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English words used in different places

Old 04-02-21, 03:48 AM
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alo
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English words used in different places

In America, it seems a lot of people say saddle. Where I have lived in Australia, many people say seat. Not necessarily everybody, but many.

In America, it seems a lot of people say fender. In Australia, many people say mudguard.

Then there is liter - litre, meter - metre, Kilometer - kilometre.

Americans say aluminum. Australians say aluminium.

Americans say tire, Australians pronounce it the same, but spell it tyre.

Americans and Australians write tube, but pronounce it differently.

In America they have sidewalks. In Australia they have footpaths.

What words can you think of that may be different in your part of the world?
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Old 04-02-21, 04:34 AM
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Before I start driving pickup trucks and station wagons, I would sometimes put my bike in the trunk of the car - Brits seem to put their bikes in the boot.

Breakfast seems to have terminology issues - cycling in the UK, I was excited to try authentic English Muffins but they turned out to just be muffins, which they said are called cake when you eat them later in the day. When I asked, they said "Oh, you must mean American Breakfast Muffins - no one in England eats those."

At a hotel on that trip, pretty much everything except bananas seemed to have a different name than what I was used to. The had biscuits, but those turned out to be cookies. What looked like what I call a scone tasted more like what I call a biscuit. Milk was still called milk...
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Old 04-02-21, 05:03 AM
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AFAIK most Americans call a saddle a seat, whereas in the UK it's invariably a saddle (we'll find out when they wake up!).

There's also 'pavement' - in the UK the pavement is what Americans call the sidewalk, whereas in the US I think it's the road.

You get slagged in the UK if you refer to a mudguard as a fender, but I think 'fender' is a far more elegant word. 'Mudguard' reminds me of when the French actress Leslie Caron was on the Parkinson chat show years and years ago and bemoaned the fact that German was such a crude, unromantic language compared to French - as an example she said the literal translation of 'nipple' in German is 'breast wart'. Don't know what it is in French but 'mudguard' is a bit like that compared to 'fender'.

It's the other way around, I think, with 'cycling' and 'biking' - I far prefer 'cycling'. Also, in the UK a 'biker' is a motorcyclist, never a pedal cyclist, although I think that might be the same in the US.

In the UK a bike shop tends to be referred to as a 'LBS' - local bike shop - whereas Americans use the term 'cyclery', which I think is a lovely word. Of course, 'shop' in the UK is only somewhere you buy and sell stuff, whereas in the US it's also an abbreviation for workshop - where stuff is fabricated or worked on - although I suppose a bike shop counts as both.

'Tyre' and 'tire' is interesting - it's not like other English/American spellings. Apparently the story is that 'tire' is an abbreviation of 'attire' - what wheels were covered with - in the early days, metal bands, just like horses wear shoes to protect their hooves. When the rubber tire was invented, in the UK the spelling was altered to 'tyre' to make the distinction between it and metal bands, but in the US the original English spelling - 'tire' - was retained.

'Aluminum' by all accounts was a US typo for 'aluminium', but by the time the error was discovered it was too late to change it so the incorrect spelling stuck.

Even quote marks are different, btw - in the UK we use one where in the US they use two, then when there's a quote within a quote we use two where in the US they use one (as if it matters!).
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Old 04-02-21, 05:16 AM
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Originally Posted by kylecycler
In the UK a bike shop tends to be referred to as a 'LBS' - local bike shop - whereas Americans use the term 'cyclery', which I think is a lovely word. Of course, 'shop' in the UK is only somewhere you buy and sell stuff, whereas in the US it's also an abbreviation for workshop - where stuff is fabricated or worked on - although I suppose a bike shop counts as both.
Huh? No way. They're called bike shops. Or maybe LBS for people that frequent them often.

I've never heard the term "cyclery" anywhere, much less the U.S. Actually, never mind, there's Planet Cyclery... so one online shop. Most assuredly not a common term, though.

And yes, bikers are people that ride motorcyles, but people that don't ride bikes often refer to cyclists as bikers, too. Even our LBS has "biker's" in the title.

Last edited by rubiksoval; 04-02-21 at 05:19 AM.
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Old 04-02-21, 05:41 AM
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In America, we encourage someone that's facing a life challenge by saying, "I'm rooting for you, pal."

Say that in Australia, and watch a person's reaction.
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Old 04-02-21, 05:44 AM
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Route is spelt the same in Australia and America, but pronounced differently.

What some people call a rack, many Australians call a carrier.
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Old 04-02-21, 05:46 AM
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There used to be a saying: Old bikers don't die, they just retyre. Try translating that into American.
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Old 04-02-21, 05:55 AM
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Originally Posted by rubiksoval

I've never heard the term "cyclery" anywhere, much less the U.S. Actually, never mind, there's Planet Cyclery... so one online shop. Most assuredly not a common term, though.
Lots of shops have the word in their name - Mill Race Cyclery is a big one in my area - but you're right, no one uses the word as a generic term.

For example: "I'm taking my bike over to the cyclery for some maintenance"....
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Old 04-02-21, 05:56 AM
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Switching the comma for a period is the biggest thing I have to wrap my brain around. Here you'd have a bike that weighs 12.4kg, but in Europe they'd say 12,4kg. Then you'd say oh I bought that bike for $1,200 but in Europe it'd be €1.200
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Old 04-02-21, 05:57 AM
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Originally Posted by kylecycler
AFAIK most Americans call a saddle a seat...
I'd include myself in that category. I might call it a saddle if I think about it ahead of time and remember, but otherwise I'm fine with "seat".
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Old 04-02-21, 06:30 AM
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Originally Posted by rubiksoval
Huh? No way. They're called bike shops. Or maybe LBS for people that frequent them often.

I've never heard the term "cyclery" anywhere, much less the U.S. Actually, never mind, there's Planet Cyclery... so one online shop. Most assuredly not a common term, though.

And yes, bikers are people that ride motorcycles, but people that don't ride bikes often refer to cyclists as bikers, too. Even our LBS has "biker's" in the title.
Yeah, well, I should clarify - now that I think about it, 'LBS' is really only a forum abbreviation and not used in reality, right enough - I'd never refer to a bike shop as an LBS and neither would anyone I know - but trust me, a bike shop on any UK cycling forum is almost invariably referred to as an LBS. Not saying I like it either - it's a bit of a dumb term, tbh.

I didn't know how commonly the word 'cyclery' was used in the US but you'll surely also have heard of Harris Cyclery, Sheldon Brown's old shop? And there's Art's Cyclery on YouTube. I just assumed (wrongly, evidently) that it's a common term, but I think it's a shame it's not adopted more widely, it's an cool word, if maybe a bit too poncy. Can't quite remember but I think I even saw it used over here somewhere just recently, so you never know, it might catch on here if not over your way. But yeah, I get what Reflector Guy explained about it not being a generic term and "I'm taking my bike over to the cyclery for some maintenance" isn't ever going to happen!

And certainly a biker in the UK is always a motorcyclist, never a pedal cyclist - a cyclist over here rides a pedal cycle. And a seat is a saddle in the UK unless you're not a real proper cyclist!
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Old 04-02-21, 06:38 AM
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English in other languages

In modern street Hebrew, "brakes" are called "brake-eem."

In Spanish (at least, "street" Spanish in the Americas) car headlights are called "hi-beemz" (high beams). A washeteria is properly a "lavanderia," but commonly (and on signage) called "wasateria" (accent on the next to last syllable). Parking your car is denominated by the infinitive verb "parkear."
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Old 04-02-21, 06:42 AM
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In the States, the grassy part that divides a highway is the "median". In England it's the "central reservation", or at least was.

What we call "roundabouts" in the US, the Brits call "rotaries".

And a few months ago I was listening to a podcast and the international panelists were discusting things related to the body''s "skeletal" system. The Yanks pronounced it "SKEH-luh-tull", their UK counterparts pronounced it "skuh-LEE-tahl".

Oh yeah, then there's the "SKED-jew-wull"/"SHED-jool" Yank/Brit thing.

Last edited by BobbyG; 04-02-21 at 06:49 AM.
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Old 04-02-21, 06:48 AM
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In the US:
Cyclists call it "cycling", everyone else calls it "biking"
Cyclists call themselves "cyclists", everyone else calls them "bikers" (or various other names)
Everyone calls it a "bike shop". "Cyclery" is used in some shop names, but no one calls them that. No one outside of cycling internet forum-dwellers knows what an "LBS" is.
Cyclists call it a "saddle", everyone else calls it a "seat".
Cyclists call it a "rack", no one else knows what to call it.
Everyone calls them "fenders".
We call it aluminum. Trivia: both "aluminum" and "aluminium" are correct. There was a debate on what to call the metal among British chemists in the early 1800s that was never really resolved so both names were adopted. "Aluminum" is actually the earlier name. "Alumium" is actual the metal's first name.

There are many regional variations of words here in the US:
The great "soda" vs. "pop" vs. "Coke" debate
"Rubbernecking delay" vs. "gapers delay"
"Sucker" vs. "lollipop"
...etc

There are also many pronunciation differences like "creak" (for "creek") vs. "crick", "greasy" vs. "greazy", "roof" vs. "ruff", "root" (for "route) vs. "rowt" etc.

Last edited by Hiro11; 04-02-21 at 07:05 AM.
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Old 04-02-21, 07:04 AM
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Originally Posted by Hiro11
We call it aluminum. Trivia: both "aluminum" and "aluminium" are correct. There was a debate on what to call the metal among the British chemists in the early 1800s that was never really resolved so both names were adopted. "Aluminum" is actually the earlier name.
I thought maybe it was named after the famous inventor, Al Youminium...
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Old 04-02-21, 07:11 AM
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Originally Posted by BobbyG
In the States, the grassy part that divides a highway is the "median". In England it's the "central reservation", or at least was.

What we call "roundabouts" in the US, the Brits call "rotaries".

And a few months ago I was listening to a podcast and the international panelists were discusting things related to the body''s "skeletal" system. The Yanks pronounced it "SKEH-luh-tull", their UK counterparts pronounced it "skuh-LEE-tahl".

Oh yeah, then there's the "SKED-jew-wull"/"SHED-jool" Yank/Brit thing.
other way round - they’re called “roundabouts” in the UK - I never heard “rotary” until I moved to the US. Also your “skeletal” pronunciation is backward.
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Old 04-02-21, 07:15 AM
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Originally Posted by kylecycler
AFAIK most Americans call a saddle a seat, whereas in the UK it's invariably a saddle (we'll find out when they wake up!).

There's also 'pavement' - in the UK the pavement is what Americans call the sidewalk, whereas in the US I think it's the road.

You get slagged in the UK if you refer to a mudguard as a fender, but I think 'fender' is a far more elegant word. 'Mudguard' reminds me of when the French actress Leslie Caron was on the Parkinson chat show years and years ago and bemoaned the fact that German was such a crude, unromantic language compared to French - as an example she said the literal translation of 'nipple' in German is 'breast wart'. Don't know what it is in French but 'mudguard' is a bit like that compared to 'fender'.

It's the other way around, I think, with 'cycling' and 'biking' - I far prefer 'cycling'. Also, in the UK a 'biker' is a motorcyclist, never a pedal cyclist, although I think that might be the same in the US.

In the UK a bike shop tends to be referred to as a 'LBS' - local bike shop - whereas Americans use the term 'cyclery', which I think is a lovely word. Of course, 'shop' in the UK is only somewhere you buy and sell stuff, whereas in the US it's also an abbreviation for workshop - where stuff is fabricated or worked on - although I suppose a bike shop counts as both.

'Tyre' and 'tire' is interesting - it's not like other English/American spellings. Apparently the story is that 'tire' is an abbreviation of 'attire' - what wheels were covered with - in the early days, metal bands, just like horses wear shoes to protect their hooves. When the rubber tire was invented, in the UK the spelling was altered to 'tyre' to make the distinction between it and metal bands, but in the US the original English spelling - 'tire' - was retained.

'Aluminum' by all accounts was a US typo for 'aluminium', but by the time the error was discovered it was too late to change it so the incorrect spelling stuck.

Even quote marks are different, btw - in the UK we use one where in the US they use two, then when there's a quote within a quote we use two where in the US they use one (as if it matters!).
I think “saddle” is universal - the big question is: why is a saddle mounted on a seatpost?
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Old 04-02-21, 07:30 AM
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I’d fancy a f@g. Maybe even a spliff. It’ll settle my arse because of all the adverts these plonkers have flashing on my screen.

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Old 04-02-21, 07:38 AM
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Depends on which group you are with in USA as to what some things are called. I'd think that applies to Australia too. Certainly y'all aren't that homogenized with your dialect and colloquialisms there are you?

I'm assuming when you said America you meant the United States of America. Or where you asking about Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, and all the other countries (states) that make up the America's?


A country is also known as a State for those that didn't know that.

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Old 04-02-21, 08:01 AM
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Originally Posted by BobbyG
In the States, the grassy part that divides a highway is the "median". In England it's the "central reservation", or at least was.

What we call "roundabouts" in the US, the Brits call "rotaries".

And a few months ago I was listening to a podcast and the international panelists were discusting things related to the body''s "skeletal" system. The Yanks pronounced it "SKEH-luh-tull", their UK counterparts pronounced it "skuh-LEE-tahl".

Oh yeah, then there's the "SKED-jew-wull"/"SHED-jool" Yank/Brit thing.
I've always referred to the grassy median dividing a street as a 'boulevard strip'.

Another is referring to fuel for a vehicle as gasoline or diesel in the USA, 'petrol' in the UK. The hood on a car is a 'bonnet' in the U.K. I'm not sure what either of them is in Australia.
I've heard Aussies refer to an outhouse as a 'thunderbox'.

Japan has some interesting pronunciations, too. Remember the Japanese town with the nuclear reactor that got wiped out by the Tsunami in 2011? In the USA its referred to as Fu-ku-SHI-ma, over in Japan its Fu-KU-shima.
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Old 04-02-21, 08:29 AM
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Regional difference

There are regional differences in the US as well. If you live in southern Wisconsin and stop in a park for a drink you look for the "bubbler". Everywhere else that I lived you would look for a "drinking fountain". There were ones that delivered water continuously so deserved the term bubbler. No municipality in the southwest US would be likely to allow that because it wastes too much precious water.

There was a bubbler in Sauk City WI that I used to pass occasionally on business route US Highway 12 in the 1970s. It ran all the time but the water tasted faintly of gasoline. Turns out that was the original US HY 12 years ago and an abandoned gasoline station had polluted the groundwater with gasoline that got sucked up by a nearby municipal well. Eventually the town had to abandon that well and move to one farther away from the old US12.
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Old 04-02-21, 08:48 AM
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Originally Posted by Hiro11
In the US:
Cyclists call it "cycling", everyone else calls it "biking"
Cyclists call themselves "cyclists", everyone else calls them "bikers" (or various other names)
Everyone calls it a "bike shop". "Cyclery" is used in some shop names, but no one calls them that. No one outside of cycling internet forum-dwellers knows what an "LBS" is.
Cyclists call it a "saddle", everyone else calls it a "seat".
Cyclists call it a "rack", no one else knows what to call it.
Everyone calls them "fenders".
We call it aluminum. Trivia: both "aluminum" and "aluminium" are correct. There was a debate on what to call the metal among British chemists in the early 1800s that was never really resolved so both names were adopted. "Aluminum" is actually the earlier name. "Alumium" is actual the metal's first name.

There are many regional variations of words here in the US:
The great "soda" vs. "pop" vs. "Coke" debate
"Rubbernecking delay" vs. "gapers delay"
"Sucker" vs. "lollipop"
...etc

There are also many pronunciation differences like "creak" (for "creek") vs. "crick", "greasy" vs. "greazy", "roof" vs. "ruff", "root" (for "route) vs. "rowt" etc.
And you believe all that? I guess it’s true: there’s a lollipop born every minute. Soda goes the weasel.
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Old 04-02-21, 11:33 AM
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Uk/usa

OK I'll play.
From UK but been in US for 30+ years.

UK - USA
Spanner - Wrench
Seatpin - Seatpost
Boot - Trunk
Bonnet - Hood
Tyre - Tire

My road bike has a saddle.
My Wife's comfort bike has a Seat.

In California ... Mary, Marry & Merry all sound similar
In my home town it's ... Paul, Pool & Pull sounding similar.

"two countries separated by a common language"


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Old 04-02-21, 05:29 PM
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'Bubbler' in RI, too, when I was supposedly growing up. We went to a soda fountain or Newport Creamery to buy a cabinet. 'RI' was pronounced 'Rho D'eye-land'. Then there's the Cranston accent which some people think ... well, I'll skip that. RI gave the world tomato-based clam chowder, which was called 'RI Clam Chowder', but the New Yorkers liked it a lot, so it's more commonly called 'Manhattan Clam Chowder'.

More interesting to me is how words from one language find their way into other languages. Think some the language of baseball in Japan or some of the language of bike racing from French in English.

I was taught, many years ago, that the term 'e-re-be-ta-ga-ru' was used in Japan for 'female elevator attendant.' The Kanji was supposed to be the character for 'woman' on the left, 'up' on the upper right, and 'down' on the lower right. That was about the time that attendants were becoming redundant, so it's probably been forgotten.
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Old 04-02-21, 07:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Litespud
I think “saddle” is universal - the big question is: why is a saddle mounted on a seatpost?
For the same reason you park your car in the driveway and drive your car on the parkway.
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