Lost in Translation--US vs UK English words

[mrtackytn]

U.K. - knocked up - calling on
U.S. - pregnant

[Pleater]

I noticed the use of 'insure' in another thread - placing the brined Thanksgiving fowl in the fridge for a day to insure a crispy skin.

I would have written 'ensure'.

Insure brings to mind a policy and premium to pay, in case of accident.

Ensure is - for instance - an annual servicing and driving carefully in bad weather, hopefully to prevent accidents.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[dfmacliam]

I am sure it was a mispelling.. a phonetical stumble..

[HarborSpringsPiper]

UK - Casualty Ward, US - Emergency Department

[EagleJCS]

Pleater's recent post suggests another topic - and a pet peeve of mine: homonyms (words that sound the same when pronounced), near-homonyms, and their meanings.

Common examples for homonyms:
to, too and two; there, they're and their

to: the direction
too: also
two: the numerical amount

there: that place
they're: the contraction for 'they are'
their: the possessive (that is their house)

Another example that occurred in today's local newspaper: then and than. People here in the U.S. have gotten lazy in their pronunciation - creating near-homonyms like these - and thus wind up using the wrong word

than: a comparison (this is more/less than that)
then: a description of time (that was then, this is now)

[rant]
More and more frequently, I am seeing sentences along the lines of: 'this was more then just a coincidence'.

I'm occasionally guilty of a few myself (more often I have typos), so I try not to correct others in the online fora I frequent, but it irritates me when I run across them in periodicals that supposedly have editors and/or copywriters that are supposed to catch those sorts of things.

[/rant]

[Heming]

Hm, aren't those just homophones? True homonyms would also be spelt the same, such as then and then (one is past, the other future). But homophones are the ones making all the trouble, anyway.

My native language is full of homonyms and homophones, not to mention minimal pairs with tone as the distinguishing factor. Quite hard on immigrants, that one.

[O'Callaghan]

pissed has a double meaning too

I know. One time at a party at my cousins' house in Michigan, with people there from both sides of the Atlantic, when I told one of my cousins that one of our uncles was pissed she asked who he was pissed at. Of course, I meant he was drunk and she thought I meant he was angry. In UK English being angry is always being pissed OFF, and without the OFF it means drunk, but in the US the OFF is, well, left off, and the drunk meaning doesn't exist.

[O'Callaghan]

U.K. - knocked up - calling on
U.S. - pregnant

Ah, but another UK meaning is to wake someone up by knocking on their door. So, if you tell a girl you will knock her up in the morning it's a double entendre. I think we create those on purpose, LOL! If Brits use a phrase in a dodgy sense don't assume we don't also use the exact same phrase to mean something innocent, because we so often do.

[O'Callaghan]

UK = US


Procurator Fiscal = District Attorney

However, as I'm sure you know, you only have a Procurator Fiscal in Scotland. I think it's closer to a French Juge d'Instruction than anything in English or American law.

Not a lawyer myself. I'm a US patent agent but a British citizen.

[sydnie7]

UK - next but one
US - every other, second door down, other phrases for specific situations