Thread: Illogical American expressions?

I know full well what "a bit of forby two" is, but what is a two by four?

Bespoke is very English. Rolls Royce were bespoke.

When I was in the Army, we had 'left' tenants, while our American friends have 'loo' tenants.

In America, people from other countries are "forn".

Originally Posted by johntins

I know full well what "a bit of forby two" is, but what is a two by four?

Bespoke is very English. Rolls Royce were bespoke.

When I was in the Army, we had 'left' tenants, while our American friends have 'loo' tenants.

In America, people from other countries are "forn".

2x4 is a pre metric size of timber. Not exclusively used by the USA.
Here " forn " countries are overseas . Hmm last time I looked at a map Australia is a single country continent. Not too logical stating the obvious when describing another country , or is to appease whatever state always seems to want to go things alone ?

Anything in a "New York" accent is just plain weird.

There have always been differences in the version of English used on different sides of the Atlantic. Winston Churchill (and before him, George Bernard Shaw) observed that England and America were two nations divided by a common language.

It just seems to me that some of the replacement phrases that the Americans come up with, like my original examples, simply don't make sense.

A lot (but by no means all) of them are simply English that was current in the eighteenth century, lost in the rest of the English speaking world since then, but still alive in the USA.

But most idioms in any language (including Australian English) don't make sense unless you are used to them.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

A lot (but by no means all) of them are simply English that was current in the eighteenth century, lost in the rest of the English speaking world since then, but still alive in the USA.

But most idioms in any language (including Australian English) don't make sense unless you are used to them.

In the mid 90's i was working for a global telco and we were preparing a proposal i think for Xerox. As there was so much confusion in language between the US team and the UK team two of us from Sydney flew to Boston to assist in clarifying this confusion. The proposal was to be submitted in the US. Really quite buzzare.

I have worked for a lot of US based companies and the language and mindset is always challenging.

Originally Posted by travelrover

In the mid 90's i was working for a global telco and we were preparing a proposal i think for Xerox. As there was so much confusion in language between the US team and the UK team two of us from Sydney flew to Boston to assist in clarifying this confusion. The proposal was to be submitted in the US. Really quite buzzare.

I have worked for a lot of US based companies and the language and mindset is always challenging.

I did not realise how different the languages were until I did a joint paper with an American. At one stage his secretary got hold of it and "corrected" the spelling and grammar. When it came back to me I had to "uncorrect" it, seeing it was being published in an Australian journal!

I was further educated when I later had seven years as editor of the same journal.

There's probably a Jeep forum Stateside, where they'e mocking us for calling shrimp prawn, hoods bonnets et al.