this is such a fun entry devotchka i once had a coworker from korea and not only couldn't she tell the difference between usa english and british english she had trouble telling the difference between different european languages kind of keeps things in perspective eh not suprising while i can easily tell the difference between french german italian spanish dutch etc put me in a room with a chinese japanese korean vietnamese and a thai speaker and i probably couldn't tell the difference if i saw it written i'd probably have somewhat more luck though sjk vietnamese has more syllable final consonants than japanese i think you can tell them apart that way maybe is this right juuitchan someone suggested heath robinson and rube goldberg as a vocabulary difference it's certainly an interesting parallel but i don't think it really belongs here they were both artists with their own style and both are known on both sides of the pond although their use as descriptive adjectives is split as suggested at any rate they can't quite be considered translations because as an adjective rube goldberg is more specific describing an overly complex mechanical device or a complex series of interdependent actions heath robinson in contrast is more surrealistic or fantasy oriented ldc as an american i would like to say that to me a bum is a homeless person as much as the butt a flat is an apartment and rubbish certainly is trash granted i agree that a fag is not a cigarette and underground is not a subway i may do some actual research and come back and fiddle with that list eean i think americans certainly understand the use of bum for butt rubbish for trash and to a lesser degree flat for apartment but we don't use those terms much point to a container for discarded things and an american will say that's a trash can a brit will say that's a rubbish bin americans are more likely to use rubbish in the sense of bullshit ldc i deleted the following pair limited ltd and incorporated since they actually mean different things incorporated means a corporation limited means a limited liability corporation you can also have unlimited liability corporations and no liability corporations british and australian also ltd is roughly equivalent to american llc sjk i would say 'torch' was much more common than 'pocket lamp' which sounds quite old fashioned 'flashlight' would be more easily recognised than the latter yes i'd call it a torch and it would probably be labeled as a flashlight in its manufacturer's packaging imo 'torch' is colloquial british english the anome oh so flashlight is correct british usage my dictionary said am and the oxford english dictionary carried flashlight only in the meaning of photography then i'll remove the entry again axelboldt