English to American Dictionary.pdf

The English-to-American Dictionary

A mercifully brief guide to British culture and slang

-A-

abseil v dangle oneself from a cliff at the end of a rope. In the U.S. military, abseil is

used to distinguish face-out dangling from the more conventional face-in rappelling,

but civilian Americans know the whole dangling business as “rappeling.” The word is

apparently derived from the German abseilen , meaning simply “to rope down.” Those

crazy Germans and their crazy language.

aerial n bent bit of wire intended to collect radio waves for your computer, television

or some such device. The manufacturers don’t call them bent bits of wire. Their

marketing chaps have many fancy words like “impedance” and “gain,” but back at the

factory all the guys are just bending wire. Americans call these devices “antennas,”

though aerial is in limited use in the U.S., too.

afters n dessert. One would imagine that they’re so named because they come after

the main meal, but actually they take their name from their inventor, Sir George After,

the Fat Bastard of Brighton.

AGA n large coal-filled cooking stove not dissimilar to an American “range.” AGA is

a brand name; the company primarily produces those giant cooking stoves that are

filled with coal and the whole of the top of the thing gets very hot indeed. They’re a

bit dated now, but pretty much everyone’s granny had one.

agony aunt n advice columnist – a newspaper or magazine employee who responds

publicly to readers’ impassioned pleas for help on a wide range of issues, but most

commonly sex. Read by a large sector of the population, each of whom hopes to find

a vicarious solution to their own dark sexual inadequacies.

alight v disembark. Many American tourists are confronted with this word quite

rapidly after reaching the U.K., because on the London Underground the pre-recorded

message says such things as: “This is Baker Street. Alight here for Madame

Tussauds.” Madame Tussauds is a cheesy attraction and best avoided. The voice on

the tube only says the part about the alighting.

Mr_doody2004@yahoo.com

aluminium (al-yoo-min-i-um) n aluminum. Who is correct about this one is a matter

for some debate. We can at least say that Hans Ørsted, the Danish gentleman who

discovered it in 1824, had based its name on the Latin word “alumus,” denoting the

mineral alum. The difference in spelling seems to have originated when very early

printed material advertising his talks on the subject contained the two different

spellings in error. The general consensus seems to be that he had originally intended

using the “British” spelling (borne out by International Union of Pure and Applied

Chemistry’s use of it, and the “ium” suffix that already graced many metallic

elements at the time), but as he clearly didn’t make any efforts to correct anyone, we

could conclude that he didn’t care too much either way. The American scientific

community use the British spelling.

anorak 1 n someone who’s a little bit too knowledgeable about one subject.

Generally a subject like seventeenth-century flower pots or steam trains, rather than

athletic sexual positions or gun-fighting. Americans (and also Brits, as our languages

merge ever closer) would call such a person a “geek.” It may originate with the fans

of Radio Caroline, a U.K. offshore pirate radio station, whose fans had to don anoraks

in order to visit the station. 2 n waterproof jacket (universal).

answerphone n device plugged into the telephone which answers it for you when

you’re out, playing an oh-so-hilarious message that you got from the internet,

recorded from Seinfeld or made up yourself whilst plastered and forgot about.

Americans call them “answering machines,” which has become more common than

“answerphone” in the U.K. nowadays.

anti-clockwise adv rotation in a direction which isn’t clockwise (as, well, the phrase

suggests). Americans will know this better as “counter-clockwise.” Of course, anyone

with half a brain could have worked this out themselves but never let it be said that

we’re only paying lip-service to completeness.

anyroad adv very much an equivalent of “anyway.” If you think about it, “any road”

pretty much means “any way,” erm, anyway.

arse n 1 what you sit on. Very close in meaning to the American “ass,” although

actually derived from a different root, as arse is an old English word meaning “tail.” I

can’t be arsed I can’t be bothered. bunch of arse load of nonsense: I never bothered

reading the bible, the whole thing is a bunch of arse. 2 interj rats. Used alone in a

similar fashion to bollocks : I’m sorry to tell you, sir, but you’ve missed the last train. /

Arse!

arsehole n asshole.

artic n abbr articulated vehicle, usually a large hauling truck or semi.

articulated lorry adj semi truck which is able to bend in the middle. Of course, I just

wrote pretty much the same thing two seconds ago. I’m beginning to understand why

the guy who wrote the first Oxford English Dictionary ended up going mad and

cutting his penis off.

Mr_doody2004@yahoo.com

aubergine n large purple pear-shaped vegetable North Americans will recognise as

“eggplant.”

autumn n season between summer and winter. Americans call it “fall.” Americans, of

course, also call it “autumn” which might have you wondering why it's in here at all.

Well, my furry friend, it is in here because Brits never call it “fall.” Think of this entry

not so much as “autumn,” but more as “not fall.”

Mr_doody2004@yahoo.com

-B-

bagsie v stake a claim for something in the same way that Americans would claim

“dibbs” on or “call” some item or privilege: I bagsie the front seat or Bagsie first shot

on the dodgems! It’s a rather childlike sentiment; you would be less likely to hear I

bagsie being Financial Director! It doesn’t seem ridiculously far-fetched that it’d be

derived from “bags I,” with “bag” meaning to catch something. But hey, who can tell.

[Etymologists. –ed. ]

bairn n Scottish baby. Possibly derived from the old Norse word “barn,” which

means both “child” and “children.”

baked potato n potato. Baked. You can buy a baked potato on either side of the pond,

of course, but in the U.K. you will specify the filling as you buy the baked potato,

while in the U.S. you’ll be brought a small selection of fillings to plonk in yourself.

British fillings tend to constitute more of a whole meal than American ones.

Baltic n very cold: I’m not going outside without a coat, it’s bloody Baltic!

Presumably named for the Baltic states, which aren’t all that cold.

bangers n sausages. Probably most often heard in the name of the dish “bangers and

mash” (the “mash” being mashed potato, but I hope to God you worked that out

yourself). So called because they make popping noises when you cook them.

bank holiday n any public holiday for which the public have forgotten the original

purpose. You know, that holiday on the fourth Wednesday in June. It was something

to do with Saint Swithen, I think. He was born maybe. Or was he beheaded?

bap n 1 small bread roll. 2 woman’s breast (modern slang): G et your baps out, love!

barmpot n clumsy idiot. As with a lot of the Brits’ less-than-complimentary words, it

isn’t really offensive — it’s used more in goading fun than anything else. Has a

derivation similar to that of “barmy.”

barmy adj idiotic. You might describe your father’s plan to pioneer the first civilian

moon landing using nothing but stuff he’d collected from a junkyard as “barmy.”

Well, unless the junkyard he had in mind was out the back of Cape Kennedy and he

had funding from China. It may or may not derive from the fact that there was once a

psychiatric hospital in a place called Barming, near Maidstone in Kent, England. It

may equally easily come from an Old English word for yeast, “barm,” intended to

imply that the brain is fermenting. As these competing etymologies seem equally

plausible, it seems only sensible to settle the matter in an old-fashioned fistfight.

barnet n hair; hairstyle. Another example of Cockney rhyming slang which has

slipped into the common vernacular: “Barnet Fair” / “hair.” Barnet is an area of

London. Presumably they had a fair there at some point.

Mr_doody2004@yahoo.com

barney n argument; fight. This is certainly rhyming slang, but no one’s sure of

whence it came. It could either be “Barney Rubble” / “trouble” (Barney Rubble is a

character in the cartoon “The Flintstones”), or “Barn Owl” / “row” (when it means

“fight,” “row” rhymes with “now”). The latter is marginally more likely, as “trouble”

could be many things other than a fight, but the former is a more popular explanation.

Pick one.

barrister n sort of lawyer. Barristers are different from solicitors in such a convoluted

way it took a barrister a whole page of ball-bouncingly dull prose to explain it to me.

bash on interj press on regardless, to keep struggling in the face of adversity. Has

nothing to do with hitting people.

beavering v working enthusiastically. These days you’d have difficulty saying it

without a chorus of sniggers from the peanut gallery, as everyone in the U.K. is well

aware of the American use of the word “beaver.” It’s the sort of thing your

grandmother might say at Christmas dinner that would make the younger generations

choke on their soup.

Belisha Beacons n yellow flashing lights on sticks that are positioned next to zebra

crossings and flash constantly to alert drivers. They were named after Hore Belisha,

who was Minister of Transport when they were introduced. Perhaps a more

interesting derivation was put forward by an episode of the BBC radio programme

“Radio Active,” which featured an unwinnable quiz, one of the questions being “From

where did the Belisha Beacon get its name?” Answer: “From the word 'beacon'.” I

was younger then, and in the cold light of day it seems less funny now than it once

did. You can’t take away my childhood.

bell end n end of one’s nob, which devoid of a foreskin looks not completely unlike a

church bell. If you don’t have one to examine, ask a friend or neighbour: I don’t know

what happened last night but when I woke up this morning my bell end was covered in

spots!

bender n 1 big drinking session (universal). 2 homosexual (rather derogatory). Be

careful with this one. It possibly derives from the, erm, position classically adopted by

male homosexuals. It’s a very old term, and predates female homosexuals.

berk n idiot. Yes, yes, another friendly U.K. word for moron; this one implies a

degree of clumsiness: Look, you berk, I said to bend it, not bust it. The word

originally derives from the rhyming slang “Berkeley Hunt” (or “Berkshire Hunt”),

which rhymes with — well, “punt,” among other words.

bespoke adj made especially for a particular client’s requirements. These days it’s

most likely to be used to describe computer software, but it could cover anything from

limousines to suits. Americans would probably say “tailor made” or “customized.”

bevvy n alcoholic drink. A contraction of “beverage.”

big end n the end of the conrod, which is attached to the crankshaft in a conventional

combustion engine. The other end, attached to the piston, is called the “small end.”

Mr_doody2004@yahoo.com

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