungalow too -- there were whole neighbourhoods of them in Toronto -- not so much in older areas of the city, but in post-war suburban ones. I think the term is still used by real-estate agents to describe houses that don't have a second floor.

That's what I call a bungalow too -- there were whole neighbourhoods of them in Toronto

In Chicago as well. There's even a nonprofit association here that deals with their preservation and upkeep: HCBA. You can find a definition of a Chicago bungalow at its Web site.

For an amusing take on gap years and British pronunciation, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU

Frock is still used in the U.S. mostly in the context of clothing advertisements and usually refers to a somewhat fancy waistcoat made of woven fabric (in contrast to a knitted sweater type of affair)

Well that's certainly a difference. A 'frock' to me (NZer 32yrs) is a dress. A bit of an old fashioned word which has come back into usage, but certainly a dress.

The bungalows which nutrax linked to would be considered bungalows here too. However, they would be called California Bungalows. The description of them in Australia mostly applies to NZ as well. Although, in saying that, the pictures they've linked to for Australia are far bigger than what I would expect here. I'd expect it to be much simpler (the 2 or 3 bedrooms etc). NZ houses were also more likely to be built from wood than Australia. They were still built from other materials, particularly in the South Island, but wood was common. And of course they were adapted somewhat for local tastes.

In terms of 'common' architectural styles here they fell between the wooden villas of the late 1800s to the early 1900s and before the post war buildings (also bungalows...but without the 'californian').

history of them here

one example

Edited by: sneaker_fish

I never would have expected frock to mean waistcoat but I don't spend much time in the fashion pages.

Yes sneaker, "frock" isthe origninal term for the long, dress-like vestment worn by priests. It has been Americanized to mean shorter outer article of clothing most commonly associated with waistcoats (in commercial advertising at least).

I'm another American who is surprised to hear that frock means waistcoat, which I think of as a kind of vest. (And doesn't vest itself have a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic?) To me, frock is a now old-fashioned term for a woman's dress. I used to pass Betty's Frock Shop on the way to and from work some years ago. Betty's sold women's dresses.

The headline writer for the Hollywood Reporter thinks frocks are dresses.

I'm another American who is surprised to hear that frock means waistcoat, which I think of as a kind of vest. (And doesn't vest itself have a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic?)

From the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus

vest
• UK (US undershirt , Australian singlet) a type of underwear, often with no sleeves, which covers the upper part of the body and which is worn for extra warmth
>a cotton/woollen/string vest
>She always wore a long-sleeved thermal vest in winter.

• UK (also vest top) a shirt without sleeves, usually made out of cotton, which is worn in the summer or for sport
>The cyclists were all dressed in tight lycra shorts and the official team vest.
>He wore a vest top and a pair of luminous shorts to the beach party.

• US for waistcoat

waistcoat
• a piece of clothing that covers the upper body but not the arms and usually has buttons down the front, worn over a shirt

snort...which is also known as a vest in new zealand!

vest here can have all the definitions as offered above.

Huguette Funfrock was the official double for QE2 for many years in France in comic films and commercials.

I never heard of Huguette Funfrock until today, but a Wikipedia page in French says that La Samaritaine, one of the big department stores in Paris, used her on posters advertising the store's slogan, "You can find everything at La Samaritaine." On the posters, she was dressed as Elizabeth II, and leaving the store with a replica of the Imperial crown.

Judge the resemblance for yourself: Huguette Funfrock.