English Different Words In Ae And Be Nice Site, Though It's A Bit Confusing...

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leobloom Saturday 26th of November 2005 04:51:57 AM
different words in AE and BE - http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html#vulture

I've just found this by chance, it's nice and I found out that even though I've always studied British English in school, I use many more American words...=o)

there is also one of my favourite words in English: appetizer =o)

Cliven Saturday 10th of December 2005 01:25:25 AM
- I've always used the BE ones... interesting though :)

sisu Sunday 04th of June 2006 04:19:35 AM
- Interesting...but I\'m not sure of the accuracy. Especially where it groups Canadian with American. We Canadians use some of the AE but a lot more of the BE and much of our very own too. In fact, I see an awful lot of errors there at even just a quick glance. Perhaps I will work on actually making a correct list for the Canadian words.

Many of the words they list as American/Canadian are things I have never heard of so can\'t figure out what they refer to.

And \'alligator pear\' for avocado???? Where does THAT come from??? It\'s always and only been avocado as far as I\'ve known.

leobloom Sunday 04th of June 2006 06:10:46 AM
- well, I don\'t really know :D I\'ve just found it, it\'s far too difficult for me to judge how accurate it is =o) I?m not a native speaker of English =o/

sisu Sunday 04th of June 2006 09:33:45 AM
- Don\'t worry - I don\'t blame you :)

I\'m just concerned about the people who posted that list not checking their facts well enough. I\'d hate for you (or anyone learning English) to make errors because of this and risk possible embarassment or confusion or misunderstandings.

There is a lot that is accurate; I just wanted to issue a warning to people to not take it too seriously. But isn\'t that one of the great things about PB here? That we can help one another and steer one another away from mistakes? :)

As a native English speaker, I can and want to help those who are learning.

leobloom Sunday 04th of June 2006 05:05:58 PM
- thank you =o) well, I must admit I\'ve always thought the way I speak English is more American than British and still there are a lots of words in the US section of that list I\'ve never even heard once =o) I?m sure you, as an English native speaker, will find lot of people to help, especially at advanced level, I think we foreign speakers will make you go mad wih our strange questions as we did with Clive and Caer :p :D

sisu Monday 05th of June 2006 08:35:48 PM
- Ha ha. I have lots of patience and have been told I\'m a great teacher, so anyone can freely ask me questions and I\'ll do my best to help.

On the other hand, I\'ll probably be driving other people mad with the questions I ask about their languages (I\'m trying to learn things too). :)

el_tigre Tuesday 20th of June 2006 04:51:02 PM
- [quote][i]Originally posted by leobloom[/i]
I\'ve just found this by chance, it\'s nice and I found out that even though I\'ve always studied British English in school, I use many more American words...=o)
[/quote]
In Croatia too, because we watch lot of american movies.
but, I do not understand that Vito: where do you Italians pick it?

:)
You have sincronized translations in the movies in all italian tvs!!
I do not get it....

leobloom Tuesday 20th of June 2006 07:44:21 PM
- well, I\'ve learnt English mostly by listening to American rock music, I\'ve been listening to that since I was 9 or so and I used to translate every lyric =o) so my vocabulary had hundreds of American English worda. Then I went to highschool and I had to learn the BE there, but I\'ve forgotten most of those versions the day after it was over :D
So it\'s not a common problem but it\'s just my personal experience, actually it\'s not even a problem to me =o) I prefer AE :D

Yes, here we have very good dubbers and actually even though I know it doesn\'t help the comprehension and the learning of a foreign language i still prefer it this way because subtitles don\'t let you follow the movie, they are never perfectly translated and 99% of cases they\'re just some résumé of what\'s actually being said by the actors. In addition, I don\'t think a dubbed movie prevent you from learning a language farly well, I keep on watching movies dubbed in Italian and I can still speak English well enough =o) and if you really need to watch it in the original lag you can buy the dvd, they are not so expensive anymore now =o)

squeak Thursday 22nd of June 2006 05:40:36 AM
- In some respects I think the two, BE and AE, have become closer in the past few decades. There\'s more access to materials between the two, such as films and music. So I think that some phrases and words have gone both ways. There\'s still a definite difference, but they\'re getting closer. Most of the big films you tend to see around are American, so it\'s not surprising that you\'re learning AE from them. I\'m biased, but I prefer BE. I couldn\'t use the phrases or words that are different and use the AE ones, I\'m used to the way we say things here. I understand AE, but can\'t speak it. I don\'t know if any of that makes sense :( it does to me.

Leobloom, wat you said about the music? It\'s what I\'m doing now for Greek!

Some things are lost in translation in films/programmes. You can never really translate exactly. Different things will be amusing in the different languages too. The only example that easily comes to mind though is a friend of mine was watching an American programme that was subtitled. They were talking about a \"busboy\" (hence me specifying American, we don\'t usually have the role or the title). In the subtitles though, it was talking about a \"bus driver\" which apparently made no sense. I\'ve been told of others too, but that\'s all that came to mind. ;)

leobloom Thursday 22nd of June 2006 06:24:19 AM
- busboy = ? As far as I know it has nothing to do with the [i]buses[/i] and so, it\'s just a boy helping doing some kind of job, a sort of handy-andy, am I wrong?

That\'s true, in the recent years AE and BE got much closer, I think it happened because people finally understood there is not a UNIQUE variety of English spoken around the world =o) The two standards age more stable now and and on the other hand the colloquial ways of speaking depending on the standards are more flexible and intelligibility among them seems to grow.

squeak Saturday 24th of June 2006 04:41:42 AM
- I agree with you about that.

A busboy helps a waitor in a restaurant. \"A restaurant employee who clears away dirty dishes, sets tables, and serves as an assistant to a waiter or waitress.\" According to a couple of dictionaries on the web. You have busboys in restaurants and bellboys in hotels. :)

Peter_fra_Oz Saturday 24th of June 2006 02:32:32 PM
- A bus was a four wheeled cart that used to be wheeled around for clearing the dishes off the tables. It has since dissapeared but the name has stayed on.

leobloom Saturday 24th of June 2006 04:48:23 PM
- ok, just to understand it well, [i]busboy[/i] is a word common both to AE and BE but in AE it can also mean something not related to restaurants? E.g. a bus driver?

Peter_fra_Oz Saturday 24th of June 2006 06:06:07 PM
- No, its use is limited to a person who clears tables in restaurants.

A bus driver is called a bus driver or busman. The boy reference always refers to the restaurant position, perhaps due to the common average age of people that used to be found in these jobs.

squeak Saturday 24th of June 2006 10:46:16 PM
- Sorry if I caused any confusion :( I didn\'t mean to.

Yeah, busboy is purely someone in a restaurant and nothing to do with a bus. That\'s what I meant in my original post, it was translated as somehting completely different to what it actually is. It\'s an AE term, not BE. Though we are starting to understand what it means ;) and though we may have the role in a restaurant here, they are still called waitors and have no term of their own. It was an American programme that was subtitled that it came from.

Did that help?

leobloom Sunday 25th of June 2006 12:42:37 AM
- yes, now I\'ve got it =o) well, subtitles are always strange, I still haven\'t got what the difference is between subtitles for hearing people and subtitles for deaf ones in dvd\'s :D

squeak Tuesday 27th of June 2006 06:01:45 AM
- Sorry about the confusion I caused. :(

Over here, subtitles for the deaf have extras that are heard in the background that may be relevant to the story/the desired effect of the scene. Those for hearing people don\'t usually. :)

leobloom Wednesday 28th of June 2006 12:09:18 AM
- - double post, sorry people! -

leobloom Wednesday 28th of June 2006 12:24:08 AM
- no problemo =o) so the subtitles for deaf people give extra, quite relevant, info which is not present in the subtitles for hearing people because they can actually hear it, ok I got it =o)
Thank you very much!

squeak Wednesday 28th of June 2006 02:02:45 AM
- You\'re welcome :D

Phrasebase Archive
	leobloom	Saturday 26th of November 2005 04:51:57 AM
	different words in AE and BE - http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html#vulture I've just found this by chance, it's nice and I found out that even though I've always studied British English in school, I use many more American words...=o) there is also one of my favourite words in English: appetizer =o)
	Cliven	Saturday 10th of December 2005 01:25:25 AM
	- I've always used the BE ones... interesting though :)
	sisu	Sunday 04th of June 2006 04:19:35 AM
	- Interesting...but I\'m not sure of the accuracy. Especially where it groups Canadian with American. We Canadians use some of the AE but a lot more of the BE and much of our very own too. In fact, I see an awful lot of errors there at even just a quick glance. Perhaps I will work on actually making a correct list for the Canadian words. Many of the words they list as American/Canadian are things I have never heard of so can\'t figure out what they refer to. And \'alligator pear\' for avocado???? Where does THAT come from??? It\'s always and only been avocado as far as I\'ve known.
	leobloom	Sunday 04th of June 2006 06:10:46 AM
	- well, I don\'t really know :D I\'ve just found it, it\'s far too difficult for me to judge how accurate it is =o) I?m not a native speaker of English =o/
	sisu	Sunday 04th of June 2006 09:33:45 AM
	- Don\'t worry - I don\'t blame you :) I\'m just concerned about the people who posted that list not checking their facts well enough. I\'d hate for you (or anyone learning English) to make errors because of this and risk possible embarassment or confusion or misunderstandings. There is a lot that is accurate; I just wanted to issue a warning to people to not take it too seriously. But isn\'t that one of the great things about PB here? That we can help one another and steer one another away from mistakes? :) As a native English speaker, I can and want to help those who are learning.
	leobloom	Sunday 04th of June 2006 05:05:58 PM
	- thank you =o) well, I must admit I\'ve always thought the way I speak English is more American than British and still there are a lots of words in the US section of that list I\'ve never even heard once =o) I?m sure you, as an English native speaker, will find lot of people to help, especially at advanced level, I think we foreign speakers will make you go mad wih our strange questions as we did with Clive and Caer :p :D
	sisu	Monday 05th of June 2006 08:35:48 PM
	- Ha ha. I have lots of patience and have been told I\'m a great teacher, so anyone can freely ask me questions and I\'ll do my best to help. On the other hand, I\'ll probably be driving other people mad with the questions I ask about their languages (I\'m trying to learn things too). :)
	el_tigre	Tuesday 20th of June 2006 04:51:02 PM
	- [quote][i]Originally posted by leobloom[/i] I\'ve just found this by chance, it\'s nice and I found out that even though I\'ve always studied British English in school, I use many more American words...=o) [/quote] In Croatia too, because we watch lot of american movies. but, I do not understand that Vito: where do you Italians pick it? :) You have sincronized translations in the movies in all italian tvs!! I do not get it....
	leobloom	Tuesday 20th of June 2006 07:44:21 PM
	- well, I\'ve learnt English mostly by listening to American rock music, I\'ve been listening to that since I was 9 or so and I used to translate every lyric =o) so my vocabulary had hundreds of American English worda. Then I went to highschool and I had to learn the BE there, but I\'ve forgotten most of those versions the day after it was over :D So it\'s not a common problem but it\'s just my personal experience, actually it\'s not even a problem to me =o) I prefer AE :D Yes, here we have very good dubbers and actually even though I know it doesn\'t help the comprehension and the learning of a foreign language i still prefer it this way because subtitles don\'t let you follow the movie, they are never perfectly translated and 99% of cases they\'re just some résumé of what\'s actually being said by the actors. In addition, I don\'t think a dubbed movie prevent you from learning a language farly well, I keep on watching movies dubbed in Italian and I can still speak English well enough =o) and if you really need to watch it in the original lag you can buy the dvd, they are not so expensive anymore now =o)
	squeak	Thursday 22nd of June 2006 05:40:36 AM
	- In some respects I think the two, BE and AE, have become closer in the past few decades. There\'s more access to materials between the two, such as films and music. So I think that some phrases and words have gone both ways. There\'s still a definite difference, but they\'re getting closer. Most of the big films you tend to see around are American, so it\'s not surprising that you\'re learning AE from them. I\'m biased, but I prefer BE. I couldn\'t use the phrases or words that are different and use the AE ones, I\'m used to the way we say things here. I understand AE, but can\'t speak it. I don\'t know if any of that makes sense :( it does to me. Leobloom, wat you said about the music? It\'s what I\'m doing now for Greek! Some things are lost in translation in films/programmes. You can never really translate exactly. Different things will be amusing in the different languages too. The only example that easily comes to mind though is a friend of mine was watching an American programme that was subtitled. They were talking about a \"busboy\" (hence me specifying American, we don\'t usually have the role or the title). In the subtitles though, it was talking about a \"bus driver\" which apparently made no sense. I\'ve been told of others too, but that\'s all that came to mind. ;)
	leobloom	Thursday 22nd of June 2006 06:24:19 AM
	- busboy = ? As far as I know it has nothing to do with the [i]buses[/i] and so, it\'s just a boy helping doing some kind of job, a sort of handy-andy, am I wrong? That\'s true, in the recent years AE and BE got much closer, I think it happened because people finally understood there is not a UNIQUE variety of English spoken around the world =o) The two standards age more stable now and and on the other hand the colloquial ways of speaking depending on the standards are more flexible and intelligibility among them seems to grow.
	squeak	Saturday 24th of June 2006 04:41:42 AM
	- I agree with you about that. A busboy helps a waitor in a restaurant. \"A restaurant employee who clears away dirty dishes, sets tables, and serves as an assistant to a waiter or waitress.\" According to a couple of dictionaries on the web. You have busboys in restaurants and bellboys in hotels. :)
	Peter_fra_Oz	Saturday 24th of June 2006 02:32:32 PM
	- A bus was a four wheeled cart that used to be wheeled around for clearing the dishes off the tables. It has since dissapeared but the name has stayed on.
	leobloom	Saturday 24th of June 2006 04:48:23 PM
	- ok, just to understand it well, [i]busboy[/i] is a word common both to AE and BE but in AE it can also mean something not related to restaurants? E.g. a bus driver?
	Peter_fra_Oz	Saturday 24th of June 2006 06:06:07 PM
	- No, its use is limited to a person who clears tables in restaurants. A bus driver is called a bus driver or busman. The boy reference always refers to the restaurant position, perhaps due to the common average age of people that used to be found in these jobs.
	squeak	Saturday 24th of June 2006 10:46:16 PM
	- Sorry if I caused any confusion :( I didn\'t mean to. Yeah, busboy is purely someone in a restaurant and nothing to do with a bus. That\'s what I meant in my original post, it was translated as somehting completely different to what it actually is. It\'s an AE term, not BE. Though we are starting to understand what it means ;) and though we may have the role in a restaurant here, they are still called waitors and have no term of their own. It was an American programme that was subtitled that it came from. Did that help?
	leobloom	Sunday 25th of June 2006 12:42:37 AM
	- yes, now I\'ve got it =o) well, subtitles are always strange, I still haven\'t got what the difference is between subtitles for hearing people and subtitles for deaf ones in dvd\'s :D
	squeak	Tuesday 27th of June 2006 06:01:45 AM
	- Sorry about the confusion I caused. :( Over here, subtitles for the deaf have extras that are heard in the background that may be relevant to the story/the desired effect of the scene. Those for hearing people don\'t usually. :)
	leobloom	Wednesday 28th of June 2006 12:09:18 AM
	- - double post, sorry people! -
	leobloom	Wednesday 28th of June 2006 12:24:08 AM
	- no problemo =o) so the subtitles for deaf people give extra, quite relevant, info which is not present in the subtitles for hearing people because they can actually hear it, ok I got it =o) Thank you very much!
	squeak	Wednesday 28th of June 2006 02:02:45 AM
	- You\'re welcome :D