US - UK Dictionary

[Jill]

My son's latest girlfiend is from Yorkshire and being from the south often do not understand her odd pronunciations and lack of understanding of how to pronounce her vowels, eg Bath so she has now given us a book on how to speak Yorkshhire! Not the wisest way of impressing your boyfriend's parents!

[sunseeker]

If carsul is good enough for the Queen then its good enough for me.

Dave

[Dads_Taxi]

Odd pronunciations!!

Just face up to it, you Southerners (English Southerners) put extra "R"s into so many words - Grarss, Barth (or more frequently, Barff), the list goes on. Please don't accuse us Northerners of a lack of understanding.

Now, let's get back to the main topic.... let's find some more amusing American words to take the mickey out of, and leave the inaccuracies of Southern English pronunciation out of it.

[Lyn]

Can anyone tell me is cornflour, cornstarch? Do they have plain flour or is it called something else?

[Clare R]

Cornflour and Cornstarch are the same thing if you want to make a white sauce for instance.

Can't help on the flour question, never got that deep into cooking!!

[ctgirlscout]

I've never heard of cornflour, so I did a search and found this definition on a recipe website:

"A powdery flour made of finely ground cornmeal, NOT to be confused with cornstarch. The exception is in British recipes where the term "cornflour" is used synonymously with the U.S. word cornstarch."

We do have plain flour. It's found in the baking aisle of any supermarket.

[Beverley]

Yes cornflour and cornstarch are the same thing and work in the same way.

[Lyn]

Thanks for that, because we are going for a month I thought we would save some some money by doing our own meals.

[Tonish]

Time. Can someone explain the American version?

For example, if I am asked the time and it is 2.50, I would say ten to three. For 4.20 I would say twenty past four. This always seems to get me a strange look when I'm in the States. I think i'm supposed to say ten off three and twenty after four, but I just can't bring myself to do it - and I'm not even sure it's right anyway.

[lafifille]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Tonish
Time. Can someone explain the American version?

For example, if I am asked the time and it is 2.50, I would say ten to three. For 4.20 I would say twenty past four. This always seems to get me a strange look when I'm in the States. I think i'm supposed to say ten off three and twenty after four, but I just can't bring myself to do it - and I'm not even sure it's right anyway.
[/quote]

2.50 : two fifty
4.20 : four twenty
5.30 : five thirty
and so on...

I've never heard someone in the US say "ten off three" nor "twenty after four", but it might be I never paid attention....