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Upon much reflection, here are seven myths some British people believe about the United States of America.
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Not only is America not the same as Canada, America is not the same as America a few hours in any direction.
Absolutely!
So true
I once heard a story about a Canadian visiting Scotland, and a Scot refer to them as an Yank(American) based on their hearing speak not affected english. The Canadian corrected them that he was a Canadian, with the Scot replying "Same thing". The Canadian then cheekily said the Scot must be Irish. The Scot got incredibly incensed if not out right insulted and insisted they were a Scot, to which the Canadian replied " Same thing." The Scot then understood the difference.
It makes the point, though, doesn't it?
There's a movie called "Yanks" about American soldiers in the UK during WWII. In the very first scene, an American is standing guard at a roadblock. A car with a British officer pulls up, and the guard speaks to him a little bit before letting him proceed. As the officer pulls away, he refers to Americans as "you Yanks." After the officer is gone, the guard mutters under his breath, "I ain't no Yankee--I'm from Oklahoma!"
@@bigscarysteve Yes. In the US, most people would only refer to those in the Northeast states (original colonies) as Yanks or Yankees. I ain't no Yankee, I'm from California LOL! My late husband's family was from Vermont , Yankees all!
Name one difference between America and Canada. Oh, it's spelled different. One has a large military and the other has a national healthcare system. And one country has the word god in its national anthem 5 times. The other zero as it should be. If there was a big difference why do 80% of Canadians live 100 miles from the American border? The French in Canada don't count... ; ))
Here's the way I've heard it, originally written by American author E.B. White: "To foreigners, a Yankee is an American. To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner. To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner. To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander. To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter. And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast."
In regards to the fall/autumn debate, they seem to be used interchangably in Tennessee, but Autumn seems to have a more elegant feeling to it. You might plan a campout with some friends in the fall, but you'd plan your wedding to be in autumn, if that makes sense.
The Latin (French)-inherited words are typically seen as bougier than old English ones ever since the Norman conquests. This goes for food as well, with words for living animals being Anglo-Saxon words, but their meat coming from French (pig vs pork, cow vs beef, chicken vs poultry, etc.).
That’s a good way of explaining it. We use both in New England
It's interchangeably in most of the US.
Autumn is very common when looking at a more formal setting. In casual conversation, fall tends to be used. Though those are generalization and definitely not a rule, and they are very much just used as flat out synonyms and sound better in different contexts.
I don't think it's anything Americans picked up from British people, at least not recently. Even as a little kid I knew that Fall and Autumn were interchangeable words. If you say "I like the cool Fall weather" or "I like the cool Autumn weather" to any American I doubt they'd take any notice of the word choice.
This didn't happen in Britain, but it possibly could have. My husband and I were on the Paris Metro, talking to a woman who asked us where we were from (our bad French must have given us away). When we told her we were from America, she said, "You can't be from America. You're not fat!" True story.
That sounds like the french lol
They must not have been from the Midwest 😂. As a base generalization overweight people come from states with heavy snowfall. That’s what I have noticed living in Michigan.
@@dianesmigelski5804it’s actually the South. MN was once voted the healthiest state
Fellow American here. When I was studying abroad in London once, a roommate of mine and I went to see a movie. Neither of us are fat, about 150-170 pounds each. We saw a man who appeared to be in his 20s sitting in the same row as us, about five seats away. He was obese and had a tray full of nachos, cheese, and a cup of pop. I said to my roommate "I bet he's American." After the movie ended we started talking about the movie and the guy joined in on the conversation. Sure enough he was American.
There is one person in each generation of my mothers family line with bright red hair. I never heard the term "Ginger" used (excepting a character on Gilligans Island) until Harry Potter hit the theaters.
I once read a comment in a magazine, way before there was an internet, that the tragedy of Canada was that it could have had American technology, French cuisine, and British culture. Instead, it ended up with American culture, French technology, and British cuisine.
Best comment I've read in a LONG time! 🤣🤣🤣
Lol British culture 🤣 😆 😂
thank you for the hearty chuckle :)
@@meta45354 and look how well capitalism is going, eh bud?
@@meta45354 "Everything I don't like is socialism USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" You wouldn't know what socialism was if it slaughtered the entire population of Kansas.
The simultaneous use of “fall” and “autumn” has been in America my whole lifetime at least and I’m 50. I do tend to notice “fall” being used more practically like “fall schedule” and autumn is usually reserved for something more descriptive like “an autumn breeze”.
Seriously. I mean, the song, "Autumn Leaves" was written in 1945. I'm older than you, and I remember terms like "bonkers" and "jab" being used in my childhood. I think a lot of British folks, and Europeans in general, don't realize how many different regional vocabularies there are in the US. TV and the internet have spread them around more, but people still have particular preferences for words. One example can be a carbonated beverage. Is it "Pop?" "Soda?" or, where I am now, "Coke?" (Which can mean any brand or flavor of carbonated beverage.)
@@elissahunt I think a helpful tip is to remind them that each state is essentially equivalent to a separate European country. We all use English (some better than others), and the same currency, but having traveled a lot on both continents, it mostly works.
@@simonnading That's a great way to look at it.
It's kind of odd that we don't have any alternative for the term 'spring', and once your describing that season with a kinetic verb it feels very natural to do the same with it's oposite.
Autumn is more poetic. Like "The Autumn of our lives". Fall is more practical. It's there, get over it, no pumpkin pie for you, just shut up and get back to school. Autumn is for wearing fancy sweaters and sipping spiced apple cider by some jigsaw puzzle looking picturesque bay in Maine. Fall is for standing in the rain waiting for the stupid school bus to show up.
I honestly think land mass misunderstandings play a gigantic part in stereotypes of American life. Also, regional romantic notions tend to skew more towards fictional , almost comic book like depictions. I live in Texas. I do not own a horse or cowboy boots. But it still takes 10 hours in my Honda to drive to see mum and dad (also in Texas).
Please go buy a cowboy hat and boots. While you are at it, get a duster too! Embrace Texas!!!
I live in Texas, I have owned horses, cows, and any number of guns.
Your comment about the size of Texas reminds me of a quote attributed to a Texas oil millionaire after the US introduced the 55 mph speed limit across the country. "Driving across Texas isn't an ordeal any more. It's a career!"
@@rumi9005 Hence why its now 70, and the unofficial speed limit is 100
Europeans generally believe that Texans ride horses regular
I was born in Canada, lived both there and in the USA for 30 years each. The similarities FAR outweigh the differences. Yes, there are differences in pronunciation, food, government, ways of doing things, etc., but these are minor compared to the overwhelming similarities. Also, I delivered furniture to Bret Hart, but I had no idea who he was at the time 😂
My job is with a U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company. Therefore much time is spent in Canada interacting with Canadian colleagues. On the whole our lifestyle is very similar. Lawrence pointed out how Canada used a mix of British and American spelling, as well a phrasing a sentence. We all know how the political system is different too. In the end it’s really like driving via two different roads to arrive at the same place. As far as spelling and speaking goes, My usual way is to address the recipient in their way of phrasing or spelling, whether my Canadian coworkers or my British relatives.
It’s interesting to me that Americans think Canadian culture is so similar to theirs. Canadians would most likely disagree. There are significant differences- Canadians use sarcasm to insult someone more than a direct cut, our humour is much drier - we will get UK humour much faster than an American will. We appear polite, but we actually can give backhanded compliments instead of being rude. Our culture - at least in the large urban centres is more British than American. All of the ways Brits are careful not to offend are much like Canadians. Our political system is much closer to England and not like the US. Our Prime Minister has much more power in our government than the US president has in the US government. (Which is not necessarily a good thing). We understand what a Tory is or a Whig. We’re very patriotic, but we don’t show it the same way. We don’t get the whole ‘right to bear arms’ thing. We really don’t. We are a melting pot of many different cultures and so I think may be a bit more aware of cultures outside of our own. (Maybe just my assumption?). These are just a few of our differences.
@@brianburns7211 canadian company ??? is it CCM or Bauer???
One big difference between Canada and America is that in America we rebeled against England and became an independent nation. Canada,I think, benefited from this and when Britian offered Canada more leeway to run itself as a nation in return for staying a British colony, they agreed to the deal. America even let the Tories ( Americans in the American Revolutionary War who supported England) leave America and be resettled in Canada by the British government. I like to think that was a good step first step in the long process that ultimately led to Britian and America becoming friends in 1917.
You Met The Hitman!!!! AWESOME❤
As an American from the Midwest, I never thought of "bonkers" as a British word. It's just a normal American English word for me. Also, "autumn" and "fall" have always been interchangeable for me.
I'm Midwest also and I totally agree with you.
Northern Midwest, and I agree.
Same, although I make a point to use autumn more because it sounds more pleasant to me
I'm in my mid forties now and I have used the term bonkers for as long as I can remember.
I grew up mostly in Kansas and Nebraska, and it’s the same for me
My British husband believed that we have stacks of pancakes for breakfast everyday and I found this idea hysterical. I might have pancakes once or twice a year at most.
In my family, "breakfast" means one thing, and one thing only--pancakes! I ate ONE pancake (not a stack) for breakfast EVERY morning when I was growing up. But that's because we come from a county where buckwheat is the staple crop. I actually grew up in a county neighboring the county where my extended family is from. When I was seven years old, my teacher asked the class, "What do you eat for breakfast?" I was the only one who answered "pancakes." The teacher looked at me really weird and seriously told me that you only eat pancakes if you're gonna run a marathon that day. Ha! What did she know?
my very Scottish father didn’t care for pancakes, but he would eat everything else that you imagine in a British breakfast. Yes, all at once.
We have pancakes fairly often in our family. Not everyday, but several times each month. I do love to stack them though, that is my favorite way to eat them.
I tend to make pancakes maybe every other month usually on a Sunday morning. This month, for October, I made pumpkin pancakes.
I haven't had a pancake in many years. When we were children, they were a special treat (perhaps five times per year, usually on a Sunday.) Far too much mess and fuss for a weekday morning.
I'm an American that taught English overseas, and after being asked questions about the meaning and common usage of certain terms, I realized that in my area and generation, there's a lot of overlap in words that feel "old fashioned" and "British". I can't count the number of times I'd answer a "Do you use this word often?" question with "I don't use it often, but I'm familiar with it. I feel like I usually hear older Americans or British people use it." I wonder if it's an indication of a cultural shift of British influence in the US slowly fading out from a time when it was once more dominant.
It seems obvious that it is …
Two stories relating to the size of the US: 1) When I was a kid, several decades ago, my godfather hosted some of his distant relatives from Finland at his house in Minot, ND. When the relatives started talking about the day trips they wanted to take, they started of with Disney World and Epcot. That's roughly 2000 miles and will take several days. "But it's only this far on the map!" they exclaimed. 2) Phil Hansen was drafted by the Buffalo Bills from NDSU (Fargo, ND) and drove there. Middle of the continent (basically) to (almost) east coast, a little over 1000 miles. After his playing days ended he moved back to the Fargo area and followed the NDSU team as they played University of Montana. North Dakota and Montana are next to each other, but Fargo to Missoula is also roughly 1000 miles.
I had Finnish friends ask me if I knew Bruce Springsteen as I was from New Jersey. So I must be his neighbor. New Jersey has 8 million people and Finland has 4 million. So cute.
NYC to Montreal is 603.504km 350 km of that is driving through the Adirondack mountains which are 13,000 Sq km. Literally the size of the country of Montenegro. A park that is less than a 10th of New York's total area. People just don't understand the size.
From El Paso TX you can drive west to the pacific ocean quicker than you can drive east to get across Texas.
We get this problem a lot in Texas. A person checked into the hotel around 2 am and asked (New England like) when they would have to leave to go down to Houston and make it back for dinner. I looked at the clock and considered the route they’d have to take. And then I asked how long do you want to spend in Houston. They gave me the answer and I said you’d have to leave in the next thirty minutes to achieve their objective as it would take 10 hours of driving to get there and back from our location, and then they’d have to spend the few hours they’d wanted. And that was assuming construction wasn’t an issue or traffic was moving. They looked at me like I had grown a third eye and didn’t believe me. Also had a person step into the hotel at 11 at night and ask “how much further it was to El Paso” and then they’d balk at me when I answered 12 hours. And told them that I don’t recommend they try to drive straight through tonight.
Autumn and fall have always been used pretty much interchangeably here (in my 56 years, at least), although fall is more common, and autumn sounds a little fancier / more old-fashioned / poetic, depending on the context.
Straight facts
I agree that Autumn and Fall are both commonly used. kzhead.info/sun/odxtXZiXbaqll6s/bejne.html "It Isn't Autumn Without 'Em" - From Late 1960's
Exactly.
I have always preferred autumn, as 'autumnal' sounds a lot better than 'fallal'.
I would say they almost have a relationship like that between a proper name and an abbreviation, even though that's not literally true in this instance. The season is named autumn, but called fall for short.
"You can just walk into a store and buy a gun no paperwork" Worked at a gun shop and had many foriegn nationals, not just brits, come in and think they could buy a gun on their travels in the USA as a tourist. Even more thought we just sold guns no paperwork or background check.
My sister and I were asked the same question.
that's how it's supposed to work.
Stop telling fibs! Everyone knows that as soon as you enter the border off the planes you are granted a complimentary gun that's personally delivered by a freedom eagle.
I think that actually USED to be true. It came to an end in the late 1960's.
@@bigscarysteve correct, it's been 60 years since you could buy a gun from a shop with no background check, I believe that happened in '64 or '68
"I'm Canadian, it's like an American, but without a gun." -Dave Foley, Kids in the Hall
Ha-ha-ha!.... 😀 Love your nation.... but your socialized medical system makes me nervous. --I busted my head up a couple times as a teenager as well as other injuries. My needs were very critical and due to my multiple private insurance policies, I was put in the helicopter and flown to the best hospital available. Slept 10 days in a coma but then woke up and showed good signs, so I was shipped off to another high quality recovery hospital. My 4 private insurance policies covered multi million dollar bills that gave me the best care available and I recovered quicker than originally thought possible. 10 years later, I developed a disability due to those combined head injuries but because of my private insurance, my medical bills are covered for life. I do not wait in lines and no doctor's decide if my needs are imparative or not. No questions asked, I'm just given what I need. --I have been lead to believe that my case might be handled differently in Canada(?)
@@jeff-hopkins In my province (health care is administered at the provincial level), which is a bigger one, if you had been injured away from a big city you would have been flown via an air ambulance helicopter to an appropriate hospital. All cities have "best" hospitals with specialist medical teams and equipment -- often they specialize so that a neurology case might end up at hospital X while a cardiac case at hospital Y. If you were brought into a smaller rural hospital and they were not able to accommodate you, you would have been stabilized and medivac'd to a larger center as appropriate. If, as you imply, no doctor assessed your needs, I wonder who decided your needs were critical and that you needed medivac? Here, if you were not already at a hospital, the field EMTs would have been in communication with a ER doctor who would be very involved in the medivac decision. In the hospital, doctors would be actively assessing your condition and deciding whether or not transfer to a more specialized hospital is necessary. If it is necessary, they'd transfer you using appropriate means (ground transport or helicopter). If transfer is not necessary, they'd leave the bed in the specialized hospital open for somebody who needs it. So --- probably your treatment would be much the same here as it was for you there. The only appreciable differences that you would notice is that here everything would be covered by 1 insurer (the government) instead of 4 (the private companies) and you yourself would have basically zero work to do with getting things paid for ... it all just happens "magically", usually without even telling patients about the costs :-) The differences between the two countries becomes most apparent in so-called "elective" procedures. Here, we wait our turn (as determined by medical need) rather than buying private health care ... the idea being that good health care is a universal right and one's ability to pay shouldn't be a factor. The overall effect is a more efficient system (in terms of overall per capita costs and buying power that a single payer provides), none of the medical bankruptcies that happens in the USA, and it removes a huge stress inducer (for both people and employers) that seems to press down on most Americans (that is, the constant worry about finding/keeping medical insurance). Granted, it's a hard concept for people and societies that value net worth above all else. In practice, there are people here who do purchase their way into faster treatment but they must purchase it overseas -- I don't know the numbers on that but would love to find them out. Also, there are some procedures here that are done in private clinics, eg. laser surgery on eyes -- but I think they are (mostly) still paid for by governments -- with maybe a certain percentage of queue jumpers being allowed to pony up, I'm not sure of the rules/practices there. Cosmetic surgery is another one -- if you hamburger your face in a bike accident, you're not going to pay for the surgery ... but if you want a nose job, you are. Anyway...always consider the source of anything you hear about how things work elsewhere (including random dudes in KZhead comment sections :-)
Canadians have guns and they love em.
@@-Subtle- For now at least...
Swap "a gun" with "the free speech."
You started talking about houses being numbered based on distance. Here's a fun little bit of trivia. When you get out on the road and you see a sign saying a town name and then a distance in miles, that distance is measured from post office to post office. Since cities normally continue to grow and expand, the city limits of two cities will get closer together over time. Rather than keep changing the signs every year, the DOT uses the post offices since they normally don't move and it also allows the US Postal service to better handle logistics. As to the actual measurements, it's the Postal service that recorded the distances. Who knew Postage stamps helped pay for highway research? Edit: "As a brit who has been here for almost 7% of a century..." and shortly after "I've been here 14 years" ... I'll take a wild guess that maths wasn't your best subject... especially after you simulated using a calculator. 7% = 7/100. A century is 100 years. 14 years is 14% of a century... I'll get my hat and coat now lol
To be fair, what he actually said (at 0:54) was "I've lived here about a *seventh* of a century," which is indeed roughly 14.3 years. 🙂
I emigrated from Kansas to Alberta. Many Canadians didn't even notice my American accent, since the American Great Plains and the Canadian Prairies accents are very similar. One day I met a gentleman who, after about five minutes of conversation asked, 'When did the wind blow you across the border?' LOL!
I used to have a Canadian friend who could really tell the difference between the way she spoke and the way I spoke. I really couldn't lol
As an Albertan I have a really hard time knowing when someone is from the States, sometimes they slip in a "y'all" but that's about as foreign as it gets. A lot of the time I'll work with someone for years before I learn they are American, plus where I live there are a lot of dual citizens so it's not too uncommon.
Oh there are definite “tells” in terms of words. Chocolate bar bs candy bar, washroom vs restroom, parka de vs parking garage, toque vs beanie, pronunciation of “lieutenant”. The vowels are different too, but that can be less obvious than choice of words. Edit: Parka de is a typo for Parkade
From what I’ve noticed I think it depends on where you grew up. My guess is that if you grew up in a state that borders Canada the differences are not immediately apparent (if they exist at all) however maybe it’s easier to tell the further away you are from Canada. When I lived in NZ they insisted they could tell the difference. I found that unbelievable though I did tell them that British, Australian, New Zealand and South African (as a first language) speakers all were indistinguishable to me. Oddly enough I can detect differences in other languages, especially if I’m familiar with them.
The way we pronounce “garage” vs. the Canadian/British way it’s pronounced.
I think the main reason Americans are loud in restaurants is because we are so used to a lot of restaurants here in the US playing loud music over the speakers or having TVs playing loud sports, and you have to talk really loud to be heard over them. I hate it because I have a very soft voice and I hate talking loudly. I remember Autumn being used a lot when I was a kid (a very very long time ago) and fall was just a less formal way of saying it.
I detest loud music and/or television monitors in restaurants, passionately. I don't appreciate having entertainment shoved down my throat.
Yes but i still remember going out on a walk in Long beach California and seeing peopel speaking french or russian Or a language that sounds like its from the balkans and they are loud
I jumped for joy hearing the mention of Cahokia Mounds. I live in St Louis area and go once or twice a year. Not a lot of Americans are taught that we had one of the largest cities in the world in it's heyday right here in the pre-Columbian midwest.
It’s amazing that Americans don’t know about Cahokia mounds. They’ve been to Paris London and Rome but not St Louis and Cahokia Mounds
havent been to those, but i did visit Dixion Mounds...pretty sure they changed the name..saw it when it was unburied, got me into history when i was a kid
I grew up in Northern California and there was a bakery that made Cornish Pasties. We got them nearly once a week and they were my favorite food. There were many descendants of cornish miners (and their tommyknockers) who came to northern CA as miners during the gold rush beginning in 1849. I had to learn to make Cornish pasties myself because I adore them! Pardon my digression!
I grew up in SoCal but I love NorCal. There's a certain magic about it. I lived in the town of coloma near mother lode and the amount of adventures I had was incredible
Lawrence being sponsored by Brit Box is the most appropriate sponsorship on KZhead.
I got BritBox using his deal and have kept it. My favorite streaming service. ❤
🤣🤣
i’d think him being sponsored by the east india trading company would be hilarious.
I also enjoy a few British programs, mostly Gardening as well as Spring/Autumn/Winter Watch. Oh, and Mary Berry, of course. She's got to be a national treasure.
I'm sure he spells his name Laurence but it is a spot-on point.
I remember being in a yahoo chat room back in the early 90s and someone in the room referred to America as a concrete jungle. I don’t remember what country they were from. But I remember explaining to them that what they knew of America was probably from watching movies and only seeing cities like New York City and Chicago. I had to tell them that America was mostly wide open Spaces. I don’t think some people understand the vastness of America all the farmland in the Midwest, the salt flats in Utah. We have mountains, deserts and forests.
One of my favorite sayings to highlight the difference between our views is "in England one hundred miles is a long way and in the US one hundred years is a long time ".
Yep, you sometimes hear Europeans say they're coming to America for 8 days and they're gonna see....list of cities and places all over the place you couldn't drive to in 8 days if you never left the car.
@@FRAME5RS I've seen/heard of this happening many times. They want to see all the US has to offer, but then they end up realizing that NYC to Miami to LA is not a short road trip. The vastness of the US is surprising to them. Many of our states are the size of their countries.
@@samhouston1288 New York TO Miami is like driving from Madrid to Berlin. Most people from outside of the US don't realize how big the US is. Like, I just went on trip that was a 1600 mile round trip, we went through four states, and only half way through the fourth one. Anyone who needs a reality check on that needs to look up the Cannonball run, essentially an unofficial race that crosses the US from one side to the other, a journey of about 3000 miles or 4700 kilometers, traveling at an average speed of over 110 miles an hour or 170 kilometers an hour. Imagine going that speed, over that distance and it still taking nearly 26 hours to do so. Over a full day of travel, doing *nothing but driving* going nearly twice the legal speed limit on highways.
NJ, one of the smaller states, is 7.7% state forest. That does not include all the state parks, county parks and local parks; just state forest. All in all, NJ has a higher percentage of preserved open space than many other states. Most people think its wall to wall concrete but its not. But you would be surprised just how few people know that; even New Jerseans.
YT suggested this channel and it's freaking awesome!! I immigrated to the US as a kid and have traveled the entire country and it still amazes me how the USA is so different than other countries I've traveled. It seems that most other countries are on the same page about a lot of things like stores, housing and whatnot, but the US is so different. Happy to actually hear I'm not the only one that's noticed this
Did you notice in your travels how things change from one state to another? I think it is because most of our states are the same size or bigger than most European countries. It makes sense that language, food, and habits would change when you put it in that perspective.
The US can kind of be split into distinct regions that are almost like their own countries. The West Coast and East Coast are so different that if America was Europe, they probably would've been completely separate cultures. Like going from Germanic to Slavic. It's just less pronounced in America because everything is still in English and everything is still clearly American.
I would love to see episodes where you visit the old country and get their reactions to what you learned in the USA
A Canadian, an American, and a British couple are having a dinner party and at the end tea is served. The American speaks up and says "pass the sugar, sugar" to his wife...everyone giggles. The Canadian gentleman hears this and says "pass the honey, honey"...again giggles. The British husband wants to join the fun and says "pass the tea, bag".
🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭
I very much enjoyed this. Thank you.
Except the British normally use loose tea….the mind boggles.
@@RagingCanuck Pass the tea, Lucy!
Brilliant! 🫖☕
I always felt like Fall is a more quick, casual term, while Autumn is used in more sophisticated, elegant, or poetic contexts because it sounds more pretty. Autumn has a positive connotation while Fall is neutral, if that makes sense.
How hilarious. How British, trying to ‘class-ify’ a word. Autumn is just more archaic not ‘poetic’
@@debbylou5729 The frick? I'm not even British, I just think Autumn sounds prettier than Fall and I hear Autumn more frequently used in pretty and poetic contexts. You are projecting some kind of weird disdain for a perceived British snobbiness on me that isn't there.
@@debbylou5729 It's barely more archaic, in fairness. Autumn dates from the 1300s, Fall from the 1500s. They were used largely interchangeably until Fall just fell out of fashion in British English, as words tend to do. It persisted in American English because it had already been exported there before falling out of common use.
Interestingly, Autumn has a Latin root, while Fall comes from Germanic languages. There is a perception that Latin words are "posher" and Germanic words are more "down to earth". Indeed, most of the function words in English are of Germanic origin. Latin words came in via the Norman aristocrats and tend to be associated with sophistication. There is a (somewhat spurious) argument about how animals in the field (cow, pig) are named using Germanic root words, while the meat when prepared (beef, pork) is named from Latin.
@@debbylou5729 We don't use "fall" in Britain, so they definitely aren't British.
As an NYer (so, moderately close to Canada compared to the rest of the country), I've always thought of Canada as closer culturally to Britain than to us. British Commonwealth, socialized medicine, British spellings, &c. (Except, of course, for the bit closest to me, which predominately speaks French.)
We're certainly closer to British than the USA but closer to the USA than Britain. The only thing America kept from old-school Britain was the Imperial system... And I'll never understand that. 🤣
@@tonyrae86 Oh, you "let's make all of our systems of measurement match up in easy-to-calculate base 10" metric people! We would MUCH rather use measures based on grains, royal body parts, outdated wine measures, and how much ground a team of oxen could plow in a day. :D
@@tonyrae86Imperial system isnt that hard A mile is 5280 feet A foot is 12 inches An inch is 25 MM A pound is 16 ounces But 2.205 pounds make up a kilo
In the northeast you may still find some schools refer to the "washroom" as the lavatory. The pass in the classroom will have "Lav" written on it.
My favorite memory of explaining something American to a Britt was when we ran into a young man in Vietnam, he asked why Americans are so obsessed with cars (and trucks). I asked him how long it would take to drive across the UK, he said “from south the north, about six hours”. I pulled out my phone and pulled up a map of the US, I zoomed into the state we lived in, Washington, and I told him to drive West to East across all of Washington state would take you six hours. There was a long pause, his eyes got big, thats when I knew he understood. He finally exclaimed, I didn’t know the US was THAT big!
My state is bigger than the country of Japan
I had a French friend whose head exploded when i told him that driving from New York City to the Niagara falls (in the same state of New York) takes 7-8 hours drive. New York State is not even close to one of the largest state.
It's like they say: in the US, you drive a couple of hours and you're still basically in the same place. In the UK, you drive a couple of hours and the accent has changed four times and bread rolls have a different name.
@@Joe-gw9wh Which state are you from?/genq (I'm not sure which state you're talking about because there's a few states that big./g)
As a Washingtonian, yeah that's pretty accurate. Spokane to Seattle's a 5 and a half hour drive and you have access to I-90 the ENTIRE way
I spent a summer in college working in London, and I had a hard time persuading a few people that Ohio, my home state, is hot in the summer because "it's in the North" so it couldn't be hot. They finally believed me when I told them that Ohio is on the same latitude as Spain.
That is a very good way to make your point. That being said, from one Ohioan to another, it is pretty damn cold in the winter. As a matter of fact, it is snowing, yes, snowing!, at this very moment here in northeast Ohio. This weather completely blows.
And Rome and Chicago share the same latitude.
@@pattimaska4124 sadly feeling the opposite ends of the jet stream & Gulf current.
Boston is also on the same latitude as Barcelona: *very* different winters.
@@tinapomfrey5412 We are supposed to be getting some of that here in Indiana, too. Not seeing it, though. But yeah we get pretty extreme seasonal differences compared to most of the world. Was talking to someone in Tennessee, probably last summer, and he didn't believe me that it gets just about as hot in IN as TN (though not all the time, thankfully). I checked the weather, it was currently hotter in IN, and was looking to stay that way for the week.
When my German traveling friend and I (from the U.S.) were in Scotland, a young airport attendant asked, “Is that your bog.” Neither of us understood what he was referring to until he pointed to her luggage and asked again, “Is that your bog.” We still laugh at that and sometimes laughingly refer to our luggage as “a bog”.
I know you mentioned streets, but I would take it a step further and say the America's highways are truly magical in the way the standards are applied. When you find yourself on a scary high bridge or a 2-high tunnel, you can confidently remind yourself that the lane is the same width as a wide open country road, so relax and watch out for the 3 foot buffer zone around your car, the standards are at work to keep everyone safe
My friends and I were at Callanish (Scotland) admiring the standing stones. We were approached by a pair of Canadiens who were loudly complaining about the slowness of the service on the island, about the fact that restaurants didn't stay open all day, just the general pace of things. My friends listened politely but did not agree, because we loved the pace and pretty much everything we had experienced. I was sitting apart from them drawing, so I overheard when a couple of British ladies looked over at the loud complainers and commented, "Well I see the Americans are here." It was so unfair!
That is amusing.
Many English speaking Canadians are descended from American tories who got deported at the end of the revolution. And there are dead giveaways to spot any Canadian after just listening to them for a brief period although I have an advantage since I lived in Canada for ten months.
Prior to 2020 I was in Italy. The Italians were saying there were not as many Americans in Rome as in the past. I asked a person, "What tourist group replaced the Americans?" She replied, "Russians." Fate has a wonderful sense of humor.
@@marcmeinzer8859 "Many English speaking Canadians are descended from American tories who got deported at the end of the revolution" Yes and that's especially true of Ontario. There was an also an earlier generation of New Englanders who settled in New Brunswick directly after the Seven Years War, a period that Longfellow romanticized in "Evangeline" - one side of my family was such people who came to America on the Mayflower, then moved to New Brunswick in the 1760s (thereby missing the American Revolution), and THEN moved to Texas during the Great Depression. British Columbia, by contrast, was mostly settled by Scottish Highlanders who left Scotland after the clearances, and some of those folks in turn moved south to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to benefit from the Homestead Act, which could be thought of as the opposite phenomenon.
@@alexanderfretheim5720 You can really trace your ancestry way back. I have one ancestor who served in the continental army under Washington in the revolution by the name of John Scott. On the other side of the family in Rochester, NY we’re supposedly descended from Seneca Iroquois American Indians. Then my surname is supposedly Hessian. The border used to be practically meaningless. When I attended canoe camp up in northern Ontario back in the ‘sixties through the ‘eighties we only had to flash our drivers licenses or really nothing if you were a kid on a camp bus with a group from the YMCA. But the British influence is undeniably stronger in Canada what with the RCMP leading the Queen’s recent funeral parade. I was raised Anglican but of course they’re called Episcopalians in the USA but oddly, the Anglican Church of Canada is called Eglese Episcopal in French on bilingual signs in Canada. I absolutely loved canoeing up in Canada all the way to Moose Factory in 1971. When I worked for Camp Keewaydin I was issued a Canadian social insurance card.
My Swedish friends and I discussed American history and how the US (not even getting into the extensive Native American histories), comparatively, doesn't have a long history but has a very dense history.
Maybe that’s why we’re so fucked up. So much trauma, so little time. 🫠
Well you're not wrong about that. I have to remind myself every once and a while that The U.S. as we know it today, has only been around for about 250 years. That may seem like a long time on paper, but in the grand tapestry of human history, its nothing.
@@666kingdrummer Many non-indigenous Americans have ancestors that arrived in the 1600s, before the US was a country. Some even longer ago than that if they are from New Mexico or Florida and are of Spanish ancestry.
@@pyrovania thats not really the US as we know it though.
@@WaluigiisthekingASmith Who's "we"? You sound like someone from the East or South.
Hey Laurence my 9th great-grandmother was Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower in 1620 and my 9th great-grandfather John Winslow, she married, came in 1621 on the Fortune. All these years later I do a DNA test thinking I might find all kinds of interesting diversity especially being in the South. However, I am still virtually British in my DNA. I had to laugh because I have always been such an Anglophile! Always drawn to EVERYTHING British. Many of us are still tethered to British genetically and in interests. We are still very connected. 🥰
6:52 grew up in Pennsylvania and live in North Carolina now and i've heard them Lavatory, Bathroom, Restroom, Ladies' Room, Gentlemen's Room, Powder Room, Little Girl's room, Little Boy's room, Women's Room, Men's Room, Toilet, Loo((usually only people visiting from England/Britain/Great Britain/United Kingdom seem to call it that word)), Washroom, Executive Washroom, Executive Closet or Executive Bathroom or Cloak Room or Lavatory.... and blue prints, architectural plans/drawings, draftsman plans/drawings all generally label them Water Closets or W.C.s at least as of the late 1990s when i took cad and drafting classes in high school.
You forgot ‘the pisser’… lol
When I started school back in the Stone Age of the early 1960s, we were taught that 'Autumn' is the official name for the season but 'Fall' was acceptable to use in casual conversation. I don't know why the other three seasons don't have both formal and casual names as well.
Around here, at times, we also had "Fricking" preceding both Winter and Summer, depending the the extremes of both.
I was going to say this as well. When I was in grade school, the teachers referred to Autumn as “Autumn.” But yes, casually with friends, we’d say fall. I always used the words interchangeably.
@@karenjones1897 Dinosaurs hadn't yet evolved when I was in kindergarten, during the Carboniferous period.😅🤣😂.
Fall's not just casual. It's in old poetry and such. It may not be the term the government uses, but it's hardly slang.
@@shells500tutubo lol
In regards to the American use of fall as well as autumn, in 1986 there was a fascinating series hosted by Robert MacNeil "The Story of English." The third episode covered the Elizabethan age, and the English that was brought to the New World. The Elizabethan usage of words like fall (for autumn) and mad (for angry) continued in America while they were no longer used in the UK.
Appalachian English is particularly archaic.
Mad can be used for angry still, as in 'you make me mad'.
Thank god. How teeny, tiny is the UK again?
@@joebloggs396isn’t that more in line with the crazy definition? You’re making me mad = you’re driving me crazy.
@@gokuss15 I don't think so, that suggests anger. But if someone says 'you're mad' to someone it's telling them you think they are crazy.
the autumn one caught me off guard... as a 22 yr old midwest American who lives in a place surrounded by farms... you would think that being a hillbilly of sorts, we'd use the least British words imaginable...but, we always called autumn autumn...very rarely do we call autumn fall, unless it's a kid... AND growing up, we had a kids indoor park called Going Bonkers that was really really popular amongst all the kids. I miss that place.
During the pandemic my husband and I binge watcher BritBox everyday. One day my husband said, I’ll sort it later. Yes, by 2021, our adult children said we definitely sound British. We were thrilled. Love your channel
Thank you so very much for bringing up Cahokia. Hardly anyone in America knows about it, but it was a massive city 1000 years ago.
I'm from Alabama and I visited years ago when we went to St. Louis. It was my absolute favorite part of our trip! We have local, much smaller mounds near me (Oakville) but even a Moundville, AL near Tuscaloosa. I absolutely love the native American history! 💕 As kids, my cousins and I played under rock bluffs, imagining we were in the same place where native Americans resided. As we grew up we realized it was too small to actually be a shelter and tried as hard as we could, we never found arrowheads or anything.
Speaking of Native American history, what about the Anasazi ruins, I believe at the 4 corners, where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. They are at least 10,000 years old and beautiful, homes that are carved into the cliffs. The people there are believed to have disappeared.
It's been on my list of places to visit for a while now
@@dawnchesbro4189 You and me both! :)
Anyone from the greater St. Louis area is well aware. St. Louis is basically new Cahokia. The oddest thing is that Cahokia disappeared entirely by about 100 years before European contact in the area. When European explorers asked local people about the mounds there they had no more of an idea than the europeans did. Nor any knowledge about the large city having been there. The "natives" were a different people than the folks who built Cahokia. (And obviously only a little more native to the region than the Europeans). Archeologists have learned much about the ancient city. However the cause of its decline then complete demise is still very much a mystery.
Super happy that you brought up Cahokia Mounds. It’s an incredibly important part of understanding the geography of North America and the massive reach of Native American cultures, pre-colonization.
The trading relationships of the Cahokia çulture went far south into Central America.
There wasn’t a ‘massive reach’. Native tribes were loosely organized and very small. Sometimes the tribes would meet, but it wasn’t often
@@debbylou5729 I have been reading that they are finding out that before the Europeans came over with their plagues and diseases, the Americas were possibly way more populated than europe at the time, while the technology and forms of writing or lack there of sucked compared to europe, they were possibly just as big and traveled and traded far and wide. However when the spanish and others came over and raped and pillaged they also left behind deadly diseases that were so devastating that when the Europeans returned with more boats to haul more plunder back to Europe with years later, most cities had been overgrown and practically erased, because 99% of them had been killed off by disease. I wish they would correct the history books that they teach in school but they dont, its well documented that christopher columbus did not discover america, there were already french and spanish fur trading posts here, same with lewis and clark exploring the west, there had already been many explorations west, lewis and clark actually refered to previous made maps so they knew where they were going.
I’m Cherokee and we still teach the kids about how we once had a mighty empire.
@@tricorvus2673 Thank you, I really wish they would teach the real history or more factual things about history in public schools.
'Autumn Leaves' has been my favorite song forever, and most people I know use the words interchangeably. Fall is probably used more in advertising though
When I lived in Scotland for three years, I found in that time that my own projection in speaking or perceived "loudness" went down and it was only noticeable when I moved back to the states. I found I also had lost some of my ability to "jump in" to conversations with friends who were particularly chatty. I didn't find either good or bad, just different. In some ways it's like how they say when driving, that while yes, there is a speed limit, you are also meant to try and keep up with the pace of the surrounding traffic. Well in the states, if one doesn't sort of, "keep up" volume or speed of speech, one may be left in the dust with one's more verbose friends. This is far less of an issue in one on one convo, mainly more so in groups.
I think a lot of it stereotype comes from inconsiderate tourists or college students (oh god business majors, the bane of America's existence). When I was in Germany, apparently my quietness made an old German lady think I was German at one of the Munich heritage festivals. I knew enough German to figure out what she was saying, but yeaah.
As an American, I have a few American friends who love to put down the US by stating that we don't have history, while bluntly ignoring the Native History. That really pisses me off. So thank you! Thank you for pointing that out!
@Scott Marlott Agreed, but it also depends on the school and the school district. I had the interesting experience of going to 5 different schools, in 4 different states, which were in 2 different regions (Southwest, and Northeast). And the school experience was vastly different. I had one teacher, in 8th grade, try to tell us that 9/11 was a major psychological blow to us because it was the first time our territory was ever attacked excluding Pearl Harbor. He got annoyed at me when I asked "What about the Aleutian Islands during WWII?" And I lacked the confidence in my historical knowledge to mention the War of 1812, even though I thought it was another example. Needless to say, the teacher wasn't pleased. However, in the following year, my freshman history teacher taught about American Exceptionalism, along with Manifest Density, but did so in the way of "cause and effect." Here's the history that lead up to these themes and ideas, and why people bought into them, and here are the consequences. He covered Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears, along with how the Supreme Court ruled against Jackson, and Jackson just shrugged and was like "well, enforce your ruling then." So, there's just an example of a teacher who actually cares and one who doesn't, and the effects there. I would also say it depends upon the student. I was one of those history nerds, because my father loved talking about history, which taught me to enjoy it. I tried to encourage my friends, but all I got from them was "it's about a bunch of old guys who are dead. Who gives a fuck." So, yes, the way the history was taught to us makes a major different, and it is also dependent upon the location where one grew up. However, it's also down to the individual and their own personal views as well. Sorry for writing a book.
@Johnny Rep Sure, but that leaves out a lot of details. The french were developing colonies here as well, but they never imported as many people as the Brits did so their colonies were smaller. But, their impacts are still felt today- even outside of Louisiana due to the French fur trappers. The Dutch also had a major impact as well. They were the ones that founded New York City (originally called New Amsterdam). But, they ended up fading away. Then there's also the Spaniards and their role in places like Florida and the Southwest. We are an extension of the Brits, and the Brits helped create us, and we have a lot of their culture- especially the language. The various philosophy, while a lot of it was British base, was not unique to the Brits- as in other countries were picking up that philosophy as well. But, they did not create the US. And then there were both the roles of the slavery and the Natives that played their own unique, often terrible parts as well. I see saying that only the Brits could have created the US at their particular stage of history to be akin to saying that the grandparents created their grandchildren. Certainly the grandchildren couldn't exist without the grandparents, but, the grandparents were not the "creators." All of the folks living chaotically on the continent were the ultimate "parents" of the US.
Willis Haviland Carrier (November 26, 1876 - October 7, 1950) was an American engineer, best known for inventing modern air conditioning. Carrier invented the first electrical air conditioning unit in 1902. In 1915, he founded Carrier Corporation, a company specializing in the manufacture and distribution of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. And don't forget about the Wright Brothers!
@@thunderwolfaz The war of 1812 is a big part of the history of my region. There's the remains of an old fort about 6 miles away from me in the next town over called Fort Montgomery that's from that era. It's known as Fort Blunder to us locals because the first fort was accidentally built over the border line on Canadian land when Canada was still occupied by the French. The fort that sits there now is the second fort to be built on US soil and is one of few forts in the US at the time to have a full moat around it's perimeter with a draw bridge at the main entrance. Which was an uncommon thing from what I've read. Don't know how true that is though.
Even without the aboriginal history the US still has history going back several hundred years (at least on the east coast). I'm thinking in terms of buildings particularly. Yet most English towns are 90% Victorian or later.
I've only ever really had to dispel one myth about Americans. This was with some Germans that I met in New York when I was a kid. They were under the impression that everyone in Louisiana, where I was from, had a pet alligator. Yet somehow we all still had all of our fingers and all of our toes 🤣
I guess they didn’t understand that alligators like crocodiles are pre-historic, big, mean, lizard bastards and if given the opportunity they’ll eat us.
I’ve had to dispel the myth to my northern in laws that we don’t live in a swamp. There is a lot of water around, but there is dry land under our feet unless we elect to go fishing or something. I had to pull out photos of my parents home with oaks in the front yard to prove it. 😅
@@alexs5744 if you give an alligator or crocodile an inch, they'll take a foot, literally.
To quote the meme: "Be a lot cooler if you did"!
Where did this myth come from?!?! I know there are Alligators In Louisiana. But we have squirrels here in Massachusetts and no one has one as a pet.
We use "autumn" to be fancy, poetic, remind ourselves prettiness. We use "fall" to remind ourselves of cracking leaves and jumping in them, and having to rake them up, and the fact that ice is likely to be on the ground so watch out or you might .. Americans have always also used English or at least British words. Not all Americans, but quite a few and that's because many of our ancestors came from there or about, plus Shakespeare and other great English writers, and Monty Python, and, of course, because many Americans went to school over there or visited at least and British the same , in reverse.
I saw a quote from an ex Canadian Prime Minister that Canada was supposed to be a Great Experiment in which it had French culture and British politics but the experiment went Horribly and Horrendously Wrong leaving Canada with British culture and French politics!!! 🤠👍
Growing up in the American Midwest, I remember using "bonkers" to describe things like a friend's stupid idea, "he's bonkers to think she will go out with him!" or as an expression of bewilderment, "that Death Star trench run scene was bonkers!" or as a general expression of dismissal when you find out she really won't go out with you, "that's bonkers"
Same here. Grew up in the 80s in Illinois saying that
Agreed. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and bonkers was a normal word. I've never associated it with British English.
I use bonkers as well. Grew up in the Midwest too.
I grew up in the south and we use bonkers too
Yes, my parents used bonkers, too. I used to, but it's pretty ableist, so now I try to say something like "wild" or "smoking bananas" instead.
As an American, I have always seen Autumn/Fall used interchangeably depending on context. Personally, I've noticed most people just say "Fall", but if you call it Autumn nobody is going to look at you odd or confused. Most people I've met have understood that Autumn means Fall and vice versa. Not sure why we all agreed to use two words for the same thing, but it's interesting either way.
It seems to me that Autumn is mostly used in more fomal contexts (like "autumn foliage") where you are evoking a sophistocated or accademic air, while daily interactons Fall is more common. But, yes, they are essentially interchangeable. I do not think this is new (I was a kid in the 70s and 80s). The question seems rather: why do the British percieve Fall to be strange?
In the nicest way possible synonyms are quite common.
As a French Canadian I never know which one I should use. I make sure I used a capital letter because "fall" in lowercase doesn't look very glorious. In French it's automne anyway.
I think Fall/Autumn is one of those words like soda/pop/cola where each is used in a different region of the country
@@hdufort oui! A lot of words trace their origins back to the French language due its its long history and proximity to Great Britain.
I’ve started saying Jab for shots, Pint for beer, “A wee dram”for hard liquor, Pissed and “Taking the piss” for drunk. Brilliant for amazing, Garridge (garage), and Garden for yard.
I was taught that the Fanny pack is used while on vacation as a decoy. In my family that’s where the easily replaceable stuff you can get at corner stores is kept for your walking around comfort While the forms of currency, hotel keys and everything else are hidden somewhere else.
Growing up in Indiana my house was on rural route #5 mailbox #65. It was abbreviated RR5 Box 65. When my sister was registering for college classes on the East Coast, the lady looked at her and asked Railroad 5? My sister winked and said Boxcar 65!
Also from Indiana, would never have figured that out
Yes! In upstate New York, we had the same house numbering system. It was changed when the 911 emergency number/system was implemented. Which makes sense. But I still remember my "old" address.
Southern Indiana here and my address growing up was RR2, Box 29. It only changed long after 911 service was readily available in rural areas.
People who are not familiar with the way rural roads are named where I live might see an address like 320 County Road 501 might think that meant apartment number 501 at the address 320 on a road called County Road. But instead it means the address 320 on a road called County Road 501. It is not correct to abbreviate these as County Rd on pieces of mail. You must either write out County Road entirely or use the abbreviation CR. So the short form address would be 320 CR 501.
LOL!! When I was young, we had Rural Routes here in eastern Nebraska. I don't remember what displaced them (seemed like random addresses) but then the E911 system formalized everything.
Middle aged Midwest viewer here. Fall and autumn have always been interchangeable in this part of the country. My parents born in the 30s and my grandparents born in the 1890s used both. We have always used the term Bonkers too. In the 1970s there was a Bonkers board game.
I feel like it’s kinda comparable to “bathroom” vs “restroom”- one is clearly a bit more formal but we obviously understand both
Here in Iowa, summer, autumn, AND fall are all interchangeable with one word: HĚLL. Like, bruh, the temperature goes from 102 degrees Fahrenheit to 46 in *8 days.*
@@bluebaron6811 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Interchangeable here in the Southeast aa well (but a MUCH wider use of fall).
@@pirategamer6630 yeah, this place is just God's sandbox.
Even as a Canadian it took me a long time to differentiate between a standard American accent and a Canadian accent due to the influence of television. However one key sound that always stands out to me from an Amercian is how the "a" and "o"s can be pronounced. For example in Canadian for the name "Scott" you will often here a strong O sound like "Sc-awh-t" but if I hear an American with that sound, the O is softer, to seems closer to "Sc-ah-t"
I live in a coastal, tourist area. When I went to college, everyone wanted to come party at my beach house. My parents lived about ten miles from the beach, about 30 minutes because of the awful traffic here. It was amusing that everyone thought I lived in a house on stilts over the sand dunes because that's what they'd seen on tv or rented in the summer for vacations. It's like they didn't realize there was an entire city of normal people just off of the beach and outside the tourist areas.
As an American, a myth I never quite understood was when Brits would say that we don't understand British humor or that American humor is completely different. Now maybe I just grew up in a particularly dry sarcastic house but I think, and many Americans I know, not only understand Brit humor but find it hilarious and joke in a similar way.
The problem with British humor that I've found is that some of it is hyper into regional in-jokes. So it's not that it's a bad joke, I just can't laugh because I don't get the reference at all.
To understand British humour....one must first learn how to spell it. Old joke. Typically a British comedian makes fun of themselves in a quirky situation. Think Mr Bean, early Black Adder, Faulty Towers.... American comedians usually make fun of the straight man or other object. Think: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ghost Busters, ... This is not always the case. The last Black Adder series were more of the American style with jaded Captain Adder setting up the stiff or silly other officers and Baldrick as buffoons. That is very similar to MASH.
If it were true I don't think Monty Python would be nearly as popular in the states as they are.
British humor is often based on irony and understatement. US Humor is generally more about put-downs.
@@neilbradley yes that definitely describes Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese, Mitchell and Webb, Enfield and Friends.... No wait a minute, it doesn't. You're bullocks.
I once had a customer support person from Ireland be amazed upon learning that here in Michigan in August it was 90 degrees. He thought we had snow year round. He also thought Michigan had nothing but factory after factory and that everyone who lived in Michigan worked in them.
The truth is far more tragic...
I heard a story about a woman from somewhere in Europe whose son and daughter in law lived in Arizona. She was very disappointed when she found out not all of Arizona looks like Monument Valley and there are no ostrich-sized roadrunners that go "beep beep."
I'm a Michigan resident and I have to agree with you. Even people from other US states think the same wrong things about Michigan. They have no idea about the weather or the fact that we have so much farm land outside the few large metropolitan areas.
Actually the saying about the Upper Peninsula goes “Nine months of winter and three months of rough sledding” 😎
That might have been the case 100 years ago
I have lived, attended university, worked, and paid taxes in both Canada and the United States. The similarities between the two countries (ranging from governmental structure to cuisine to speech habits, etc., etc.) FAR outweigh the differences. ENORMOUSLY. The similarities tend to run north-south, rather than east-west. If one is in the Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island), one can easily imagine that one is in New England. If one is in the industrial heartland of Canada (Ontario), one can easily imagine being in the industrial heartland of the States. Saskatchewan is very agricultural, and very similar to Kansas or Nebraska or Iowa. Alberta is largely ranching country - and very similar to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas. British Columbia is very similar to Washington and Oregon (especially the major cities). Even a LOT of retail chain stores, major industries, supermarkets, banks, and restaurant chains are identical in the two countries (the Canadian ones being subsidiaries of American parent companies; and vice versa - as in TD America Bank being a subsidiary of Toronto-Dominion Bank). There is a joke that pretty much sums up everything - "How does one distinguish the Canadian at the dinner party? He's the one speaking with a Minnesota accent."
I was born in the US and I had no idea why some streets had numbers that started in the thousands. It never even occurred to me to wonder because it just seemed normal.
If you aren't in emergency services or working in mail delivery, I can't imagine why you would _need_ to know.
I'm Canadian and when we visited Scotland, the landlady at our B&B asked if we were American. When we replied Canadian she said to the effect of "we'll that's the same isn't it?" I had actually prepared for this, and answered "That's like saying the English and the Scots are the same." Being a good Scot, she puffed up a bit but it got the point across
It is, kinda. Canada, the US & the South American countries are all in the Americas so the citizens are called 'Americans'
@@freedo333 Not here in Canada. Maybe other countries think that way about us but if you refer to us as American to our face you will be corrected. We've always had a bit of an ambiguous definition of exactly who we are but one thing pretty much all Canucks agree on is that we are NOT Americans. Yes, geographically speaking we are part of North America and the Americas in general but nope! We're never to be lumped in with our neighbours to the south.
@@freedo333 In that case either say that we are all from the Americas or that we are North Americans. But never contract it by saying we are Americans. Only citizens of the USA can say that because they don't call themselves USians or United Statians.
It's like when I say I'm from NY, alot of people, including Americans assume I'm from New York City. No. New York is a state. Live in a rural town. Know more people that have hit a deer driving than have not
@@freedo333 The US citizens are called Americans not because of the continent but because of the United States of America. Though I suppose it is similar to calling people from the UK European. It's just not very specific and it encompasses many different countries, cultures, and political entities.
I am a citizen of Osage Nation, and some of my ancestors were from Cahokia. I really appreciate you mentioning that we had (and still have) a sophisticated society. Indigenous Americans in general are treated poorly by EuroAmercan culture, yet we are still here!
you’re darn right you’re still here !! 😋🤰🏻👩🏽🍼🤱🏾🪄🌽🫘🍠🛶🐴☀️🌖🌻🌎🌬🔥🌊⬆️⬇️🐢〰️➰🌀🔆🪨🦌🦬🐕🐺🦅🐡🐑🐐🌵 ⛰🏔🗻 🛖 🍁🌱
Very much still here.Many people in Texoma had Comanche or Cherokee in their family and my Kentucky guy has some native heritage though the name of the tribe has been forgotten.
i guess it has a lot to do with the fact that you guys got conquered and repressed, if you had won against the settlers you would be the rulers
There’s also Taos Pueblo, which is still inhabited, Chaco Canyon, the Gila cliff dwellings, Mesa Verde, the Aztec ruins (a misnomer, of course), Montezuma’s castle (another misnomer), Casa Grande, etc etc etc. I live in New Mexico so most of my examples are from the US Southwest, but of course there are more examples all over North and South America.
I think "poorly' is an understatement."
I started watching your videos when I was imprisoned (aka working from home) during COVID. As a shameless Anglophile, I have enjoyed your takes on many things American. I also love your wry sense of humor. During my time of COVID imprisonment, I also got into genealogical research and found out that I had far more English ancestors than I ever dreamed! My earliest American Ancestor came from England to York, Maine in 1650! I find it both enlightening and humbling to hear about America from the perspective of someone from a different (but in many ways ) similar culture. It is a great antidote to the solipsism that we Americans often suffer. I recall going into St. Paul's Cathedral for a visit and listening to the American ahead of me in line complain about the fee charged for admission. It was truly embarrassing and led me to apologize to the clerk when it was my turn to enter. In listening to other Americans gripe about things in Britain, I was moved several times to remind them, "Hey, it's their country." I live in Philadelphia, and love encountering British tourists (I am an occasional tour guide here in the city) to whom I love to extend the warmest welcome and help them with finding their way around. I hope you will come back to Philadelphia and do a video devoted exclusively to our city. I would love to get your perspective.
The big difference is that Canada was Britain’s nice little child while America was Britain’s wild rebellious naughty child!
I've heard that almost every food culture on earth has some kind of "protein/veg encased in a bread" handheld dish -- samosas, hand pies, pastys, empanada, pirozhki, gyoza, etc etc. All of them yummy!
In West Virginia, it's the pepperoni roll.
I'd say the corn dog qualifies.
Hot Pocket!
America got its "sandwich" from England's Earl of Sandwich, who assumably invented it. And "frankfurter" (hot dog) and "hamburger" respectively from immigrants from Frankfurt and Hamburg, Germany.
@@garryferrington811 Don't ever get a cheese and onion pasty from Gregg's. I just know it guaranteed me a heart attack sometime in the next decade.
Thanks for the bit on drunk Brits. I was in the US Army stationed in Frankfurt in the early 1980's, and we all knew about the "Ugly American" stereotype, which said Americans were the worst, rudest tourists. I assumed it was true, but my three years there taught me otherwise. The hands down winners were the Brits. They would stumble along the streets extremely loud, crude and rude. Drinking always seemed to be involved. Now I see the connection.
I visited London with my family in 2014. We crossed paths with several Americans who were aware of the "Ugly American" stereotype. Non of the fellow Americans we met were naturally loud or rude.
@Nicky L No, they were tourists - I was in the Army, not them - and the women were worse than the men. I didn't know until then that Brits were such drinkers. I lived in Russia awhile right after the fall of the USSR and didn't see any such displays although alcoholism was/is certainly rampant there. Anyway, "getting sloshed" just ain't my idea of fun, especially the next day's hangover.
@Nicky L My guess would be students. Saw them in Bavaria, too.
I lived in Landstulh in the early 80s when my dad was in the Army. We were always told that Americans were loud and obnoxious, however I always found it interesting that any foreign visitors I met who traveled to America said Americans are by far the nicest and most helpful people they've ever met. So are we loud and obnoxious or are we the nicest and most helpful people?
@@daphnepearce9411 That's funning part about all this negative American stereotypes. Non-Americans step on their toes . It's as if the world doesn't know how "to use" the US - damn if we do and damn if we don't.
You, sir, just earned yourself another new subscriber! Well done.
I enjoy the content of your channel immensely, and much of your commentary is both entertaining, and from an American standpoint, accurate.
I was in a bar and three rather large women were having a loud conversation in a foreign accent. I was the only other person in the bar so I figured I'd talk with them. So I asked them "what part of Scotland are you ladies from". The one woman said "It's Wales, ya idiot". So I said "I'm sorry.. what part of Scotland are you whales from?" That's the last thing I remember.
That's hilarious!!
Funny "fanny pack" story. I worked security at the California state capitol, and we had a tour group of elderly British ladies come in. My co-worker asked them to put their fanny packs on the x-ray machine belt, and was confused by the giggling that followed. I had to explain it to my co-worker, who was mortified.
Fanny means the kitty not the butt in Britain
@@randy9simmonsup658 ...yes
Don't ask for a napkin in a UK restaurant.
@@pyrovania That's sort of a myth. "Napkin" gets used a lot in England to refer to a cloth or paper used to clean your hands. Diapers are always just "nappies," never "napkins," and "sanitary napkins" are more likely to be called "pads." The word "serviette" does get used too, it's just a synonym for "napkin." Supposedly it's a U/Non-U thing, though I think these days, "serviette" is not very popular in any class.
@@EebstertheGreat Maybe things have changed since the 1980s, when I was in London - then a napkin was a sanitary pad and a serviette is the cloth you put next to or under the silverware, aka a napkin in American English.
Great fun. You've got a great style. Very well written. Witty and amusing.
Another interesting holiday observation/celebration difference between we Yanks and our Canuck friends in the Great White North is that, like us, they also have a Thanksgiving, but theirs happens in October, while ours does in November -- and theirs is older than ours!
Canadian Thanksgiving -- 1879. American Thanksgiving --1789. It was English, not Canadians, looking for the Northwest Passage. It wasn't a thanksgiving either, it was a holy communion, which was also done by Spanish and French explorers, hardly a unique thing. The US celebrates its Thanksgiving as it was actually by people who had moved there to stay as a harvest festival. The others were no such thing at all.
I think the fanny pack thing may be more common with tourism, travelling, visiting theme parks, etc. I think the idea is that you are planning to be active and don't want to carry a bulky, loose bag. But since you are in a place where you may not neccessarily be able to find needed items, you can't store all your essentials in your pockets alone. So then, people will wear fanny packs. But it would probably be an unusual thing, still. They have a pretty bad stigma in my experience lol. So only people with a high amount of self confidence or who have a contrarian nature would probably wear them, I figure lol
Either tourists or people out jogging who want to bring their phone, keys and maybe wallet.
I wear one when I'm biking so that I have a place to keep my wallet, phone, keys, and maybe a snack.
Well, you might be on-trend since I've noticed they're becoming more popular in recent years.
@D C I think that proves the "or who have a contrarian nature" bit. :)
I think fanny packs are one of the greatest examples of "hot = ok, ugly = not ok" in modern culture. You never see ppl complaining if a ripped guy has one
The first time I heard an American say jab was when I got my first covid van dose. I told the nurse I had never heard it called a jab in America and the nurse told me that they were getting away from the word shot because it not only invoked a violent image but didn’t accurately describe what they were actually doing. So they were encouraging the medical staff at that location to use the word jab and because that did more accurately describe what they were doing.
I first heard the term "jab" on KZhead in the last couple years because everyone feared having their videos deleted for "medical misinformation."
I thought “jab” was more violent. Like aggressive sounding. Like you just jabbed it into my arm. Instead of like, you gave me a shot. You can’t be given a jab. You are jabbed. You don’t say you were shot. You were given a shot. Jab invokes the violent image. Lol at least for me.
That's weird. "Jab" is also a violent action. If they want to actually be non-violent AND describe what they're doing, it should be called an injection.
@@goblinqueen4991 I feel like that sounds worse 😂 like mad scientisty It is very proper, though. Injecting a substance into your arm. Proper, but creepy. So is it still a flu shot? Or is it a flu jab? A flu injection?
A lot of people started to use the word "jab" when social media started flagging posts and comments that used the word "vaccine" for potential censorship. Eventually, the words "jab", "shot" and "injection" were also flagged, so people had to come up with more inventive alternative words.
My son paid $800 for a ROOM in Santa Rosa CA. In the Midwest we pay about the same amount for a small 3 BR house on 30+ acres. Why would you want a Cornish pastie?
Thanks! Really enjoy your work so sending good vibes and a little bit of $. ;)
Regarding house numbers, a lot of places in the US, including parts of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN) where I live, use block numbering instead of distance-based numbering. A suburb like Richfield is built on a grid, and all of the streets running one direction are numbered. House numbers between 1st and 2nd Street will be numbered 100, 101, 102, 103, and so on, switching sides for each house. Then between 2nd and 3rd the houses will be numbered 200, 201, 202, and so on. It's a very convenient system; if you know a house's number is 3229, you know it'll be between 32nd and 33rd Street. It only really works for these strictly grid-based areas but it works very well for them.
In my hometown, I worked at the local Pizza Hut. For the grid-like city streets, there was a vertical street (Main Street) that divided the town into East and West and a horizontal street (Mitchell Street) that divided it into North and South. The numbering started at 100 for the first block starting from that intersection, 200 for the second block, etc. The blocks were not all the same length so it's not based on miles, but the numbers 100-199 are divided through a block as an approximation of it's position within that block. A house midway on the block should be about 150 or 151, or 250/251 etc. So it might go 101, 104, 129, 134, 153, etc. for a block with maybe 5-6 houses on each side. The odd numbers are always on the North or East side of the street and even numbers are always on the South or West side. Because Main Street went above and below Mitchell, there was a 100 block north and a 100 block south, 200 block north, and south, etc. Before GPS was widespread, this was necessary to understand for the delivery drivers. Roads in subdivisions tend to use 4 digit numbers (sometimes 5) and follow the developer's own numbering logic.
Cool, I'm also from the Twin cities.
In Ireland, I think I've only seen a number above 100 once (not counting apartments). I live in 29.
Much of Pinellas County, FL (St Pete and Clearwater), is like that. The area also has certain North-South or East-West directions for Avenues, Streets, Boulevards, etc.
Thank you for mentioning this! I'm from the twin cities (although I've lived in other big cities and I guess I didn't notice it) and got so confused by his miles analogy, I didn't realize the twin cities were different!
I live in Florida and the tourist will wear fanny packs at places like Disney so they can carry their room key, disposable camera, sunscreen, and other such items, this allows them to get on water rides and what not while easily putting their items into a locker before getting on the rides!
Disposable camera? What year are you living in?
@@RandomNonsense1985 Not sure if you think you're being edgy but Mustard didn't say they use them, just that people do. And yes, they still do sell them even on the high street in the UK, people do still buy and use them. They even make Polaroids again, believe it or not. *shrugs* Does it seem pointless to most of us? Sure. Does that mean it isn't a thing? Nope.
@@RandomNonsense1985 you can still get them at the tourist traps
I was going to say something similar as a Floridian. They are associated with tourists so perhaps some American tourists wear them elsewhere.
I live very close to Disney and have annual passes with my wife, kid, and some friends. We go to Disney a few times per month and, while I've seen a fanny pack here-and-there, they're not really very prominent in the parks.
I just started watching this channel. I love it!
Regarding Fall and Autumn, both have been used regularly for as long as I can remember which is about 50 years. I do think you're right that Fall is preferred, but we're definitely familiar with both.
So glad you brought up Cahokia mounds, I grew up in the village of Cahokia and it's about 20 miles from the mounds but we played on the mounds many times while the top was mark of for archeologist were digging on the tallest mountain. There is a lot of arrowheads out in those fields. After a good rain and plowing they would turn up.
My father told me there was a field just outside his hometown that was just full of arrowheads. He surmised that there had been a big battle there at some time in the past. The thing is, there really wasn't any Native American history until the white man showed up to write it down. I suppose it will forever remain a mystery.
@@bigscarysteve I think it is more that each had their own oral history that got "lost" as they were removed or died out. I mean, there is also pictographs, carvings, and more, but many traditions were usually passed on in group settings.
@@bigscarysteve There's a lot more to history than what was written down by 'the white man'. It's not even that much of a mystery, at least not too much more than any other place, since there's still Native Americans around who have both written it and told it.
@@RoseKindred the Narragansett tribe near me is attempting to ressurect the language and oral history. ❤
@@SuperDrLisa That sounds cool. Hope it continues on.
We Americans tend to use Fall and Autumn interchangably.
True. However, there is a difference between active vocabulary and recognition vocabulary. Where I live, everyone knows both words, but pretty much everyone only ever says "fall."
I find that we say "fall" when the sentence includes another season ("got to break out my fall and winter clothing"), and autumn if it doesn't ("the trees are beautiful in autumn").
Subscribed. In the other Midwest( far south MO, where temps are nearly Southern), we have a British food truck “ London calling” and they serve pasties and Banoffee pie!
I can tell you that Autumn has been part of the basic American vocabulary since I was in elementary school. (And, yes, I was in school before you were born.) I attribute it to poetry and song.
When I was in college, I worked one summer in a textile mill. Our company had a young engineer visiting from its UK counterpart. From the start I was fascinated with his accent and speech. I had bragged so much about my college campus he decided to go see it for himself. Next work day, I asked him if anything exciting happened. He said he was driving around the campus, looked in his rear view mirror, and saw a "constable" in a car behind him. He said the officer, "Blew his hooter at me!" He said he officer walked up to his window and told him that he had driven through a "halt sign" back by the "ball grounds". I knew exactly what he meant, but I had to smile at his choice of words. Probably because of his accent, he got off with only a verbal warning, along with friendly suggestions of other sights to see on the campus.
To go with the history bit, another intersting one I've heard from Europeans is that Native Americans don't exist anymore. I've had conversations and watched videos/read things online where people from Europe (and elsewhere but my experience has been mainly Europe) equate Native Americans with like Ancient Egyptians (sure some descendants might exist, but their "culture/civilization/identity" is gone) which simply isn't true. Because the US is so huge, Native Americans don't make up a huge percentage of the population, but there are more just single race (non-mixed with another race) Native Americans in the US than the population of Armenia, Bosnia, Lithuania, Albania, Latvia, etc. And there are almost as many Navajo as people in Iceland! And there are more native Navajo speakers than Scottish Gaelic native speakers!
It also depends on WHERE you are in the USA. In some places, Native Americans are completely extinct. I believe that in in South Dakota, Native Americans are 12% of the population.
Iceland has a smaller population than large towns here in the UK.
@3:00 i work in the real estate/home building industry and when builders develop new neighbors they assign the lot numbers- these end up being the number on the addresses of the home, and builders love to chose 4 digit, and now even 5 digit numbers because it gives the homes a sense of sophistication and class. Its basically a style and goes one everywhere since forever- i live on a fairly short street in a subdivision and here all the homes are in the 8200 to 8300 numbers lol
For myself, I use the word "jab" to describe a shot that is forced on a person. I would say "shot" to describe an injection taken willfully. A "jab" is an act of violence, as in " he jabbed the knife into her fickle heart". Bear in mind, my people are from eastern Kentucky and speak a form of Elizabethan English not coming in most areas of the country. We are also influenced by our Scotch-Irish ancestry, which is why we often say two words in a sentence to mean the same thing.
Would love an example of what you are referring to.
I was born in the US in '67, and autumn and fall have always been in use in my life, but to different purposes, Laurence. _Fall_ is pretty much utilitarian, where _autumn_ is a bit more flowery. For instance, upon graduating high school, you might ask someone "So, what are your plans for the fall?" whereas "What are your plans for autumn?" would seem a bit precious, posh, with Ivy-League implications (Harvard/Yale vs. City College/State U). But for reflective speech, or poetry/songs, _autumn_ is often the choice. "I remember the beginnings of those golden autumns as my family left our summer retreat in the Catskills . . ." You'd never say _fall leaves_ - it's _autumn leaves,_ which scans more satisfyingly. Then again, when describing something more visceral, "The fall winds whipped through his thin, tattered jacket" might be more appropriate.They're interchangeable, but according to context.
I have heard 'bonkers' for many decades just as I have heard both 'autumn' & 'fall' for decades
While Fall is most assuredly the more popular term for the season before winter, I was taught autumn in 2nd grade as an alternative. The most common use I've heard for it is for the "Autumn Equinox" or other things specifically named the "autumn" thing because they occure during the fall. In other words, Autumn is used more as an adjective for something than as a noun name for the season.
You should come to the city proper in Philadelphia, Boston, or Baltimore, where streets were laid out long before there were cars. And houses are called Row homes because they’re all attached to each other on both sides and some other places they called them townhomes. So those are great examples of places where people don’t have big houses with big yards.
If you believe that all British people are reserved and quiet, you haven't been in a pub in Wales when a (Sir) Tom Jones song comes on....They go absolutely, ear-splittingly, (but perfectly in tune) INSANE.
Isn't group singing in perfect pitch genetically inherent in Welsh people?
American here: as a kid in school, I was taught that autumn was "more correct," but that people usually say "fall," which is also acceptable. I'm 44 years old, and this is the first time I have ever heard that "bonkers" is a Britishism. I use it all the time. And yes, I started using the word "jab" during the pandemic because the Guardian doesn't require you to sign up to read its articles.
Cornish tin miners also brought pasties to to The Range in Minnesota, as well as to the UP.
Great insights!
a fun thing with living close to the border is that you'll sometimes just find Canadian coins in circulation, especially the pennies. So few ppl actually look to make sure it has Lincoln and not a monarch that it effectively just gets used as a US penny. I have seen a few loonies too, but that's alot less common compared to the pennies
We discontinued the penny in 2013 so you probably see more of them than we do.
Sadly that will become a rarity, as in Canada we no longer have pennies in circulation. 😕
What is a "looney"? (I am English living in England and have never crossed the Atlantic)
@@pauleff3312 A loonie is the Canadian $1 coin, it has a picture of a loon (a bird) on it. The toonie is the $2 coin and has a polar bear.
Fun fact: The USA doesn't have a penny. The USA has the cent, which is short for centi-dollar (metric) meaning 1/100th of a dollar. But since the American cent and the British penny look about the same and serve the same purpose (smallest denomination of fungible currency) people still call it a penny. Canada doesn't have a penny either. It's a cent.
Reminds me of a story of when I was standing in line waiting to go through customs in the Vancouver airport and someone behind me kindly told me how much they enjoyed hearing my canadian accent upon their arrival. I really hated to burst their bubble by telling them that I am from northern Indiana. So exotic!
Northern Indiana huh? I'm from South Bend (originally) and I'd say it would depend where you go in Canada. I went to Ontario around the lake and didn't hear a difference, but I went to Alberta and oh boy did I stand out.
@@BJGvideos we have friends from Ontario and after so many conversations with them I would think that I would be desensitized. But words like “ about” pronounced like boo instead of bow still gets me. Same with my friend from Alberta.. I am from New Carlisle BTW. The other thing is when in conversation and listening to sentences peppered with “eh” s, I start throwing lots of “ huh”s into mine.
@8:40 I do use a waist bag at times - phone, keys, diabetic supplies, electrolytes, snacks - but I have also used my FAG bag, too; Fast Action Grab bag, in which I used to carry my cut-down .45, my CCID, keys, quik-clot, and triage kit. Circumstances dictate accessories.
I was texting with a English girl when all of a sudden she asked me why everyone in America loved eating horse wormer. Apparently everyone KNOWS this is common practice in America. Funny it took a Brit to inform me of my horse wormer addiction. I feel very fortunate for this bit of info.
What was she talking about?
@@melissanichols4643 Ivermectin I think