American: jump-rope British: skipping |
 American: skipping British: ??? |
An open letter to the British, from an American
I have long been fascinated by the differences between American English and British English. This page by a Briton, refers to an "...American tradition of giving highly literal names to pastimes (eg, "skipping" is apparently known as "jump-rope"). Fortunately they don't seem to extend this to real sports, and so "boxing" is not called "punch-man" or anything."
Punch-man! I have to say I like the sound of that! LIVE! On Pay-Per-View! Punch-man! Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis!!
Anyway, while I had never noticed this pattern, I do wonder what happens when our differing terminology for things comes full circle. In other words, if the British call jump-rope "skipping", what do they call what Americans call skipping?
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American: jump-rope British: skipping |
American: skipping British: ??? |
Incidentally, if you do a Google image search on 'skipping', you get a hell of a lot of people jumping rope. It's no surprise that the Australians seem to call it skipping too. I guess we're (Americans) outnumbered on that one.
Most Americans and surely most British as well, are aware of some of these linguistic differences. Americans call it an elevator, British call it a lift. In this case both are descriptive and there is little room for real confusion. Americans go on vacation, British go on holiday. Again, pretty easy to do the math on that one. But how do the British refer collectively to Christmas, New Year's Day, and Mother's day? Americans call these days holidays� What Americans call a cookie, British call a biscuit. What then do the British call what Americans call a biscuit?
American: cookie British: biscuit |
American: biscuit British: ??? |
Americans call them trucks, British call them lorries. I'd ask where the heck 'lorry' comes from, etymologically, but then I'd also have to ask where the heck 'truck' comes from. Last, Americans call it soccer, and the rest of the English speaking world it seems calls it football. The obvious and usual answer as to why Americans don't also call it football is that we already had another sport called football. Regardless of whether that is actually the true and correct explanation, where in the world did we get 'soccer'? Really, what language did we borrow that word from?
Someday I'm just going to have to go to Britain, and see more than just the inside of Heathrow this time, and ask people these questions�
