Britishisms sneaking into American vernacular

vitanola · Oct 6, 2012

dhermann1 said:
Getting back to the subject of language . . . ahhh herrrmmm . . . "flatting" is a word I definitely don't see getting into general usage in this country for a long time.

"Flatting"? As in what one does when adding gasoline to enamel before painting?

Or perchance does the word describe a sort of motorized equestrian sport which substitutes one of these:

0_edinburgh_transport_steam_roller_sy3582_midlothian.jpg

for a pony?

Great Pinker's ghost!

I certainly hope that "flatting" is not an activity which involves either a rental agent or a landlady. If it did we would have on our hands yet another example of the unfortunate tendency of "moderns" to turn perfectly fine, self-respecting nouns into entirely unnecessary verbs.

In that case, I must suggest that we who prefer to uphold the standards of our great language conference regarding this sorry state of affairs Tuesday next.

esteban68 · Oct 6, 2012

As in the Australian/New Zealand term? we don't use flatting much in the UK unless applied to decorating/painting, if in the NZ/Aussie term then quite a bit will be going on for some time I guess due to the current state of the housing market!

Miss Sis · Oct 6, 2012

Being a Kiwi who lives in the UK, I would still use the term 'flatting' for renting with others. I've heard the term 'houseshare' more recently.

On another related note, I find the American term 'roomates' stranger, since it sounds like you are sharing not just a flat/apartment, but a room as well!

As for the tea situation, I'd still say more people drink tea than coffee at home and in the workplace, partly due to the rise of the coffee shop and the demise of anywhere to get a decent cuppa out and about! Even I, a committed tea drinker, occasionally have coffee when out these days.

vitanola · Oct 6, 2012

Miss Sis said:
Being a Kiwi who lives in the UK, I would still use the term 'flatting' for renting with others. I've heard the term 'houseshare' more recently.

On another related note, I find the American term 'roomates' stranger, since it sounds like you are sharing not just a flat/apartment, but a room as well!

As for the tea situation, I'd still say more people drink tea than coffee at home and in the workplace, partly due to the rise of the coffee shop and the demise of anywhere to get a decent cuppa out and about! Even I, a committed tea drinker, occasionally have coffee when out these days.

Well, the term does indeed date back to the days of rooming houses, where rooms were often shared. In earlier days the term bed-mate was common over here, and entirely lacked the implications which are oft ascribed to it by the filthy minds of "moderns".

Note this example, a popular newspaper comic from 1907, "The Hall-Room Boys, They do it on $9.50 per". Note that a "Hall-Room" was the smallest room in a row house, generally just above the entrance, and so only the width of the stair hall. A hall-room was the least desirable and hence cheapest room in a boarding house, due both to size and noise. These "Boys" are heedless young men form upper middle class backgrounds, who are just starting in life, making do on "$9.50 per" week. Whilst they are rather short of ready money, they are still upper middle class in their attitudes, foe example, in one strip a crisis ensues when the boys receive a diner invitation and realise that their evening clothes are at the pawn shop. Two dollars is needed to redeem them, but between themselves the boys have but $1.90. This presents a problem, but not quite the sort of problem which might be faced by, young men of similar age, but of the laboring class in, say, Lawrence Massachusetts, Shamokn Pennsylvania, or (heaven forfend!) Marshall County, Mississippi.

esteban68 · Oct 6, 2012

Miss Sis I am happy to report that I have hope for the future, my son aged 26 and many of his skateboarding friends much prefer tea to coffee whether or not it is the association with 'tea houses in Spain and Amsterdam I do not know though?

davidraphael · Oct 6, 2012

I never heard of 'flatting' before in my life. 'Flat share' was always the ubiquitous term when I lived in the UK.

Tea: I'm an Englishman but I never drank (black) tea until I was 40 yrs old. It took some Turkish guys in Istanbul to get me into it (they have a little trick: steeped with cloves).
Now I drink it black with chestnut honey, courtesy of our bees in the garden.

I never drank a cup of coffee in my life.
I was always kind of too hyper anyway, even 1st thing in the morning.

I was always more tempted by a snifter or a wee dram in the A.M.

HoosierDaddy · Oct 6, 2012

Love the black coffee first thing in the morning
...and the iced tea during a summer afternoon. Does that count?

esteban68 · Oct 6, 2012

Iced tea rocks HD...I got switched onto that in Andalucia about 9 years ago, I just love the stuff!

kamikat · Oct 7, 2012

I became a tea convert while visiting London. Before then, it was coffee in the morning, decaf tea on cold nights or when sick. I know bags aren't great, but I brought home several boxes of bags home with me and they're great for a single cup. I still love a big pitcher of mango or raspberry iced tea in summer, though.

scottyrocks · Oct 7, 2012

I've been using, 'Eh, what?' with the accent, for years.

tuppence · Oct 7, 2012

About Gingers: I'm surprised nobody mentioned Tim Minchins' song predjudice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

Apparently only a Ginger can call another person a Ginger

V.C. Brunswick · Oct 8, 2012

Miss Sis said:
As for the tea situation, I'd still say more people drink tea than coffee at home and in the workplace, partly due to the rise of the coffee shop and the demise of anywhere to get a decent cuppa out and about! Even I, a committed tea drinker, occasionally have coffee when out these days.

Tea, Ern?

Sorry, couldn't resist. With all the tea talk what could be more fitting than a juxtaposition of that and British pop culture icons?

Miss Sis · Oct 8, 2012

Yes please! LOL.

V.C. Brunswick said:
Tea, Ern?

Sorry, couldn't resist. With all the tea talk what could be more fitting than a juxtaposition of that and British pop culture icons?

PADDY · Oct 9, 2012

From a few weeks ago in Blackpool with Eric

0FEC147D-F8EA-40A8-8561-5E5C65834151-214-0000002C370E5241.jpg

PADDY · Oct 9, 2012

Just to prove that PADDY isn't all seriousness with policing the Lounge!

DJH · Oct 9, 2012

Perfect, Paddy!

V.C. Brunswick · Oct 10, 2012

PADDY said:
From a few weeks ago in Blackpool with Eric

Definitely on my list of places to visit. I wonder how many people in Morecambe know that right near the Sainsbury market on Lancaster Road (former site of Christie Park football ground) is Eric's boyhood home?

lareine · Oct 10, 2012

Miss Sis said:
Being a Kiwi who lives in the UK, I would still use the term 'flatting' for renting with others. I've heard the term 'houseshare' more recently.

On another related note, I find the American term 'roomates' stranger, since it sounds like you are sharing not just a flat/apartment, but a room as well!

I also find "roommates" strange and only use it when referring to somebody with whom I did share a twin room for a year at university. She was my only roommate, but I was flatmates and housemates with many other people over the years

I never heard the term "flatting" until I moved to New Zealand.

I am Irish (which is no part of Britain or the UK at all) but spent most of my adult life living in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK but not part of Britain. I find this thread fascinating not just for the language under discussion but also for the offence that some words apparently cause.

lareine · Oct 10, 2012

LizzieMaine said:
Tea in the States has also been heavily gendered -- the image of the drink is a weak beverage delicately sipped by ladies and sissies, not a hearty stimulant for workingmen like coffee. The American tea industry actually ran an elaborate advertising campaign in the late thirties trying to break down this stereotype, but it didn't work. Tea is still, overtly or subconsciously, seen as a feminine drink.

That seems bizarre to me! Tea in a mug, almost strong enough to stand the spoon in, is a "man's drink" to me. Coffee, delicately sipped from a dinky little coffee cup, is a "woman's drink". I will probably always think of tea as a basic everyday hearty hot drink, and coffee as a slightly effeminate, office-drone-rather-than-manual-labour namby pamby substitute.

I love both, by the way, and I don't really think there is a gender divide or should be one. Those are just my frivolous surface impressions

V.C. Brunswick · Oct 10, 2012

lareine said:
I find this thread fascinating not just for the language under discussion but also for the offence that some words apparently cause.

One of the songs made famous by Al Jolson was one from 1933 called Hallelujah, I'm A Bum Again. In Britain the song was retitled to the less offensive Hallelujah, I'm A Tramp Again because, of course, "bum" means posterior in the UK. While at the same time in America "tramp" was considered to be the more offensively vulgar term.

[video=youtube;zkGoGGSyuGE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGoGGSyuGE[/video]

Britishisms sneaking into American vernacular

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Call Me a Cab

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I'll Lock Up

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I'll Lock Up

I'll Lock Up

I'll Lock Up

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