Travel Tips

Flats, football, fannies and double-fisting: Speaking American vs. English

Kim Mance — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:58:45 +0000

Woman double-fisting and wearing a football jersey.
Well, the American way at least…American English and British English can sometimes be very different. Avoiding embarrassment abroad can often mean changing one’s vocabulary (you don’t have to do the accent though).

In the States we’d refer to a ‘flat’ as a tire that’s lost air, but to those speaking British English (the rest of the world), it means an ‘apartment’.

And our ‘soccer’ is their ‘football’.

Okay, those are easy ones.

So what happens when something said perfectly innocently from an American’s point of view turns out to be hilariously or offensively foul to a British English listener?

Let me tell you a little story about a friend of mine. She is a brilliant and funny young woman who’d just finished grad school at a prestigious Ivy League university in the States before landing a job at a top notch financial firm in London. Let’s call her Sarah for the sake of anonymity.

Everyone in the office already knew each other. Most of them were men, and somewhat sexist at that, so she had her work cut out for her to fit in. Each Friday

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Galavanting — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:59:46 +0000

by Katie Hammel

Traveling on a shoestring doesn’t have to mean missing out on all the culinary wonders a destination has to offer.

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by Shannon Skaff

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by Jamie Pearson

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Stefanie Peters — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:17:56 +0000

by Stefanie Peters

With these tips, you can keep yourself and your laptops safe while traveling...