Hey, guys.
Welcome back to the Girl Gone London Channel.
If you're new here, my name is Kalyn.
I'm a dual UK, an American citizen,
and today I'm talking about the lesser known phrasing differences between what
Americans will say and what Brits will say.
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Okay, so I have made a list of what I would call grammatical or phrasing
differences between what we would say in the US and what we would say in the UK.
These are not like in the UK.
We say trousers, and in the US we say pants.
These are more the way we might say something.
And this video is also not to say that one
is right and one is wrong, though I know my British audience will be
like, definitely, British English is right and American English is wrong.
Some people were like,
it should be called English versus American English, not British English.
People use British, English, Australian,
English, Canadian, English, American, English to differentiate between different
things said in English and different countries that say things differently.
So if you want to fight it out
in the comments, feel free, but I will not do that in this video.
I'm not saying one is right, one is wrong, but these are some lesser known
differences of the way we say things that you might not have known.
Okay, so the first one is the phrase gone off.
So in the UK, we would use gone off to mean that something has expired,
so the milk has gone off or has the cream gone off?
In the US, we don't use the phrase gone off to mean what we do in the UK.
Gone off in the US, if it's used,
would really be like someone has gone off somewhere.
If we're talking about a food product going off, we don't say that.
We say this has expired.
Or we might say, this is past its use by date, or it's sellby date.
So gone off in the UK versus this has
expired or gone past its sell by or use by date.
Now, the next one is the use of the phrase I don't mind in the UK.
So if you say I don't mind, it means that you don't have a preference.
And so this is also in UK. British English.
You could say, like, I'm not bothered either way.
I don't mind.
Now, if you said this in the US, we would definitely understand what you
mean, but most of us don't say, I don't mind, we might say, I don't care.
I don't care. Which one?
I don't care.
This can come off to a British person as
being kind of aggressive and meaning not that you don't have a preference,
but to them it would mean that you just don't care at all.
So in the US, if you hear I don't care, it means I don't mind.
But again, if you're an American using
this in the UK, be mindful of what that would mean to a British person.
I see this a lot in expat groups where one of them is British and one of them is
from the States, and huge arguments can erupt over someone saying I don't care.
Because to British ears this sounds
dismissive, where to American ears it is our equivalent of I don't mind.
Obviously, it does kind of depend on the context.
So if you're in the US saying I don't care in a rude or dismissive or
negative way, then it can be taken as such.
But if someone says, do you want pasta or hamburgers for dinner tonight?
And you say, I don't care, it's just us saying we don't mind.
We don't have a preference. Okay?
So the third thing is the term sort it out.
So in the UK, the phrase sort it out is
similar to the American way of saying figure it out.
Americans wouldn't typically say sort it out.
Sort something out. Sort yourself out.
I'll sort it.
Americans would say, I'll figure it out, or make sure you figure it out.
So, for instance, if I needed to buy train tickets for tomorrow,
I might tell my husband, oh, don't worry, I've sorted it out.
I-E-I figured it out. I've bought the tickets.
Or I've looked at the schedules or whatever it is I need to do.
Brits would say sort, where Americans might say figure.
So kind of the same thing.
Imagine two siblings are fighting in the back seat.
A British mum might say Sort yourselves out.
Where an American mom might say, like, figure it out between you two.
So the term sort versus figure are different in the UK and the US.
So the fourth difference is the phrase going around someone's house.
So in the UK, you might say,
I'll go round her house, which means in the American usage,
I will go over to her house, or I went to her house.
But Americans wouldn't say to go around your house.
To them, going around your house would mean walking around your house,
whereas to a Brit, if you go round to someone's house,
you're going straight through the front door into their house.
So this is another small difference,
but a difference that definitely becomes noticeable when you live here as an expat
and hear people say that they went round someone's house, it just means that they
went to their house, which an American wouldn't say
with the term round, but would say, I went over to their house.
Oh, hey there.
I'm interrupting this video very quickly, not with the sponsorship,
but to tell you about the Girl Gone London Patreon because I
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If being a part of community like that is
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I've experienced a lot of loneliness
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We're having weekly live streams, voting on video topics.
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I am already hate watching you.
I do not need more of you in my life. I get it.
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I cannot physically bake you a bread basket like I might if you're moving
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Okay, back to the video.
Now, another fascinating difference is
the use of questions at the end of a sentence in some UK phrases.
So for instance, I've written one down here.
Now, I don't say this myself, so I did have to write an example,
but somebody might say they're telling you to have a great holiday.
And mine flexion will probably be wrong
on this because again, I don't say it like this,
but someone might say have a great holiday, won't you?
So they're asking a question that isn't a question at the end,
it's more of a command and direction to have a great holiday.
They're wishing you well and they finish it with this question of won't you?
So in the US, in that context,
we don't add a question at the end of that statement.
If you're telling someone to have a great vacation, we say have a great vacation.
We have other instances where we do use
questions as well, but not in that particular context.
So it's an interesting one when you start
hearing people talk like that in the UK and you understand from their tone that it
is not a question at the end, but they're kind of finishing
with a question to emphasize the statement that they were making.
The 6th difference is the phrase going to hospital.
So to British ears right now, you're probably wondering how an American
would say this because to you this is just how you say it.
We're going to hospital or I need to go to hospital.
In the US, we would say I need to go
to the hospital or I need to go to a hospital.
But for our ears to say I'm going into hospital sounds incorrect.
Again, this is not a video about what is incorrect incorrect.
Please feel free to duke it out in the comments, but it is a difference.
So we would say I broke my arm, I need to go to the hospital.
Whereas Brett might say I broke my arm, I need to go to hospital.
The next difference, and this is an easy one, is in the UK,
if you're congratulating someone on something, you might say good on you.
In the US, we would definitely understand
what this means, but we would more traditionally say good for you.
So if you're congratulating someone
in either country, you will know the most used way of saying things.
But of course there are a ton of different ways of congratulating someone.
And this is my regular caveat in my video that I am making sort of sweeping
generalizations in order to actually have a video and to talk about the differences.
So you might say something different than
what I've just explained, but as a massive generalization in the UK,
you would say good on you, and in the US you would say good for you.
Now, the 8th thing on my list is the usage of a word.
So the word mooch.
So in the UK, mooch is more commonly used as mooching around or having a mooch.
This is basically wandering around with no
real destination or purpose or place to go.
So I might say I'll have a mooch around
John Lewis, which just means I'm kind of just ambling through taking my time.
I don't have a specific purpose.
You're wandering, you're having a mooch.
We do not use this terminology for the phrase or word mooch in the US.
If you said having a mooch, we might get it based on context clues,
but it's really not something that's said commonly.
If you say mooch to us, we are thinking of a mooch.
Now, the more that I've said this word, it's becoming not a word in my head,
but a mooch to be somebody who is taking advantage of someone else.
So this is not a phrase difference, this is a word difference.
But just so you bricks know,
if you're in America and you're telling somebody that you're having a mooch around
or you want to have a mooch, they probably won't understand what you're
saying and will more equate it to taking advantage of someone.
Another small did you know in UK versus US
terminology the word parentheses, which is used in the US.
Which I will put up on the screen, are more commonly called brackets in the UK.
So this is really common, like in schools or if you're editing
something at a job, people might tell you to add parentheses or add brackets.
Americans might not know what you mean by brackets and I've known some Brits
who didn't use or have ever heard the term parentheses.
So I'm not entirely sure if this is
regional or if this is an entire UK versus US thing.
So, as always, I kind of pick something I'd like you all to weigh in on besides
the fighting about what is correct, american English or British English,
which do you say brackets or parentheses or do you say something else?
And the final difference for this video is what we would say in the UK.
As to have a think or to have a wander or to have something that you would do.
So in the US.
We would only just say think about it.
In the UK they might say have a think about it.
We typically in the US.
Will not preface it by saying have anything.
It will just be more of a command or a direction to think about it.
So you can find us in lots of different situations and different words that are
used to have a blank versus in the US, we would skip the to have a anything
and just kind of go in with the more direct communication.
Okay, so that takes me to the end of this video.
I hope that you guys enjoyed. Definitely.
I anticipate lots of comments on all these different English verse,
american English or British English versus American English differences.
I'll doing more videos on language differences, so I'd love to see any
suggestions on things you'd like me to cover.
Thank you, as always, for watching and I'll see you next time.