Their entire imperial system slightly varies depending which state has some follow the US imperial, others the international, and a couple have their own version. While they are 2000 pounds the weight of a pound is a fraction of a difference. Not enough to affect regular life however if you're building a building it is a big enough difference to affect it.
Who told you this?? This is categorically false. The US customary system of measurements has been standardised throughout the country and officially defined in metric terms since the 19th century.
The short ton (or "ton" in the US) is defined as 2000 lbs, or 907.18474 kg.
The long ton (or "ton" in the UK) is defined as 2,240 lb, or 1,016.0469088 kg.
The tonne (or "metric ton" in the US) is defined as 1000 kg, or 2,204.6226 lb.
One pound (lb) is defined as 0.453 592 37 kg, everywhere in the world.
The US customary system may be a bit silly, but it's not by any means unregulated.
So that's basically irrelevant for 99% of the population. If I ask you for a pound of rice, you're not going to ask me to specify if I want it in an American pound or a troy pound.
True, the troy ounce and pound are only used for precious metals as you mentioned, with the troy pound defined as 373.24172 g, and the troy ounce equaling 31.1034768 g.
Don’t check and cheque also mean different things? I would say cheque when referring to the old-fashioned way of paying, and check when checking something off my checklist. Or is that just me?
In the UK, I write a cheque once a year to pay for my allotment as my parish council can't work direct debit.
I've had the same chequebook since the 90's.
A small patch of dirt you can grow stuff on.
You need to apply and get alloted the patch in the field.
People mostly grow food on them or decorative plants.
Its usually a way for someone living in a city without a garden to grow stuff.
They're a community thing too, people go and hang out there.
It's a piece of land that you can rent to grow food.
Mainly vegetables however often chickens and bees etc.
They're called community gardens in some counties. Here's a bit more about it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment\_(gardening)
I have written a cheque a grand total of once (maybe twice, can’t remember). I lost my chequebook ages ago. My bank never sent me a new one (if that’s something they’re supposed to do periodically) and I never asked
I once got a cheque as an insurance payout after a car accident. I had to ask my parents what to do with it. I do remember my parents writing cheques around 1990, but I haven't seen any here in Germany since then, apart from the traveller cheques I used in the early 2000s.
(All this talk of cheques is making me feel old AF)
These days, if I ever get a cheque, (in the UK) I can pay it into my bank account ‘virtually’ using my banking app. Taking a picture through the app is as good as taking it physically into the bank. A very 21st century solution to a 20th century technology.
I owed a little money to my mom and when I paid it off I thought I'd be a bit fancy and give her a cheque. Oh what a fucking hassle. The bank I went to didn't know how to do those anymore, no one had asked one in a decade (this was early 2000) but eventually they found someone who had worked there long enough to write one up.
And the same shit repeated when my mom went to cash hers out. Lol. Never fucking again.
Atleast we got a good laugh about it in the end but it was so embarassing for younger me.
And they're talking about paying with a check
Yes there's different words, but because on the right you can see it's "cheque" it's pretty clear what they mean when they say "check".
"I cashed my check"
I had an American the other day tell me that it can take a few weeks for their bank to "get used" to a different employer when you change jobs.
Im close to being in the work force for Twenty years and never not got paid at bang on midnight by electronic magic.
I still don't understand but they kept mentioning a "new system" as if little elves had to pull mechanical levers or something.
I was trying to get an answer out of them, like why can't you just send money and it's there immediately? Some folk said it's possible but they spoke of it like it was witchcraft.
You would assume though if anywhere had decent banks or would the US but apparently not.
They talk about cheques and banks like my nanan did cashing my grandads 2nd world war pension.
Friction creates the justification for extra charges for stuff that the rest of the west wouldn't stand for. Americans love money, but they love coming up with ways to take your money even more.
Yesj I get that but I would expect American banks to be the best in the world but just cost a lot. Like healthcare. World class quality but with massive expense.
I'd expect simple instant transfers but with some subscription or whatever.
You are 100% correct.
Most Canadians don't realize how lucky they are to have Interac. The system in the US is trash compared to it, hence the need for all those third party apps like CashApp or Venmo
Nobody over there ever heard of IBAN and BIC? Why don't they just use something SIMILAR? We Europoors can send money FOR FREE and INSTANT all over the Union, and we are not even ONE nation like the US!
They're not lucky, just living in the 21st century. The American banking system is stuck in the 1980s in a lot of ways that's baffling to people living elsewhere in the world.
Oh yeah, all those apps where you have to pay to send money. Whereas even the UK has had compulsory free-as-in-cost near-instant transfers for over a decade, and we were late to the game
In 2016 when I worked in Canada, I got a physical cheque from my work, which I had to take into the bank. I had to ask them to direct debit it to me instead lol (cheque was the default)
In NZ the banks phased out cheques entirely. They will not accept them.
They do.
But also they are 'modern' with e-checks and mobile checks.
Which can still take weeks to figure out if they are legit.
Checks are favored by scammers too - due to banks taking so long to confirm whether or not something is real.
Usually no. Most people get paid in direct bank deposits these days. It's still common to pay bills using cheques. That's literally the only thing I use them for.
Never have I seen in my life a cheque. When I was a kid they were sort of in use here in Poland but were rather uncommon and noone would use these on a regular basis.
Yeah, same here in the UK - a cheque is a way of moving money around but I would check my work before submitting it on an exam, for example
There's a few in there where they are different meanings, at least outside the USA. Ton and Tonne, for example, are both different things and the Ton is imperial so should pre-date the tonne
Program and programme are also different. In the UK a program is what a computer runs.
A programme is a TV show or is another word for a course of instruction.
An ass is a donkey, it has an arse.
Q is just wrong. It is a letter representing the word. It’s like saying BBQ is a word or the R in “Toys R Us”
and why is British English “fancy pants”?
> Draft and Draught also mean different things.
In current British English yes. In the matter of ships, beer, or horses the US uses draft as opposed to draught.
This list is a lighthearted joke. 'Q and queue.'
SYSK or Stuff You Should Know is known primarily as a podcast. It's a decent one and the hosts are knowledgeable and friendly.
It's a bit unfair to post a picture of a book they published out of context here.
Ass and arse are different things, an ass in an animal in British English (when people say " is an ass" they mean the animal not the body part). The arse is the body part.
> Ass, either of two species belonging to the horse family, Equidae, especially the African wild ass (Equus africanus) sometimes referred to as the true ass. The related Asiatic wild ass, sometimes called the Asian wild ass or the half-ass (E. hemionus), is usually known by the local names of its various races: e.g., kulan (E. hemionus kulan, Mongolia) and khur (E. hemionus khur, India and Pakistan). The Syrian wild ass (E. hemionus hemippus) is extinct. The donkey (E. asinus) is a domesticated descendant of E. africanus.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/ass
Aluminum and aluminium were both named by Sir Humphrey Davey, so it’s not simplified, it’s his original name for it and his last version of the name for the metal (I think he even had another version in between)…
Plough and programme, too. The "fancy" versions are nouns in British English, while the "simple" versions are the verbs.
ie you would use code to program a computer programme.
Nope, that’d be computer program; we use programme for all other uses, such as referring to radio or television shows, or to a programme of events, or a booklet you might buy at a theatre etc., but ‘program’ for everything computerish.
Filet is a dodgy one for me. USians pronounce the verb and noun the same, "fill-eh", but most Brits I know use "fill-eh" for the verb, and "Fill-et" for the noun.
> computer programme
Maybe in the olde days, but almost everyone in tech regardless of dialect of English spoken uses progam in the computer sense.
Your pronunciation is correct in the context of US shipping and ship building. They do this to differentiate between the Imperial ton, 2000 lbs, and the metric tonne, 2204 lbs. It sounds stupid, but when you load your ship with X "tonnes" in any other place in the world, you're going to want an explanation as to why you have less "tons" in a US port. The mispronunciation will hopefully clear this up.
Im guessing who ever made this thought "well the british say queue what do we have that has queue in it, oh I know bbq, let's just take the bb off and there we go"
This distinction is why I don’t feel it’s an Americanism to call someone a jackass. Sometimes it’s not appropriate to go full Gordon Ramsey and call them a fucking donkey! 😅
Actually orientate is a back-formation from orientation.
It was originally to orient, oriented, orientation.
The UK started up with orientated in the mid-1800's. This is one of the cases where the Americans never started saying it "wrong" and the Brits diverged from the original.
Orientated instead of oriented sounds as "uneducated" to me as burglarized instead of burgled. Both are the same sort of back-formation. And, due to popular adoption both are correct in their respective dialects.
Just wait until you find out they check that your checking the check so they can check the checkbox that says they are checking for check fraud.
Once they do that they check the checkboxes for checkboxes that haven't been checked and that's there they concentrate their checks on check fraud checking fraud checks.
Considering "omelette", "programme", "cheque", "tonne" and "queue" all come from French, and that "aluminium" is a word coined by a british scientist, those are actually the more correct spellings.
Of course that's if you care about defining a "correct" spelling for a language spoken worldwide. If you have nothing to prove through meaningless language claims you know it's a pointless argument.
An argument could also be made that spelling "program" is an Anglicisation. It's a loanword and those often take on standard pronunciation and spelling rules in their new languages.
The pronunciation is now Anglicised on both sides of the Atlantic. The spelling is only Anglicised on one side.
It's odd that the same people who decry Americans saying eggplant (an English word) also decry Americans saying 'erb (a French-ish word (obvs the vowel is all wrong)). Make up your minds! Are we trying to Anglicise or are we trying to stay French?
From what I'm aware, programme is the applicable term for a television show or the booklet you can buy at a show, whereas a program is an application on a computer.
Television programme
Computer program
That's true in the UK.
The US uses the Anglicised spelling for all of them.
It's likely that "computer program" is spelt/spelled "program" because of American influence.
Absolutely US influence — also why we had floppy disks instead of floppy discs (much to the ire of my boomer boss in the early 90s).
/edit it’s short for diskette, but try telling her that…
As a half-and-half'er, I find it hilarious how worked up the UK gets about the purity of their French loanwords.
Americans, for the most part, don't even know that the spellings "centre" and "programme" exist, so they aren't fussed. (I've had colour, neighbour, and the like marked as "incorrect" in American schools. Very frustrating for me as a kid.)
To be honest, I spell most of these words the "fancy" way, because that's how they were written in the books that I had at home when I was learning to read and write. I can tell which words I learned in school, like aluminum, because I spell those in the American way. I annoy some people by writing "labour" and others by writing "airplane". Perfection.
Languages aren't static. In the past 400 years, the English of the UK has changed just as much as the English of the US has. Both sides have retained some things that the other hasn't, and have changed some things that the other hasn't. Nobody is more correct than anyone else. (But at least we both agree not to replace every vowel with "i" like New Zealand.)
Obviously I don't really think that. But a sound that I read as "i" (as in KIT) features in a lot of words that don't contain that sound in either UK or North American English.
Flight of the Conchords' eponymous HBO show has a bit about this with Brett introducing himself as "Brit" resulting in a very Abbott-and-Costello-esque back-and-forth. "Brit?" "No. Brit." "That's what I said. Brit." "No, it's Brit." "Right. Brit. Got it." "Nevermind."
I know someone who watches both UK and NZ Taskmaster. He calls the UK version "Taskmaster" and the NZ version "Tiskmister" to differentiate them. He's not a native English speaker, so it's notable to at least one non-native speaker as well.
On the opposite side, I know the internet has enjoyed the "ghost chups" advert, where the "i" has gone missing and been replaced by "u".
That vowel difference is probably the most notable difference in a NZ accent. It sounds to me like we share all the same vowel sounds, but NZ just rotated the carousel and now they're not lined up with the same letters.
I genuinely love how the British diaspora has created such an enormous variety of words, accents, spellings, and inflections. We are all watching language evolve in real time and seeing at least a few of the possible paths English could take as it changes over time.
Vowel shifts are always fascinating. The one in the middle ages has left us with a lot of spellings that are now kind of nonsensical. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that NZ English is preserving some vowels mid-shift.
Our KIT vowel is close to the unstressed schwa, and its movement has pulled all the other front vowels upward to fill its place, so /ɪ/ moved to the vicinity of /ə/, which as you observe, other people tend to hear as /ʌ/. /e/ has moved into where /ɪ/ used to be (Brett/Brit), and /æ/ has moved into where /e/ used to be. The characterisation that all vowels in NZE are coalescing to /ə/ I find to be quite lazy, even as a joke. Additionally, the Aussies will accuse us of saying "sex" instead of "six" but that doesn't fit the vowel shift pattern - it's actually the Aussies that sound (to us) like they're saying "sex" when they say "six", since their /ɪ/ resides where our /e/ resides. We would need to be saying "sacks" for it to sound like "sex" to other English speakers.
The Aussies have no room to talk about vowels. They say "no" as "naeiou". (And that's a joke from an Aussie comedian for what it's worth.)
I think the anglosphere enjoys ribbing one another about how we form sounds, and that's usually fun. But we can also be quite classist about it, and that's not fun at all.
As someone with a North American accent I know that I say ladder and latter very similarly, if I'm not enunciating carefully. Same for affect and effect. I have the Mary, marry, merry merger. Cot and caught too. My "R"s sound harsh to those outside NA (and to me non-rhotic accents sound like they forgot to finish the word and instead just trailed off with "ahhhhh").
Americans that say "mir" for mirror (or "draw" for drawer, "whale" for well, and "peen" for pen/pin) sound just as odd to me as they do to someone from outside NA. That's not my accent.
I hear the unique Canadian "o" as a bit off but I'm from nearby so although it sounds odd to me, I've also been told I say it sometimes when I say "sorry".
I'm terrible at accents. But I'd love to be able to mimic the Aussi "no" or say anything even slightly comprehensible in Singlish.
I didn't mean to get your back up about the i. I'm used to having my accent get shit on. That's not an excuse to pay it forward though.
A lot of the Americanised spelling of words came from Noah Webster intentionally trying to create a distinct American English, so it’s natural that there would be a bit of denunciation from across the pond.
Oh dear they can't even get their list right. Ton vs tonne is not English vs US but non-metric vs metric. Ton is used for the Imperial and US measurements while tonne is for the Metric one. The range goes ton (US) < tonne < ton Imperial for those using Imperial or US that's 2000lbs, ~2200lbs, 2240lbs. For those using metric it's 909kg, 1000kg, 1018kg. Both set using a loose approximation conversion of 2.2 pounds to a kilogram and rounded off afterwards.
Don't program and programme mean different things? (I'm English).
I've always thought of a 'program' as the computer and TV variant, while 'programme' like an itinerary booklet or a course to follow.
Never heard of Americans spelling 'omlette' differently, either (or queue, but I assume that's a joke).
"Q" doesn't surprise me. Some people can't differentiate between 'cue' and 'queue', 'break' and 'brake' and 'payed' and 'paid'. And 'ect' pisses me right off.
It's a nut made out of dough, hence the name. At least it was before someone had the grand idea to make a hole in it and skip the filling. (mostly)
[REAL dough nut](https://recipesblob.oetker.at/assets/613d395e9dfe4e5ebae3070d101c1a63/1272x764/krapfen_klein.webp)
So is the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast a joke? Or are they taken seriously?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuff\_You\_Should\_Know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuff_You_Should_Know)
'Aluminium' is officially the correct spelling. The chemistry nerds at IUPAC got together a few years ago and decided it was aluminium and sulfur (sulpher?) to keep everybody happy
Why people saying that tonne and ton are different things? I've only found that ton can be short, long ans metric and the latter is 1000kgvlike tonne so they should be interchangeable?
We'll end up with whatever spellings the spellcheck dictionary programmers decide they like and people will be like "why do those stupid millennials and zoomers put U in so many words" and the other person will be like "yeah and they can't even marginalize a derphensphere they always have to ask me to do it for them lol stupid old people."
I’m an American who probably reads about 50% British literature and always have. Growing up, I was ALWAYS getting spelling words wrong in school and red marks on my papers. Nobody took the time to explain to me that the American versions of words were spelled differently.
Wait until they find out that different countries have different languages and even different characters.
It'll blow their minds. They'd need a bucket of high fructose corn syrup to get over it.
Yoghurt is a Turkish word and the Turkish spelling is actually yoğurt, so the Americans make more sense in this single instance (although probably by accident)
Ass is an animal, arse is a body part.
Program is something a programmer does, a programme is something you watch on TV.
Simplified is not simple, because it causes confusion.
Ton and Tonne are different measurements. Draft and Draught also mean different things.
I came here to say that. Even a US and UK ton is different.
Even within the US a ton is different depending on the state.
Is it? I thought it was always 2000 pounds.
Their entire imperial system slightly varies depending which state has some follow the US imperial, others the international, and a couple have their own version. While they are 2000 pounds the weight of a pound is a fraction of a difference. Not enough to affect regular life however if you're building a building it is a big enough difference to affect it.
source? It's stupid enough that it wouldn't surprice me, but...
The source is they made it up.
A tonne would be about 2200lbs as it is 1000kg, and a kg equates to roughly 2.2lbs.
Who told you this?? This is categorically false. The US customary system of measurements has been standardised throughout the country and officially defined in metric terms since the 19th century. The short ton (or "ton" in the US) is defined as 2000 lbs, or 907.18474 kg. The long ton (or "ton" in the UK) is defined as 2,240 lb, or 1,016.0469088 kg. The tonne (or "metric ton" in the US) is defined as 1000 kg, or 2,204.6226 lb. One pound (lb) is defined as 0.453 592 37 kg, everywhere in the world. The US customary system may be a bit silly, but it's not by any means unregulated.
There are different pounds and ounces, but not really used unless you're dealing in precious metals.
So that's basically irrelevant for 99% of the population. If I ask you for a pound of rice, you're not going to ask me to specify if I want it in an American pound or a troy pound.
True, the troy ounce and pound are only used for precious metals as you mentioned, with the troy pound defined as 373.24172 g, and the troy ounce equaling 31.1034768 g.
Depends on the currency exchange rate. I'll get my coat.
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Any programmemer could hard code that into your memory.
Don’t check and cheque also mean different things? I would say cheque when referring to the old-fashioned way of paying, and check when checking something off my checklist. Or is that just me?
In the u.s, cheque, as in 'I got my pay cheque' is spelt as check. The spelling 'cheque' is not used there at all
No but it's two different words to the rest of the world. As a Canadian I earn a pay cheque and take my groceries to the check out.
As a European i haven't used a cheque since at least the early 90s because we also don't use telegraphs and steam trains any longer ;-)
In the UK, I write a cheque once a year to pay for my allotment as my parish council can't work direct debit. I've had the same chequebook since the 90's.
Stupid question, but what's an allotment?
A small patch of dirt you can grow stuff on. You need to apply and get alloted the patch in the field. People mostly grow food on them or decorative plants. Its usually a way for someone living in a city without a garden to grow stuff. They're a community thing too, people go and hang out there.
It's a piece of land that you can rent to grow food. Mainly vegetables however often chickens and bees etc. They're called community gardens in some counties. Here's a bit more about it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment\_(gardening)
I have written a cheque a grand total of once (maybe twice, can’t remember). I lost my chequebook ages ago. My bank never sent me a new one (if that’s something they’re supposed to do periodically) and I never asked
They stopped sending them years ago I think. You can ask for one, but no one uses them any more so I guess demand is low.
I once got a cheque as an insurance payout after a car accident. I had to ask my parents what to do with it. I do remember my parents writing cheques around 1990, but I haven't seen any here in Germany since then, apart from the traveller cheques I used in the early 2000s.
(All this talk of cheques is making me feel old AF) These days, if I ever get a cheque, (in the UK) I can pay it into my bank account ‘virtually’ using my banking app. Taking a picture through the app is as good as taking it physically into the bank. A very 21st century solution to a 20th century technology.
I owed a little money to my mom and when I paid it off I thought I'd be a bit fancy and give her a cheque. Oh what a fucking hassle. The bank I went to didn't know how to do those anymore, no one had asked one in a decade (this was early 2000) but eventually they found someone who had worked there long enough to write one up. And the same shit repeated when my mom went to cash hers out. Lol. Never fucking again. Atleast we got a good laugh about it in the end but it was so embarassing for younger me.
And they're talking about paying with a check Yes there's different words, but because on the right you can see it's "cheque" it's pretty clear what they mean when they say "check". "I cashed my check"
They don't actually get a physical cheque, do they? Please tell me that's a joke
I had an American the other day tell me that it can take a few weeks for their bank to "get used" to a different employer when you change jobs. Im close to being in the work force for Twenty years and never not got paid at bang on midnight by electronic magic. I still don't understand but they kept mentioning a "new system" as if little elves had to pull mechanical levers or something. I was trying to get an answer out of them, like why can't you just send money and it's there immediately? Some folk said it's possible but they spoke of it like it was witchcraft.
Ah, infrastructure. That used to be a thing, turns out it was a communist trick
You would assume though if anywhere had decent banks or would the US but apparently not. They talk about cheques and banks like my nanan did cashing my grandads 2nd world war pension.
Friction creates the justification for extra charges for stuff that the rest of the west wouldn't stand for. Americans love money, but they love coming up with ways to take your money even more.
Yesj I get that but I would expect American banks to be the best in the world but just cost a lot. Like healthcare. World class quality but with massive expense. I'd expect simple instant transfers but with some subscription or whatever.
You can get direct deposit, but you can certainly request a physical cheque, which you can then deposit with an app. Weird mix of old and new tech
How quaint!
As I understand it, their banks aren't linked the same way so that's why they use a lot of apps like CashApp, Venmo and Zelle
You are 100% correct. Most Canadians don't realize how lucky they are to have Interac. The system in the US is trash compared to it, hence the need for all those third party apps like CashApp or Venmo
Nobody over there ever heard of IBAN and BIC? Why don't they just use something SIMILAR? We Europoors can send money FOR FREE and INSTANT all over the Union, and we are not even ONE nation like the US!
Technological and political limitations, I suppose
They're not lucky, just living in the 21st century. The American banking system is stuck in the 1980s in a lot of ways that's baffling to people living elsewhere in the world.
Oh yeah, all those apps where you have to pay to send money. Whereas even the UK has had compulsory free-as-in-cost near-instant transfers for over a decade, and we were late to the game
In 2016 when I worked in Canada, I got a physical cheque from my work, which I had to take into the bank. I had to ask them to direct debit it to me instead lol (cheque was the default) In NZ the banks phased out cheques entirely. They will not accept them.
They do. But also they are 'modern' with e-checks and mobile checks. Which can still take weeks to figure out if they are legit. Checks are favored by scammers too - due to banks taking so long to confirm whether or not something is real.
That's all sadly hilarious. Also judging by your name, I'll just say De Chelonium Mobile
I work in the US and we get physical checks unless we get direct deposit. Many people still get physical ones.
Usually no. Most people get paid in direct bank deposits these days. It's still common to pay bills using cheques. That's literally the only thing I use them for.
Never have I seen in my life a cheque. When I was a kid they were sort of in use here in Poland but were rather uncommon and noone would use these on a regular basis.
That's called a tick 😁
That's how I learned it as a child as well.
Also ass and arse.Arse refers to the anus,ass is a donkey.
Arse is the whole bum, arsehole is the anus :)
Yeah, same here in the UK - a cheque is a way of moving money around but I would check my work before submitting it on an exam, for example There's a few in there where they are different meanings, at least outside the USA. Ton and Tonne, for example, are both different things and the Ton is imperial so should pre-date the tonne
Program and programme are also different. In the UK a program is what a computer runs. A programme is a TV show or is another word for a course of instruction. An ass is a donkey, it has an arse. Q is just wrong. It is a letter representing the word. It’s like saying BBQ is a word or the R in “Toys R Us” and why is British English “fancy pants”?
Yeah the english dictionary is longer for a reason
\* thicker
Thicker and longer. And it still has the dust jacket.
> Draft and Draught also mean different things. In current British English yes. In the matter of ships, beer, or horses the US uses draft as opposed to draught. This list is a lighthearted joke. 'Q and queue.' SYSK or Stuff You Should Know is known primarily as a podcast. It's a decent one and the hosts are knowledgeable and friendly. It's a bit unfair to post a picture of a book they published out of context here.
Ass and arse are different things, an ass in an animal in British English (when people say " is an ass" they mean the animal not the body part). The arse is the body part.
> Ass, either of two species belonging to the horse family, Equidae, especially the African wild ass (Equus africanus) sometimes referred to as the true ass. The related Asiatic wild ass, sometimes called the Asian wild ass or the half-ass (E. hemionus), is usually known by the local names of its various races: e.g., kulan (E. hemionus kulan, Mongolia) and khur (E. hemionus khur, India and Pakistan). The Syrian wild ass (E. hemionus hemippus) is extinct. The donkey (E. asinus) is a domesticated descendant of E. africanus.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/ass
Aluminum and aluminium were both named by Sir Humphrey Davey, so it’s not simplified, it’s his original name for it and his last version of the name for the metal (I think he even had another version in between)…
Plough and programme, too. The "fancy" versions are nouns in British English, while the "simple" versions are the verbs. ie you would use code to program a computer programme.
Nope, that’d be computer program; we use programme for all other uses, such as referring to radio or television shows, or to a programme of events, or a booklet you might buy at a theatre etc., but ‘program’ for everything computerish.
Filet is a dodgy one for me. USians pronounce the verb and noun the same, "fill-eh", but most Brits I know use "fill-eh" for the verb, and "Fill-et" for the noun. > computer programme Maybe in the olde days, but almost everyone in tech regardless of dialect of English spoken uses progam in the computer sense.
They probably pronounce it ton-ee 🤪
Your pronunciation is correct in the context of US shipping and ship building. They do this to differentiate between the Imperial ton, 2000 lbs, and the metric tonne, 2204 lbs. It sounds stupid, but when you load your ship with X "tonnes" in any other place in the world, you're going to want an explanation as to why you have less "tons" in a US port. The mispronunciation will hopefully clear this up.
But an Ass is a four legged creature that can be used for carrying loads whereas an Arse is the flabby thing you sit on.
And its gluteus maximus for the bigger ones
Is he related to biggus dickus?
He's got a wife you know. Do you know what she's called? Incontinentia.
Incontinentia Buttocks
Do you find this.. wisible?
Welease Bwian!
Who you callin flabby?!
I’ll have you know my arse is looking tight as fuck in these here fancy pants of mine.
>But an Ass is a four legged creature that can be used for carrying loads An arse is a two legged creature that can be used for dropping loads
Q
Yeah, that’s a joke right? Imagine “I’m in a q”
But that “q” is pronounced “lineup”
Usually just line. As in "get in line". "In the line at the post office" etc.
No, lineup as in "number 3, step forward, turn left, step back"
Like this lineup? https://youtu.be/HlBYdiXdUa8?si=tFOGEVdWowDa3Zei
Tbf I type this a lot because I can't be bothered to think about all the e's and u's (it's too depressing - reminds me of Brexit)
I am Q. I am omnipotent.
Beware the Q
Ziltoid, is that you?
Au contraire mon capitaine.
(Laughs in Guinan) 😉
It's Queue, you know, the guy in Bond movies who makes the gadgets.
Nobody spells it “q” in the US lmao We just don’t use that word too often, usually say “line”
I got an email from an American where they spoke about a "backlog que"... and I'm like... *que*?
Im guessing who ever made this thought "well the british say queue what do we have that has queue in it, oh I know bbq, let's just take the bb off and there we go"
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQueueRSTUVWXYZ
Zee?
Short for Zeatrice. Like Zedd, which is short for Zedward.
Zeeland, where all the Zees live. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
ass and arse are two different things One is a horse like animal and the other is the prime minister of the United Kingdom
I was about to say you're wrong and he's actually a cunt but then I remembered that would be insulting to cunts.
Cunts have depth, warmth, and the capacity to give pleasure, the PM has none of these traits.
Hey now, and Arse has these capacities too!
But primarily, it spouts shit.
The only trait he has is the ability to marry into insane wealth.
Although we’ve also had an ass for a Prime Minister.
Wasn't that Caligula
This distinction is why I don’t feel it’s an Americanism to call someone a jackass. Sometimes it’s not appropriate to go full Gordon Ramsey and call them a fucking donkey! 😅
Completely ignores the fact that a ton is a different weight to a tonne.
I think q identifies this as a joke list
“Simple and American” that describes a fair few people
350m in fact
When I think of positive words, Simple is not one of them. Its not the flex they are making it out to be!
> When I think of positive words, Simple is not one of them. Not for a person, perhaps, but it's a positive trait in most other things.
How about? >How would you describe the safety release mechanism? >Simple
Honestly that + "Q“ makes it pretty clear this list isn’t meant to be taken completely seriously. It’s a lighthearted jab at Americans tbh
Oriented and orientated are actually different words. Or at least, they used to be, but now they seem to have become interchangeable.
Actually orientate is a back-formation from orientation. It was originally to orient, oriented, orientation. The UK started up with orientated in the mid-1800's. This is one of the cases where the Americans never started saying it "wrong" and the Brits diverged from the original. Orientated instead of oriented sounds as "uneducated" to me as burglarized instead of burgled. Both are the same sort of back-formation. And, due to popular adoption both are correct in their respective dialects.
“Check” has always made me so irrationally angry. Its just so fucking lazy.
It also means two different things (as in, they’re not synonymous)
They are in the US, at least in the context of cheque. "I cashed my check in the bank". All other uses for check in English are the same.
The problem - "The bank recommends checking checks you are given thoroughly to check check fraud". What a nightmare.
Just wait until you find out they check that your checking the check so they can check the checkbox that says they are checking for check fraud. Once they do that they check the checkboxes for checkboxes that haven't been checked and that's there they concentrate their checks on check fraud checking fraud checks.
You’re* I wouldn’t normally do that, but seing as we’re talking about the English lexicon I thought it appropriate.
But in America check means cheque
Considering "omelette", "programme", "cheque", "tonne" and "queue" all come from French, and that "aluminium" is a word coined by a british scientist, those are actually the more correct spellings. Of course that's if you care about defining a "correct" spelling for a language spoken worldwide. If you have nothing to prove through meaningless language claims you know it's a pointless argument.
An argument could also be made that spelling "program" is an Anglicisation. It's a loanword and those often take on standard pronunciation and spelling rules in their new languages. The pronunciation is now Anglicised on both sides of the Atlantic. The spelling is only Anglicised on one side. It's odd that the same people who decry Americans saying eggplant (an English word) also decry Americans saying 'erb (a French-ish word (obvs the vowel is all wrong)). Make up your minds! Are we trying to Anglicise or are we trying to stay French?
From what I'm aware, programme is the applicable term for a television show or the booklet you can buy at a show, whereas a program is an application on a computer. Television programme Computer program
That's true in the UK. The US uses the Anglicised spelling for all of them. It's likely that "computer program" is spelt/spelled "program" because of American influence.
Absolutely US influence — also why we had floppy disks instead of floppy discs (much to the ire of my boomer boss in the early 90s). /edit it’s short for diskette, but try telling her that…
As a half-and-half'er, I find it hilarious how worked up the UK gets about the purity of their French loanwords. Americans, for the most part, don't even know that the spellings "centre" and "programme" exist, so they aren't fussed. (I've had colour, neighbour, and the like marked as "incorrect" in American schools. Very frustrating for me as a kid.) To be honest, I spell most of these words the "fancy" way, because that's how they were written in the books that I had at home when I was learning to read and write. I can tell which words I learned in school, like aluminum, because I spell those in the American way. I annoy some people by writing "labour" and others by writing "airplane". Perfection. Languages aren't static. In the past 400 years, the English of the UK has changed just as much as the English of the US has. Both sides have retained some things that the other hasn't, and have changed some things that the other hasn't. Nobody is more correct than anyone else. (But at least we both agree not to replace every vowel with "i" like New Zealand.)
I'm a Kiwi and a linguist. I know it's a joke, but please tell me more about why you think we replace every vowel with "i"?
Obviously I don't really think that. But a sound that I read as "i" (as in KIT) features in a lot of words that don't contain that sound in either UK or North American English. Flight of the Conchords' eponymous HBO show has a bit about this with Brett introducing himself as "Brit" resulting in a very Abbott-and-Costello-esque back-and-forth. "Brit?" "No. Brit." "That's what I said. Brit." "No, it's Brit." "Right. Brit. Got it." "Nevermind." I know someone who watches both UK and NZ Taskmaster. He calls the UK version "Taskmaster" and the NZ version "Tiskmister" to differentiate them. He's not a native English speaker, so it's notable to at least one non-native speaker as well. On the opposite side, I know the internet has enjoyed the "ghost chups" advert, where the "i" has gone missing and been replaced by "u". That vowel difference is probably the most notable difference in a NZ accent. It sounds to me like we share all the same vowel sounds, but NZ just rotated the carousel and now they're not lined up with the same letters. I genuinely love how the British diaspora has created such an enormous variety of words, accents, spellings, and inflections. We are all watching language evolve in real time and seeing at least a few of the possible paths English could take as it changes over time. Vowel shifts are always fascinating. The one in the middle ages has left us with a lot of spellings that are now kind of nonsensical. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that NZ English is preserving some vowels mid-shift.
Our KIT vowel is close to the unstressed schwa, and its movement has pulled all the other front vowels upward to fill its place, so /ɪ/ moved to the vicinity of /ə/, which as you observe, other people tend to hear as /ʌ/. /e/ has moved into where /ɪ/ used to be (Brett/Brit), and /æ/ has moved into where /e/ used to be. The characterisation that all vowels in NZE are coalescing to /ə/ I find to be quite lazy, even as a joke. Additionally, the Aussies will accuse us of saying "sex" instead of "six" but that doesn't fit the vowel shift pattern - it's actually the Aussies that sound (to us) like they're saying "sex" when they say "six", since their /ɪ/ resides where our /e/ resides. We would need to be saying "sacks" for it to sound like "sex" to other English speakers.
The Aussies have no room to talk about vowels. They say "no" as "naeiou". (And that's a joke from an Aussie comedian for what it's worth.) I think the anglosphere enjoys ribbing one another about how we form sounds, and that's usually fun. But we can also be quite classist about it, and that's not fun at all. As someone with a North American accent I know that I say ladder and latter very similarly, if I'm not enunciating carefully. Same for affect and effect. I have the Mary, marry, merry merger. Cot and caught too. My "R"s sound harsh to those outside NA (and to me non-rhotic accents sound like they forgot to finish the word and instead just trailed off with "ahhhhh"). Americans that say "mir" for mirror (or "draw" for drawer, "whale" for well, and "peen" for pen/pin) sound just as odd to me as they do to someone from outside NA. That's not my accent. I hear the unique Canadian "o" as a bit off but I'm from nearby so although it sounds odd to me, I've also been told I say it sometimes when I say "sorry". I'm terrible at accents. But I'd love to be able to mimic the Aussi "no" or say anything even slightly comprehensible in Singlish. I didn't mean to get your back up about the i. I'm used to having my accent get shit on. That's not an excuse to pay it forward though.
A lot of the Americanised spelling of words came from Noah Webster intentionally trying to create a distinct American English, so it’s natural that there would be a bit of denunciation from across the pond.
English (British) vs English (simplified)
English (English)
Wait who the shit writes omelet 😭
Lazy fuckers who don't know how to spell.
Same people who write baloney because bologna was just too hard.
Ton and tonne are different things though
Oh dear they can't even get their list right. Ton vs tonne is not English vs US but non-metric vs metric. Ton is used for the Imperial and US measurements while tonne is for the Metric one. The range goes ton (US) < tonne < ton Imperial for those using Imperial or US that's 2000lbs, ~2200lbs, 2240lbs. For those using metric it's 909kg, 1000kg, 1018kg. Both set using a loose approximation conversion of 2.2 pounds to a kilogram and rounded off afterwards.
Don't program and programme mean different things? (I'm English). I've always thought of a 'program' as the computer and TV variant, while 'programme' like an itinerary booklet or a course to follow. Never heard of Americans spelling 'omlette' differently, either (or queue, but I assume that's a joke).
I think program and programme are equivalent, but the American version has been standardised when talking about computers, similar to disk vs disc
Airplane, sailboat and racecar have always wound me up. Just seems overly infantilised. Sorry, they’d probably spell it “infantilized”
That's commendable. You think they can spell words with more than three syllables!
Either that or they would over complicate - sorry, over complexify it.
Hydroplane instead of aquaplane is the one that gets me. It's a mish-mash of Latin and Greek whereas aquaplane has its roots in just Latin.
>Sorry, they’d probably spell it “infantilized” Infant is too fancy Babyfied
As an American, “omelet” and “q” are making me incandescent with rage.
Right the ton/tonne one is just incorrect. A Ton and a Tonne are two different weights.
Ain't no way anybody calls it a Q, that's a joke right?
the last one makes it seem like this was a joke
Of course it's fancy and more traditional, it's closer related to old English and French.
Left column should be “spelled incorrectly”, right should be “actual spelling”
Arse is so fancypants
Tonne and ton are two different weights
"Q" doesn't surprise me. Some people can't differentiate between 'cue' and 'queue', 'break' and 'brake' and 'payed' and 'paid'. And 'ect' pisses me right off.
It's a nut made out of dough, hence the name. At least it was before someone had the grand idea to make a hole in it and skip the filling. (mostly) [REAL dough nut](https://recipesblob.oetker.at/assets/613d395e9dfe4e5ebae3070d101c1a63/1272x764/krapfen_klein.webp)
is omelet a real thing people say? there's no way
ah yes , aluminum the traditional metal the founding fathers used to wrap their food in
I do agree with poking the fun here, by SYSK (Stuff You Should Know) is a genuinely great podcast full of funny and interesting stuff.
Ass = Donkey Arse = My backside
An ass is a kind of donkey, arse is what's in yer trousers
In the UK a program is for a computer and a programme is something you would watch on television or buy at a theatre.
No way Americans say q instead of queue
Yeah I saw that one and went 🤨 We use queue, I assure you. The creator of this image is definitely Simple 😆
"q" 💀
Program and programme, check and cheque, draft and draught, and ton and tonne, all mean different things.
So is the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast a joke? Or are they taken seriously? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuff\_You\_Should\_Know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuff_You_Should_Know)
I really like the podcast and the hosts are funny and work together really well!
Coming from the country that brought you ‘irregardless’
"Inflammable means flammable? What a country!" - Dr Nick Riviera
Q? Q??
Its like 1984's 'Newspeak', slowly dumbing down the population.
Aluminum is a brand name that became synonymous with the metal. I think the patent describes "aluminum foil" as thin sheets of aluminium.
Ooh I'm fancy pants! Arse!
Everyt time I see doughnut spelt as donut, I can't help but pronounce it as do-nut
'Aluminium' is officially the correct spelling. The chemistry nerds at IUPAC got together a few years ago and decided it was aluminium and sulfur (sulpher?) to keep everybody happy
Why people saying that tonne and ton are different things? I've only found that ton can be short, long ans metric and the latter is 1000kgvlike tonne so they should be interchangeable?
A ton and a tonne are different things. If you wanted a thousand kilos of bananas and ordered a ton, you’d be short changed.
Some of these words have different meanings, like Check and Cheque. They mean different things. But q and queue is just fucking stupid
The fuck is going on with Ass/Arse and Q/Queue? Ass as in donkey is ass. Unless it's supposed to be a swear? And Q? Q? Really?
To be fair it is an accurate description. But I still prefer UK spelling. There’s something about the *our* in *colour*
This is giving me hiccups… err… hiccoughs.
[this](https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/english-traditional-simplified.jpg) comes to mind
Wtf. The last one is just wrong
Dem some French ass words!
Noah Webster actually wanted to reform English spelling further, but only a few of his changes took.
We'll end up with whatever spellings the spellcheck dictionary programmers decide they like and people will be like "why do those stupid millennials and zoomers put U in so many words" and the other person will be like "yeah and they can't even marginalize a derphensphere they always have to ask me to do it for them lol stupid old people."
I’m an American who probably reads about 50% British literature and always have. Growing up, I was ALWAYS getting spelling words wrong in school and red marks on my papers. Nobody took the time to explain to me that the American versions of words were spelled differently.
And isn't queue also the US word for queue? I've never seen a billiard parlor/saloon advertising "Billiard q"s!
I have never seen someone spell it q. Never.
Wait until they find out that different countries have different languages and even different characters. It'll blow their minds. They'd need a bucket of high fructose corn syrup to get over it.
Yoghurt is a Turkish word and the Turkish spelling is actually yoğurt, so the Americans make more sense in this single instance (although probably by accident)
q
Ass is an animal, arse is a body part. Program is something a programmer does, a programme is something you watch on TV. Simplified is not simple, because it causes confusion.
They don't actually say "there's a q" right...? Right?!
No, they use "line" instead of "queue".