8 American Things Britain Doesn't Even Have a Word For | PART 1

so it's very important for british people living in america like me to know the difference between the shoe brand and something else that americans call a hush puppy before i put my foot in it literally in the case of the shoe [Music] hello i'm laurence brown and i'm on a quest to uncover all of the memos that britain and america lost in the pond and one of those memos pertains to words and you and i both know this by now it's often said that britain and america are two nations divided by a common language and what does this mean it means that english is a prominent language in both countries but that we have different words and spellings and pronunciations for the same things but what if i told you right here and now that both britain and america have things for which the other country doesn't even have words well today i'll be looking at a selection of those from the united states of america a country i've lived in for the past 13 years now as with all things britain and america a lot of these words come back to food whereas some of them pertain to social customs the law and america's obscenely large landscape and so without further ado here are eight american things that britain doesn't even have a word for here's a story several years ago my wife took me to the indiana state fair and when i say she took me there i got absolutely no say in the matter and even as we stood in line for the world's most famous pig race i couldn't help but look around me and notice the types of fair food that were on offer of course you had cotton candy and of course the british do have a word for that it's candy floss you had hot dogs otherwise known in britain as hot dogs and then you had elephant ear and some british people perhaps even some american people might be thinking oh you ate a part of an elephant no thank goodness it's not a real elephant ear no this is just a type of fried dough that happens to be shaped like an elephant ear or a frisbee gone wrong and the reason i say that some americans might not recognize this name is that it goes by different pseudonyms you see while britain might not have a word for this america has plenty as well as elephant ear and fried dough it also goes by fry bread fried bread not to be confused with the fried bread that you might find on an english breakfast completely different beast doughboys scones again not to be confused with an english scone scone pizza frit or my personal favorite frying sauces and while we're on the subject of american derived food that brings us on to this oh yes grit now on the face of it grits sound absolutely awful because when i think of the word grit i think of two things i think of grit to mean courage and resolve and strength of character but usually sweat or grit as in small bits of stone or sand either way i don't want to eat that but it turns out that grits a southern american dish is a type of porridge and i know what you're thinking britain that's ridiculous lawrence we do have a word for porridge and it's porridge this is a specific type of porridge and a big deal in the southern united states but in the unlikely event that you're thinking of moving to the united states just because you want to live where grit is but you don't want to move to the southern united states because you can't stomach 400 degree temperatures in my experience you can get grits here in the midwest and i assume other places in the united states second thoughts it'd be easier just to stay in britain and look up the recipe online that's something you can't do so easily with this yes b-u-t-t-e now before i go any further it's probably important in the interest of not being demonetized that i point out that this word is pronounced but and it's probably quite an appropriate pronunciation because buttes are often beautiful or at the very least stunning now some people might be thinking get to the point what on earth is a butte well a butte is a very specific type of hill and this specific type of hill is not commonly found in britain it's a type of hill that has a flat top and vertical or nearly vertical sides think of the mitten butte in monument valley in arizona or devil's tower in wyoming or to give it its official name richard dreyfuss mashed potato and now there were three words into the list do you want me to go on to number four in other words do you want some more do you want some more do you want some more well bring it on you see what i did there when i first moved to the united states i was offered a s'more and i turned it down because i was frightened of what it might be and then somebody described the content and my love for them from that moment on only grew just like my waistline of course americans know what a s'more is but this is for my british viewers i.e my mom an official s'more is a roasted marshmallow right stuck to a slab of chocolate sorry for the noises and together they are sandwiched between a graham cracker ryan if you're wondering what a grain cracker is it's similar to what the british would call a digestive biscuit except it's square and americans pronounce it gram and because of the fried marshmallow element to all of this it's perfect to make one while you're camping and you might be wondering why is it called small with an apostrophe because it's a contraction of some more meaning that my segue surprisingly made sense for once unlike this one bring on the dogs the word carhop has nothing to do with dogs because that would be mental furthermore a car hop is not a type of car that hops because see previous comment a car hop is somebody who serves you food but while you're in your car now of course it's pretty well known that it's a big part of american culture to order food at the drive-through but that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about drive-ins drive-ins are a still-lasting remnant of a bygone era here in the united states where you park your car at the designated drive-in the car hop comes to you and takes your order and then brings you your food and you stay there in this exact same spot right next to the restaurant or cafe or whatever you want to call it and i personally have come to consider this fine dining even in a prius allow me to do a quick shout out to two that i've been to recently on my route 66 journey i visited the polka dot inn in braidwood illinois and carhops served me every now and again at jean's rootbeer stand in anderson indiana and i am told that in some of the more snazzy quarters of the united states there are even car hops on roller skates but they're difficult to find because it's not the 80s anymore jaywalking you may remember that i talked about this very topic a few months ago i had absolutely no idea what jaywalking was you know it was a word that cropped up occasionally in films but i just assumed it was a sport i thought this was gonna be a big deal right you know the joke why did the chicken cross the road well he didn't because he was too much of a chicken at least that was the case at first and after my wife had laughed at me 17 times i started to get the impression that i might be overthinking this all the years that i've lived here i don't think i've ever heard anybody say oh did you see ashley i think she was jerry walking better call the cops the reason we don't have a word for jaywalking in the uk is because that law doesn't exist and funnily enough despite our difficult relationship with rain and drizzle we also don't have a word for this admittedly perhaps owing to the digital age in which rsvping or not rsvping is done at the click of a button the word raincheck is sadly one i haven't encountered very often since moving here but i do remember it featuring a lot in american films in the 80s so that's good enough for me basically when somebody takes a raincheck it's to indicate that that person cannot accept the invitation right now right but they'd be happy to turn up in the future and you might be thinking why is it called a rain check does the coming together of people depend on whether or not it's raining sort of you see it originated in baseball a coupon might have been handed to a baseball ticket holder when the game was cancelled due to rain and that would mean that that coupon holder could then attend the rearranged game without being charged and while britain also has a sport with a batsman and a lot of players who just stand around for no reason the term raincheck never caught on of course that could also be something to do with the fact that we often turn down invitations in favor of that non-specific thing that we've got going on this weekend either way britain doesn't use the word raincheck just like it doesn't use our final entry unless you're talking about shoes that's right hush puppy and to me and admittedly to millions of americans hush poppy was and is a brand of shoe so it's very important for british people living in america like me to know the difference between the shoe brand and something else that americans call a hush puppy before i put my foot in it literally in the case of the shoe because in the u.s and once again particularly in the southern us a hush puppy is once again another type of fried dough specifically it's a ball about the size of a clementine of deep-fried cornmeal batter and it sounds disgusting but it's not and if there was nobody around to keep an eye on me i could happily eat 50 of them a day but i'd no longer be alive put it this way from experience they do taste better than the shoe and how do i know that because i was 11 years old once that's it for this episode let me know in the comments below some other things that the other country doesn't have a word for i'm lawrence brown you can follow me on twitter at lost in the pond us and be sure to subscribe to my channel so that my videos don't get lost in the pond a beautified shout out to all of my patrons who make these videos possible if you would like to become a patron of lost in the pond you can do so at patreon.com lost in the pond until the next video goodbye you

Channel: Lost in the Pond

Views: 764,589

Keywords: Laurence Brown, America, words, American things

Id: EiMu7i_aEaw

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Fri May 21 2021