An American in Europe

07 October

Prawn Cocktail Crisps & Plasters

Most Americans know about the normal word differences between King's English and American, that they call toilets "loos," and trunks "boots," and erasers "rubbers."

Check out the following, they threw me for a loop because I hadn't expected them.

-- They call their potato chips "crisps," while french fries are "chips." (Incidentally, I was surprised to find that my "sandwich with chipped potatoes" last weekend came with french fries.)

-- The potato chips are in the WEIRDEST flavors: Right now I'm snacking on Prawn Cocktail-flavored chips. (That's shrimp!) Yesterday I had some beef-flavored chips, and I've saved up some mature cheddar-flavored for later.

-- They don't say the letter z here as "zee." Rather, they say "zet." Who knew!?

-- I needed a band-aid for my toe yesterday, but had some trouble because here they call them "plasters." And a doctor's office is called a "surgery." It sounds drastic, but it isn't.

-- There are no exit signs in the tube. The signs say "way out," with an arrow. I'm not kidding. I suppose it's logical.

-- See these little dots at the ends of my sentences that we call periods? Here it's called a "full stop." Unbelievable how different things can be!



posted at 03:54:15 on 10/07/04 by ajluvsu - Category: General

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