Separated by a Common Language?
 

Sometimes, when I'm pootling about, I play with numbers in my head. Other times, language. And one of those language things is the UK/USA differences. We all know about the word differences and the strange pronunciations, and even the occasional grammar quirk, but it's so much more than that. I marvel at (and enjoy) how few things I would say the same way when talking to Brits or Americans. More often than not, there are several words that mean the same thing, and we all know all the meanings, but each country has a different word of preference. Rarely a sentence goes by that doesn't have something in it -and, I think, that's what marks us expats out as Brits (and Aussies) -as much as if not more than the accent- and is maybe why some Americans get confused between the two, when to us our accents couldn't be much more different. Maybe.

Anyway, I keep thinking I should share this with those of you who are interested in this sort of thing using real life examples (those who aren't please move on now, I'll take the "boring!" comments as read...)

(I'm betting the Americans will still be able to spot many Anglicisms in my writing -I haven't gotten ( ;) )to the native level of expertise yet! And I'm sure there will be regional differences in both countries, please don't take offence if I neglected yours, although I'd be very interested to hear about it)

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I just baked a birthday cake. My oven is electric, so I went over to the range (cooker) to turn it on to preheat. After checking there was nothing on the cooktop (hob/stove), I set it to 350F (Gas mark 5, something in centigrade). Then I went to wash my hands under the faucet (tap).

I may have been here 10 years and generally think in American, but I cook in British. So I got out my kitchen scales rather than my set of measuring cups to make sure I got the right amount of each ingredient.

I was making a sponge cake (like a heavier yellow cake), so I weighed the eggs first, then set them on one side. I weighed out the same amount of butter and of sugar (it would have been caster as opposed to granulated sugar if i was in the UK). Then I beat them together. No need to warm the butter because -being European- we keep the butter in use out of the fridge) Next, I added the eggs. I did take the eggs from the fridge, I would have done in the UK too, but interesting to note that in the UK, eggs are generally not refridgerated in the store (shop) -or weren't when I left on 2001, I don't know if other Brits refridgerate them at home or not. The eggs were actually brown, which is the norm to a Brit, but American eggs are more likely to be white. But we're not doing too badly here on the language differences.

I whisked in the eggs, being careful not to let the batter (mixture) curdle. Then I weighed out the same amount of self-rising flour (self-raising), it should be noted here that it is more the norm in the US to use general purpose (plain) flour and add baking powder. I added some cocoa powder to the flour, then sifted those onto the batter. I folded them in to prevent the air being beaten out again, added some semi-sweet chocolate chips (just chocolate chips to Brits) and then transferred the mixture to the cake pan (tin). The pan is a solid circle, not the bundt style that would be used for coffee cakes. (To Americans, a coffee cake is a cake designed to be eaten with coffee -more than likely cinammon or lemon flavo(u)red and drizzled with icing (which is the Brit term -would you merkins call that white drizzle icing, frosting, drizzle or something entirely different?)- to Brits, a coffee cake would generally be a cake flavored with coffee).

Well, the cake is now in the oven. When the pots are washed, it will be American-style, rinsed in hot water after the soap, and left to air dry. We used to do that in the UK too, but Brit visitors still don't rinse the soap off and want to dry them with a tea-towel (kitchen towel).

Newsflash! the cake is ready! When pressed lightly, It rebounds, it is no longer making a "clicking" noise, and when stuck with a toothpick (pricked with a cocktail stick) the stick comes away clean.

When the cake is cooled, I will fill it with chocolate buttercream -same weight of butter to powdered/confectioner's sugar (icing sugar), flavo(u)red with melted baker's unsweetened chocolate (cooking chocolate), and then it will be frosted (iced) it to look like a target with nerf darts in it. I will make the frosting with powdered sugar, food color (colour) and water.

The cake will be eaten with forks (only posh Brits use forks -and then they have special cake forks for the job) ....yup, for once the Brits are the ones who use their fingers and the Americans silverware/flatware (cutlery). :lol:

very interesting. Some comments:

--I would call the drizzle on coffee cake icing
--Brits. . . don't rinse the soap off pans?
--frosted layer cakes are too messy to eat with your fingers!

Yeah, I wanted to call it icing, but just wondered if that was the Brit in me fighting for recognition?

No, not in the main. The dishes really don't taste soapy -maybe the soap is different, but as someone who is allergic to soap, I've always rinsed, so i'm all American on that one. but go visit an American Expats in the UK board, and that's one of their major grumbles :lol:

British frosting is thinner on top, so less messy, and cakes are genrally a little more solid. But my family fancied themselves as posh, so I'm 50:50 on the fork thing. My MIL used to take the piss out of me back in the UK-for being posh and asking for a fork- but when she came over here and was the only one eating with fingers, we were all amused

Why are eggs measured instead of just counted and why is the cake making a "clicking" noise in the first place?

Eggs are all different sizes and hence volumes. It is actually more accurate to weigh all your ingredients. a packed cup of flour is significantly heavier than a loose cup.

A large egg is about 2 oz. volume, but ex large or Jumbo or medium throw your recipe off.

3 eggs is sort of meaningless when you compare 3 medium eggs to 3 jumbo eggs.

That is why sometimes in recipes, they call for small, medium, or large eggs.

The crazy thing is, so much of this stuff is regional even within the US. Just for example:

I would never say range or cooker, the thing as a whole and the inside part are both the oven, and the top burners are the stove. Also, I would wash my hands "in the sink," I wouldn't refer to the faucet at all.

To me, icing is the kind that is 1.) always white, and 2.) made with pure sugar and little else, so when it dries it is somewhat hard and can flake off. Frosting is the fluffy stuff that goes on cupcakes and can't be drizzled. But I would definitely never call any of it "drizzle," as that borders on obscene. :) And while I wouldn't be taken aback at a cinnamon-flavored coffee cake that didn't actually contain any coffee, I would scoff at a lemon cake being called coffee cake. That's always lemon cake. Also, we call it "food coloring," never just "food color."

But again, this is all just how it is down in Texas. It's totally different up north, as I'm sure you know.

My mother was European, but learned her English (and cooking) in the UK. Your recipe brought back a smile and fond childhod memories. She did use measuring cups as scales were not that easy to get here at the time. ;)

Forks for cake = posh :P

Or ... means you're eating out. Only times I eat cake with a fork (including gataeux) is at a party or in a cafe. Dad used to always eat cake with a fork, even at home. But it just wouldn't occur to me to use a fork at home.

I understand that when a chicken lays an egg, it has an unsightly coating on it that prevents bacteria from entering the semi-porous shell. So the egg will stay fresh without refrigeration. The egg producers have found that consumers like to buy clean looking eggs, so this coating is washed off. The egg can now spoil faster, and should be refrigerated.

Do American eggs look cleaner than you remember Brit eggs looking?

Ours sometimes have bit of gunk and feathers.

I think the clicking is bubbling -a sign that it's still slightly liquid and not done yet... I dunno, it was just a thing I was taught and I've found that it works. If you take it out before then, even if the stick is coming out clean, it might well be soggy in the middle

not really, once they'd started putting the "egg mark" on them. But they had much shorter sell by/use by dates

Most Brits, however, would use cooker, I think, and most Americans would not. I do find Americans have a greater range of terms for this appliance.

Yes, I would also say "in the sink" but if asked to specify which bit of the sink, to a Brit I'd say tap, to an American faucet.

I wonder if the coffee cake think is due to the Germanic influence up here?

Are they refrigerated at the supermarket, now?

Nope; they're still stacked in boxes and shelves.

When I worked in a bakery 'drizzle' was a verb. Icing was 'drizzled.' Drizzle wasn't usually a noun.

Coffee cakes of any variety or flavor were typically yeasted, slightly sweet breads, usually with nuts or cinnamon, and meant to be eaten with coffee. Much more bread like than cake like. never a pound cake or lemon cake.

Bundt cakes were made in a ring shaped pan because the batter was especially liquid and would not bake evenly in a conventional pan.

you do realize that the name of this thread is the name of a popular blog on the same topic, right? (although from a reverse perspective; American linguist in the UK). Just in case you don't, here is a link to its food/cooking posts:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.bl...food%2Fcooking

My mom's mom would say spigot.

Coffee cake must have those little cinnamon crumb things, and the icing on it it more like a glaze.

http://cookingnbakingfun.today.com/f...offee_cake.jpg

Yes, but that's to differentiate between that and the filtered water. The faucet is the actual silver piece of hardware, the "tap" is referring to where the water comes from in a more general sense. If the water were dirty, I'd say, "there's dirt, coming right out of the tap! Turn on the faucet, and you'll see it."

Nope, and I could (couldn't) care less....

It's a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw and predates the interwebs by quite some time...

I've heard spigot used a lot too -I just forgot about it! Is it regional?

These is what comes to mind when I hear spigot...and it's the one on the outside of the house.

You people leave the soap on your dishes? Why?

I dunno, I think it's insane too.... i just didn't realize i wasn't the only one to rinse them off 'til i moved here and ancountered Americans in the Uk complaining about it! :lol:

don't care about the name; just thought you might find the blog interesting. I remembered that I had a blog bookmarked, but not what it was called, and when I found it, I'm like, oh!

lol @ "washing up machine" for dishwasher

properly called a "hose bibb" or "sillcock"

All three of "spigot", "hose bibb", and "sillcock" sound like terrible insults.

That hose bibb at the deli rung up my order wrong!

Well, it is plumbers we're talking about...

"I need a 6 inch nipple."

Ineed a new ballcock.

I read "washing-up-machine" in books but I've never heard it called anything other than a dishwasher.

I was wondering whether or not to write about Hector's birthday party -if there was much material in that. I decided not, but then one of the parents must've known because he brought us a bag of zucchini (courgettes) :lol:

Here's the cake, btw

(It's a nerf birthday party)

.

I think it's more generational... an old fashioned term.

monster, for someone who doesn't like to shop, you sure have fine domestic skills.

I think the whole purpose of this thread was to make us want cake.

In Colorado the "oven" is just called the hot box, or sometimes tandoor.

And in the kitchen, the water comes out of the dingus. In the bathroom it's called a dongus if it's in the washbasin and a dong if it's in the keeler.

You've got to get out more. :haha:

As Dani says - nope. We get them from the local butcher and they sit proudly on display behind the counter in large egg trays. You have to bring your own eggbox (carton?) as they're local farm eggs and although they're obviously sorted and stamped they are not packed. And yes, they come with feathers and gunk, are varying sizes and sometimes a bit knobbly.

As an aside, I looked all over town for white eggs for Easter. Nope. You can't get white eggs for love nor money in this town. Weird, because it was white or nothing when I was growing up. Still, the dyes worked well on the brown. They would just have been brighter on white.

And we don't put the eggs in the fridge when we come home either. They're out on the counter. Or they will be when I buy some today - I had egg on toast for tea last night.
Spiggits are biscuits in our family. Comes from my brother trying to say biscuits as a child (more properly s-bicits) Whenever I hear spigot that's what I think of.

Re wiping up. If you have soap bubbles on your plates when they're draining, you're using too much washing up liquid. We wipe up as soon as we've washed up and I don't recall any bubbles on the plates. And after all, you are wiping them... It would be a waste of hot water to rinse them! Then again, I grew up in a house where three of us would use the same bathwater, for fear of the ruinious cost of hving the immersion on. And we boiled a keetle for our morning wash in the sink.

You could rinse them in cold water.

Do Brits refer to all redheads as ginger - even the dark red kind?

No, the dark red ones are called Maryanne. :lol:

And do they have the expression beat like a red-headed step child? And why is ginger a pejorative?
hahah

in the new Sherlock Holmes movie (which I bought and watched several times yesterday) they keep referring to the "ginger dwarf" with some glee. Also, Robert Downey Jr. is completely awesome . . . but doesn't sound too British.

ETA: I note that The Red-Headed League by Conan Doyle is available online for free in the public domain. Bet there are a bunch of spigots and ballcocks in it. Don't know about the ginger midgets.

yes, although it's a little derogatory and it may be more the English than all the Brits. I think it stems from the Irish/celtic thing -the Irish were looked down upon. But they're all ginger and it's not as "sought-after" as a look as it is here. Although that's a little outdated now. But certainly when i was at school, they were all ginger. Your hair colors were blonde, ginger, mouse and dark. Shove me in the mouse category and color me purple.

and Bob's your uncle?

actually, Colin's my uncle, but I always liked to be a little different.

what IS the difference between a cane and a walking stick, anyway?

The handle.

perhaps the length too.

Walking sticks are generally alive, while canes generally aren't.

to me, a "cane" has a curved handle. The ones pictured do not, so that's why I called them walking sticks. It seems to me from reading period romances, etc., that gentlemen carried walking sticks, or "sticks," too.

Canes are alive, too--that's what you call a "stalk" of bamboo, isn't it?

I was going to look this up in my mega dictionary at home, but forgot.

Hey, it's !

I think the difference is this: a walking stick is an aid to walking, and replaces the much older walking staff. The cane is not an aid for walking, it replaces the sword and also the officer's baton and is one of the fashion marks of a 'gentleman' it's a class indicator rather than a practical item.

Interestingly, when swords started to fall out of fashion, many canes had a sword set inside that cuold be drawn or flicked out of the cane for use in a sticky situation.

since when is a cane not an aid for walking? In current US usage (or, in my usage) a cane is for someone who has a limp or needs assistance in walking; and a walking stick is for hikers. That ornamental gentlemen's stick pictured is neither.

There are such things here as 'walking canes' but in general, a 'walking stick' is a stronger stick with a handle (either curved or whatever: like Dr House uses).

I'm not sure but I think the kind of stick hikers uses may have a different term here; but what you call a 'cane' we would usually call a walking stick. If I were to describe an old man who has trouble walking, I wouldn't say he walks with a cane, but that he walks with a stick, or a walking stick.

An antique dagger cane which Dana mentioned. It was handed down to me when my grandfather passed on. He also had a Civil War sword that I coveted dearly, but that went to a museum:(

Since we're talking British English. A cane refers to the fashion accessory type, a stick to the useful type. Full Stop. (period)

One of the great Zatoichi Films, "Zatoichi and Yojimbo" this is the only one I could find that had a decent clip of his sword walking staff, @ ~ 1:20 great sequence in the film, this is a bit truncated as I remember it.

In my vernacular a cane and a walking stick are very different. A cane is either a medical aid with a curved handle used for walking, or an ornamental accessory which is used for formal attire and is rarely used. (canes are about waste high)

A walking stick is a stick that can range in length from wast high to the jaw with less workmanship than the average can and has no handle.

Once the stick reached about temple high to just about an inch over the head it becomes a staff or bow( specificity a Korean staff, although ideal length of a Korean staff is from the ground to one's temple but a little extra length can be gotten away with)

When the height reaches beyond the one inch above the head,it becomes a long staff or English staff. Although typically this kind of staff is much taller than person usually about 6 inches to one foot taller. For instances my tapering red oak staff, which would be a long or English staff, is six foot tall ( about two meters) which is almost a full foot taller than I.

Out of curiosity, is English your first language, TK? If so, which type?

yet another Merkin/Brit language divide it seems.

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.bl...nd-frames.html

ETA: and I realized I posted this (re: the cane v. walking stick) in the wrong thread; sorry.