more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday
If ever you are an English-English speaking person and visit the States, you will realize that the Americans apparently also speak English, but sometimes it leads to confusions. First there is the accent. Every sentence is pronounced as if the person has a very small to a very big potato in the mouth. The smallest potato is in Boston, the biggest one is in Texas.
That's why in Texas people asked me if I came from Boston. Belgium they didn't know at all, but Brussels they had heard of probably due to the European Union which is located in Brussels. And TV talks about Brussels and not enough about Belgium.
The Englishman shouldn't ask for toilet or loo, but for the restroom, although he had no intention to rest there, especially not when he is in a hurry.
Biscuits become cookies, which the English only knows from his computer, which has the advantage not to get an indigestion.
There are no chaps or lads anymore but guys and please pay attention to pronounce it correctly otherwise it could became "gay".
Cars have no boots but a trunk and don't think that you suddenly have a trunk of a tree in your boot.
In the front of your car you don't have a bonnet anymore but a hood. Very confusing because bonnets are worn on your head.
Goods are not transported in a lorry but in a truck, although thanks to American movies, trucks are also existing in the UK by now.
He doesn't sit in a garden but in a yard and tries to calculate how many yards are in a meter, which is used nowadays, but elderly Englishmen sit in their gardens, but still calculate in yards.
Little children are not sitting in a buggy but in a stroller and that means not a stroller in a park walking around and looking at girls.
There is no lift in a building but in an elevator which elevates him to the 10th floor, which doesn't really matter when both go up and down and don't get stuck.
His clothes are not hanging in a wardrobe but in a closet which in old English means a restroom. Strange.
The letter box becomes a mail box but it is "The postman always rings twice" and not the mailman maybe he doesn't ring at all.
He does not wearing trousers in the States, but pants. Fortunately underwear is the same word.
On TV there are no films but movies, but a film is still filmed and a movie is filmed too.
A Flat is the word for an apartment. He could meet someone in in the States who had broken down in his car and tell him that he has a flat he would probably think, it was a strange moment to tell where he has an apartment.
Poor poor Englishman in New York !
The other way around is also confusing for the poor American who visits Europe. Some help is here, because in non speaking English European countries, they learn British English and not American.
But all this doesn't matter as long as we can communicate together even only with hand and feet !
