Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for April 27, 2016

When in America, speak American.

Bet Brits get that all the time… stuck with using their vocabulary instead of dialects’ vocabulary (bonnet/hood, boot/trunk, lorry/truck, lift/elevator, et cetera).

I picked up “eye-thur” from a British friend some 40 years ago and still use it. It just sounds right to me.

Ted Koppel tells a story about relocating to the USA as a child. He provoked shrieks and laughter in his elementary school class when he asked for an eraser in Brit-speak. To wit, “Can someone lend me a rubber?”

Pop upstairs and knock that bird up.

That’s o.k. Pig won’t be using the sharpest tool in the box.

Pig is a twit.

How did Pig decide which 3 tyres to flatten?

Pig would panic when he learns the three letter British slang for a cigarette. Fortunately, the website might ban that word (starts with f, ends with g)…

I was in Scotland for a couple of years, took me 6 months to understand what they were saying on the telly. I speak American. Had to get my Scottish friends to translate at first. They have many different dialects some easier than others. I liked it very much.

Saw that one coming……………..The “Harry Potter” movies help one to understand our English cousins…………..

Good thing Andrew didn’t say “bloody,” because that could have been a lot worse.

Tyres, Pig. Slash his tyres.

Or Twiggy is his new girl friend.

England and America are two countries separated by a common language. ~ George Bernard Shaw

You can even get in trouble for speaking American and using the wrong word in another country. An American coworker was in a restaurant in Australia and asked for a napkin. The waitress almost had him thrown out. He should have asked for a "serviette In Australia a napkin refers to a personal feminine item.

That was 50-plus years ago. Maybe the Aussies are more accustomed to American usage by now.

Just don’t tell Pig you’ve got a spare in your boot.

I had a girlfriend once that lived in an apartment that I didn’t like so I “knocked her flat”

it occurs to me that I have no idea how a Brit would tell somebody that he needs to fix his flat tire.he can’t call it a “flat” can he?

In Bosnia after the cease-fire, troops got a card with useful phrases on it. One was “Stop or I’ll shoot,” which was rendered as “Stan, ili putsam.” However, the correct verb form is “stani.” “Stan” means “apartment.” So the phrase actually came out “Apartment, or I’ll shoot.” I think anyone would have gotten the point. To my knowledge, nobody ever had to say it.

When I go out to lunch later I’m planning to get a sandwich at Underground.

I lived at the international dorm in my college. One day one of the British students came back from an evening of drinking and announced, “I’m pissed!” One of the other students asked what he was upset about.

plus the tyre in the boot.

I was in London England many years ago and was looking for the ‘subway’ you know, those things they have in Toronto and Montreal. A big sign said ‘Subway" It turned it just meant an tunnel under a street. They use the term ’Underground’ with regard to the subway trains.

At least his name wasn’t “Randy”!

A friend once corrected an American in a British restaurant:“Over there you pay a check with a bill. Here you pay a bill with a cheque.”

In the region of ’Murica I come from, we referred to the kind of building we once lived in as “a two-flat,” so the usage is not entirely a British vs. American thing (“two countries separated by a common language”)….

It’s really rat in his pig costume

i had to google it … speaking the mother language

Well I’ll be gobsmacked!

Ah, Pearls goes bi-lingual!

Kind of “out of character” for Pig I would have thought Rat would slash someones tires.

Overheard in a grocery store by someone waiting in line behind a woman talking on her cell phone in another language. Ahead of her as a white man. After the woman hangs up he speaks up.

Man: “I didn’t want to say anything while you were on the phone but you are in America now. You need to speak English.”

Woman: “Excuse me?”

Man: talks slow “If you want to speak Mexican, go back to Mexico. In America, we speak English.”

Woman: “Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England.”

I’m sorry but Americans are absolutely rubbish at doing English accents. Take Family Guy for instance when Andy Capp was featured.

Leave the British accents to British people! Stick to your own.

Geez.

xxx

Also, what we in the US call the second floor is called the first floor in the UK, but that’s another story.

My favorite double meaning is “knickers.” In the US, short pants for little boys, in England, lady’s—ahem!

I think that some of the old English word usages are still in force in certain areas of the US. Take the word “boot” being used for a car’s trunk. Along Appalachia, that usage is common. I grew up using both variations. But my father did as well and he was originally from Toledo, Ohio. Areas of Old English dialects once were common along the Outer Banks. While the accents still remains somewhat, the words are disappearing.ie: Mommicked, drime (droime),

Eh, the exercise will do him good.

Good job rat wasn’t looking for a “shooting brake”.

The “shooting brake” had “wings” and an aerial on the front wing too. The windscreen was fogged up and the tinkle-pater was broken too.

Hearing “mash” (beat to a pulp, as in mashed potatoes) used to mean “press” (“just mash the elevator (lift) button”) sounds really weird to me, but the biggest problem in the US comes when you want to pee.

“Where’s the toilet?” works in Britain and Australia, but you are not allowed to say that in the US.“Where’s the bathroom?” sounds silly when I don’t want to have a bath, and especially when there isn’t a toilet in the bathroom. (Very common in a lot of places.)Restroom? I won’t be resting.

Comfort station? Don’t you find those in the seedier part of town where there are a lot of underdressed young ladies?

In a hotel in Indonesia I saw a couple of tense looking young women ask the desk clerk where the wash room was. He gave very clear directions in his best English. They went off, but came back quickly, looking even more tense. Apparently they didn’t want to wash their clothes.

Wait until he hears the phrase “knock you up”, meaning to knock on someone’s door rather than impregnating someone.