Comment by ChrisRR
5 days ago
Americans often don't twig how many random american terms we brits have to learn the double meaning of and don't pipe up about. I'm not talking the well-known ones like cookies, but even things like "the ER" meaning "A&E"
Sometimes it's their turn to repay the favour
If you want to read some hilarious reactions of Americans panicking when they are suddenly exposed to non-American English/British accents, check out these threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/1q68v16/british_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/17wcsdm/my_digit...
I'm not sure "panicking" is the best word to describe a couple of parents wondering why the characters suddenly have different accents. But maybe I'm too American and "panicking" means something else for Brits.
> How do I get it back?!
> Inexcusable that Paramount used the UK dub on some episodes
> Just downloaded it and had the same panic in my house
Sure I was being hyperbolic for effect but a lot of the tone is closer to panicking than “wondering”.
We are exposed to American accents all day every day. Americans often seem to want to protect themselves from having to be exposed to anything non-American, even going as far as to remake entire TV shows rather than just broadcasting the original.
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Not even the accents - different voices are annoying enough. When I was young I watched some cartoons in English, and hearing them in Dutch later, despite being my native language, was still uncomfortable.
If those posts are examples of 'panicking' we have yet another idiom I've just learned about.
Sometimes Americans wonder why English characters start talking about a basic cable channel when they really should be seeking medical help.
As a non-American I don't know what "basic cable" is (or what the other tiers are), just that you don't have free-to-air TV
As far as I'm aware the US does have free OTA TV. A quick google tells me that basic cable means the cheapest tier of cable. So maybe equivalent to a sky/cable entertainment package?
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I've watched the World Cup over free-to-air TV, US has a really fun match last night. I don't know where you got this idea from. I haven't paid for television service in decades.
Cable channel? Are you talking about fibre-optic frequency channels? What kind of cable are we talking?
Perhaps you can be more inclusive in your language on the future.
I wish US english had a term as good as ‘twig’ for when someone doesn’t get something.
Do you mean A&E the television channel?
You could just use the US terms, then you wouldn't have to learn both.