How to Understand British Terms: 8 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow Be aware that certain food items are called by different names: Chips are thick fries, and french fries are the thin fries. Crisps are potato chips . A biscuit is a cookie. A British person would only call chocolate-chip biscuits a 'cookie'. Scones are a baked item made of firm dough. They are neither soft like bread or crisp like a cookie or a biscuit but are somewhere in between. They can be sweet or savoury and are eaten topped or filled as appropriate. Jelly is a gelatin dessert (Jello), the type given with ice cream in hospital; fruit preserves are jam. 2 Learn the different terms for parts of a building: The ground floor is the same as the American first floor. The first floor is the one above this, and other numbers follow as normal. A lift is an elevator. A flat is the general term for an apartment. A bedsit is a one-room flat (efficiency apartment) that serves as a bedroom and a living area. 3 Study these terms for when you are on the move: The boot is the trunk of the car. A trunk in Britain is a kind of old-fashioned large suitcase.

The wing is the fender of the car. The bonnet is the hood of the car. The "windscreen" is the windshield as goes for the wipers. However, a trunk call, is a long-distance (on a trunk-line) phone call but the term is not associated with automobiles at all as one might be lead to believe. Trunk call is not used in modern British English. A roundabout is a traffic circle. The colours of traffic lights are called red, amber (not yellow) and green. A lorry is a truck (not necessarily a "pick-up truck"). They are, more often than not, the type that carry goods. The sidewalk is called the pavement or the footpath (unpaved walkway). Petrol is gasoline (e.g., "Can we stop at the petrol station?"). 4 Avoid embarrassment of not understanding these differences: A bum is a derrière/posterior, not a homeless person. Spell and pronounce ass as "arse", bearing in mind that an "ass" may also be four-legged or even a more derogatory synonym for a two-legged "twit". Do not call your "bum" your fanny.

In the U.K., a "fanny" is a word meaning the female, external genitalia (vulva)! A "fag" is a cigarette. (The British are well aware of the American meaning.) While thanks to American culture, "faggot" is sometimes used as the derogatory name for homosexuals (avoid in polite company), in UK "fagot/faggot" can be used to mean "a cigarette, bundle of firewood, a chopped meatball," or "a bundle of anything", though this is an obscure usage. [1] The "loo", "bog", "WC/water closet", or just "toilet" is the American English "bathroom" (e.g. "Where's the loo?"), though if you say you're going to the bathroom, people will get the idea. A rubber is a pencil eraser, as well as meaning a condom. "I'm stuffed" means "I'm full". The word stuffed can also be interpreted in a negative or insulting manner depending on context (e.g. "Go get stuffed." is a bit more polite than "F**k off.", having roughly the same meaning).

5 Remember when throwing something away that: Rubbish is garbage or trash and goes in the rubbish bin if it is inside, or a dustbin if you mean the large outside receptacle. A trash bag is called a bin liner or bin bag. 6 Use these terms when talking about clothing: Trainers are sneakers, Wellingtons (Wellington boots, wellies, boots) are calf-length rubber (or plastic) waterproof boots and have nothing to do with beef. They are named after the Duke of Wellington. Pants in England are worn underneath your trousers or jeans, just like American panties. While the British may understand what you mean, due to the invasion of American culture, they will likely find the mental image this conjures amusing and may call you out on it, also called "knickers". Tights, are pantyhose with two legs, "stockings" is the term used for pantyhose that have two separate garments, just like socks. 7 Finally, study these terms which may cause confusion: The phrases "taking the mickey", "taking the Michael" and "taking the piss" mean making fun of or teasing.

The phrase "on your knees" means to show respect, beg, or even plead, To ring is to call on the phone (e.g. "I'll ring you later"). A pram or buggy is a baby stroller. A trolley is a shopping cart used for shopping in large shops such as supermarkets. A dummy (short for "dummy teat") is a pacifier. A lolly is a contraction of "iced lolly", a popsicle. A mobile or mobile phone is a cellphone. A bodge or botch is a poor job (or repair) that just about works. A brolly is short for an umbrella. Very occasionally called a "gamp" after a character in a Dickens novel. Going on "holiday is a vacation. A torch is a flashlight. Maths is the shortened mass noun for mathematics, American "math". Washing-up liquid is dish detergent. An aerial is a TV or radio antenna. Anti-clockwise is counter-clockwise. The phone is engaged means that the phone line is busy. Punt in the UK refers to a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in small rivers or other shallow water. Punting refers to boating in a punt.

In America, especially in American Football, a punt is when you clear the ball down the field. That was the joke used on Emma Watson by David Letterman ("Here, we do that on 4th and long"). The English equivalent is a drop kick, but the mechanics are different. A punt in rugby is a kick in which the ball is hit BEFORE touching the ground. It's also slang for 'a bet' or a gamble, as in 'I took a punt on it not raining tonight', 'I had a punt on a horse race'. "Football" is soccer. The American game is called American football, and is viewed as a second-rate version of rugby. 8 The English-to-American Dictionary The English-to-American Dictionary carrier bag n. This is just the plastic bag that you are given your shopping in, which Americans call a shopping bag instead. casual v. Scottish. A pretty close Scottish equivalent to "yob" , with the notable exception that "casuals" will actually refer to themselves as such while yobs certainly would not. Dotted around Edinburgh is graffiti advertising the services of the "Craiglockart Casual Squad".

Craiglockart being hardly one of the worst areas of Edinburgh, I can only imagine that they'd turn up and insult your intelligence, or throw truffles through your windows. chancer n. Quite literally, a "chancer" is someone who is a bit of a taker of chances - generally those that involve things on the greyer side of society. "Chancers" are the sorts of people who buy random domain names in the hope someone will offer them a pile of money for them, or put all their money on the rank outsider in the 12:45 at Chepstow. chap n. A more upper-crust equivalent to "bloke" . Nowadays only really seen in a tongue-in-cheek way or in 1950s Enid Blyton childrens books. It would read something along the lines of "I say chaps, let's go and visit that strange old man with the raincoat at Bog End Cottage and see if he has any more special surprises for us!". Jolly hockeysticks. chippie n. Ubiquitous abbreviation of fish-and-chip shop.

Also a colloquial name for a carpenter - I can only presume that this derives from the wood chippings they produce. All a far cry from the US, where apparently a chippie is an attractive young woman for whom (I quote my source) "Intelligence is questionable, but not necessarily in a bad way. More naive than stupid." Strangely similar in a way to our own definition, but you're less likely to find that your husband has run off with a chippie in the UK. Unless he's a Member of Parliament. chips n. Fries. However, it's lately been popular to call "thin" chips fries (I blame McDonalds ) so Brits at least know what fries are these days. Classic chips can be obtained from a chip shop ("chippie") and are a great deal more unhealthy.

They also vary quite creatively - if you buy them at nine o'clock in the evening they are hard, black and crunchy (because they've been cooking since 6:30pm when the dinner rush came through) but if you buy them at 3am you will find them very akin to raw potatoes, right down to the green bits in the middle (because they want all of these drunk punters out of the door so they can go home). Since writing this, I have been told by a contributor that British chips are in fact more healthy than fries - something to do with surface area and fat. Trust me, though... the British ones still look pretty gruesome. chivvy v. To hurry someone along with something. If you want an example, you can have something like "I was pretty sure I'd be up until 1am daydreaming instead of doing my homework, but my mum chivvied me on with it and I was done fairly early." chock-a-block adj. Closely packed together. You might use the phrase to describe your dating schedule or your attic, unless you are unforgivably ugly and you live in a flat , in which case you'd have to think up something else to use it on.

These examples are provided as-is, they don't necessarily work for everyone. I'm told by one contributor that the word has a quite dark (no pun intended) origin, as it refers to the area where black slaves were once lined up on blocks to be sold. However, I'm told by some more that it's a maritime referring to when a block and tackle were jammed against each other to stop the load moving. crisps n. Chips. This particular confusion caused me no end of troubles in the US - I've never been so disappointed with a bag of chips in my life (I'd even have preferred the 3am green ones). crumbs expl. A general expression of surprise - much akin to something like "god", or " bloody hell". But naturally without the ghastly use of our saviour's name in vain or any swearing. It's quite alright to use in polite company, though perhaps a little antiquated. More likely to be heard in a context like "crumbs, that's more expensive than Harrods" rather than "crumbs, I just dropped the smack out the window". crumpet n. 1. A small scone -like teacake.

I'm leaving this a bit vague because I don't know exactly why it's different from a scone, apart from being a bit less crumbly. 2. Coming from rhyming slang for strumpet (a woman adulterer), crumpet refers to women in a similar (although a little more old-fashioned) way to totty . Suffice to say that if you were out looking for some crumpet of an evening, you wouldn't be intending sleeping alone. In fact, you may not be intending to sleep at all. We Brits do concur with Americans on the "official" meaning of crumpet (a small savoury piece usually eaten with afternoon tea) but it would be difficult to mention it in the UK without someone at the table collapsing in fits of giggles.

Separated by a Common Language: crisps, chips and tortillas Separated by a Common Language May 9, 2009 My friend the Maverick received a news item about this bird through an evolutionary psychology e-mail forum: The video, from the BBC, refers to the Doritos that the seagull eats as (BrE) crisps, but the source that Maverick read refers to them using the AmE term chips, which, of course, is the BrE word for AmE (french) fries. However, the BrE crisps = AmE chips equation is not as straightforward as it might at first seem. This is demonstrated to us by the (UK) Daily Mail's story about the bird: The rest of the flock flap around, begging for titbits (=AmE tidbits) and diving for scraps. Not this fellow. He simply pops to the shops. And his tastes, it seems, are rather particular. It has to be tortilla chips. [...] He is now so popular that customers have started paying for his chips. Crunchy fried potato slices are always (potato) crisps in BrE, but Doritos and other (AmE) tortilla chips are not so straightforward.

When taken collectively with the other (BrE) packets/(AmE) bags at the front of the (BrE) corner shop/(orig. AmE) convenience store in the video, the Doritos are crisps, but when referring to Doritos and the like on their own, BrE speakers often use the American import tortilla chips. This is doubly foreign, since not only does chip mean something different than in AmE, but in BrE tortilla more often (in my experience) refers to the Spanish egg-and-potato dish than to the Mexican flatbread.

(The 2007 draft entry in the OED also informs us that use of just tortilla to mean 'tortilla chip' is 'chiefly' BrE, and that the term Spanish tortilla is also used for the frittata-like dish--from the quotations, it looks like the Spanish prefix is mostly AmE.) Better Half and I have a favo(u)rite Mexican restaurant in Brighton, and when we order chips and salsa there (which BrE BH pronounces with a first syllable like Sal and I in my AmE way pronounce with a first syllable more like Saul), we have, more than once, been asked to clarify whether we mean tortilla chips or (BrE) chips/(AmE) fries...in spite of the fact that their own menu reserves the term chips for the tortilla kind and uses fries for the thicker/softer potato kind. Tortilla chips is the more common term in BrE, with 31,500 UK Google hits--but with 14,500 hits, tortilla crisps has a respectable presence. Cultural side note number 1: Americans are often surprised by the size of crisp/chip packets/bags in the UK.

The largest bags in the UK are probably the size of the smallest bag that's not meant for individual consumption in the US, and often at parties in the UK, the host will have opened several individual-size bags (which can be bought in variety packs) into several small bowls. In the US, the biggest bags are comparable to a pillow in size and at parties the chips/crisps are presented in large, deep bowls. This does not--oh no, it does not--mean that the British are unenthusiastic consumers of wafer-thin fried potatoes. They consume, on average 7.2 kg per person per year , as opposed to 4 pounds (1.8 kg) per typical American. I presume that the limits on bag size in the UK have something to do with the limits on supermarket shelf space and home storage space. Because there are no ( orig. BrE slang ) ginormous bags of crisps/chips in the UK, there's also no need for the chip clip, which Americans use to keep their chips/crisps crunchy between pantry-raids.

CSN 2: British crisp/chip flavo(u)rs are more popular (in relation to plain, salted) and more imaginative than American flavo(u)rs--which, when I was growing up (i.e. before the da wn of 'gourmet' potato chips/crisps), were limited to salted, unsalted and barbecue. Cheese and onion is the nation's favo(u)rite (editorial note: [orig. AmE] ick) and salt-and-vinegar (which was available in New England in my youth, then spread to other parts of the US) must be close to the top. Flavo(u)rs that involve meat (steak and onion, chicken and thyme, prawn [AmE shrimp] cocktail) seem very popular too--a trend that has reached its peak, or perhaps its nadir, in the current offering of Cajun Squirrel flavo(u)r. (orig. AmE) 'Fess up: who among you has tasted them?

An unpleasant side effect of CSN 1 and CSN 2 is that when one's host pours the contents of more than one little crisp/chip packet/bag into a larger bowl, chances are that they'll have mixed together two flavo(u)rs, only one of which will be gag-inducing. CSN 3: Pringles are served unironically at parties in the UK. P.S. FuelMyBlog recently saw fit to interview me on my blogging habits. Click on if you see fit to care! World Wide Words: French fries Random page French fries Q From James Tapper: A friend of mine recently asked whether French fries should be capitalised. This sparked some debate about the origin of the term. Is the word French an indication of the origin of the dish or is it a shortening of frenched, a method of cutting up vegetables into long thin strips? Or should we just call them chips? A Chips is a confusing term. American chips are what we British call crisps, while our British chips are usually shorter and more chunky than the sort called French fries; Australians use chips for both the American and British sorts, distinguishing the latter by calling them hot chips.

The long, thin ones are commonly called fries almost everywhere. I’ll return to frenched later. Like that word, it is now quite common to see french fries, without the initial capital. The Chicago Manual of Style says that such terms shouldn't be given initial capital letters unless they really do come from the country concerned (so brussels sprouts, swiss cheese, plaster of paris). Most dictionaries disagree. The best rule is Chicago’s own: find a style you like and stick to it. Whether or not you capitalise the first word, it’s widely believed that French fries originated in France. However, in French-speaking Europe some hold that they were originally Belgian, while some Americans argue for a strong link with their own country. One story is that French fries were first called that by American soldiers in Belgium and France towards the end of the First World War, who came across them under the name pommes frites and converted that into French fries. This is folk etymology — the term was known earlier. Another tale connects the dish to an early US president, Thomas Jefferson.

Marshall Fishwick (in his article The Savant as Gourmet in Modern Culture in 1998) and Charles Ebeling (in an address to the Chicago Literary Club in 2005) say that the concept was introduced by him. The latter was told by a guide at Monticello, Jefferson’s home in Virginia, that a recipe of 1802 exists in Jefferson’s own handwriting. A widespread story online asserts that it refers to a request to his French chef Honoré Julien for “potatoes served in the French manner” and speculates that Jefferson may have got it from his period as ambassador to France. Anna Berkes, Research Librarian at Monticello, tells me that there is a recipe, probably dating from Jefferson’s presidential period, which mentions “pommes de terre frites, à crû en petites tranches” (“Potatoes, raw, in small slices, deep-fried”). This is a description in French of fried potatoes but not obviously a description of potatoes fried in a French manner. Nobody associated with the Jefferson archives knows of the request. Like chips or fries the story is best taken with a pinch of salt.

A French manner of serving potatoes was certainly described a little later, though the early references I can uncover are British, not American. Mrs Margaret Dods, who ran the Cleikum Inn at Innerleithen in Scotland, was immortalised in Sir Walter Scott’s novel St Ronan’s Well of 1823. In 1828, in The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, she noted that “The French fry sliced potatoes in goose-dripping, which has a very high relish; but before serving, drain them on a towel before the fire.” A decade later a detailed description appears: FRENCH METHOD OF COOKING POTATOES They divide into the thinnest possible slices the potatoe [sic], raw, not boiled, and fry it in the finest olive oil or fresh butter. It then eats crimp, like the finest biscuit, and is taken, like our fried potatoes, with a dish of flesh, although also frequently, according to the French fashion, it is eaten separately, as a salad. Freeman’s Journal (Dublin, Ireland), 1 May 1838. Note the old sense of eat, to have a certain consistency when eaten.

Crimp means crisp or brittle. These don’t sound like the French fries we now know — it would seem the French were serving something nearer the potato crisp or what are sometimes called game chips. A recipe from Eliza Warren — a British writer who was a contemporary and rival of the much better known Mrs Beeton — may be describing the same thing. In her Cookery for Maids of All Work in 1856, she is the first recorded user of the term by which the dish would be known for the next half century, French fried potatoes. Her recipe says: “French Fried Potatoes. — Cut new potatoes in thin slices, put them in boiling fat, and a little salt; fry both sides of a light golden brown colour; drain”. Both sides? That does sound more like a crisp than a French fry. (It may be the version I've come across in American recipe books under the name cottage fries or home fries.) However, a very early American recipe in Miss Parloa’s New Cook Book of 1882 under the heading “French fried potatoes” specifies, “Pare small uncooked potatoes. Divide them in halves, and each half in three pieces.

Put in the frying basket and cook in boiling fat for ten minutes.” I’m told this chunky version is known in the US as country fries or potato wedges. It’s clear that the essence of the French manner to non-native cooks was that the potatoes were deep-fried, which is after all what frite means in French. (I am told that real French frites are cooked twice in boiling vegetable oil with a rest between.) It seems Americans took over the French style of deep-frying potatoes but initially used it for chunks rather than thin slices or the thin strips we have come to associate with fast-food fries. French and Belgian frites today are usually chunky. The first American reference I can find to the dish under the name of French fried potatoes is in the Burlington Daily Hawk Eye of Iowa for 12 December 1880. The name began to be abbreviated to French fries in the early years of the twentieth century (the first explicit mention I can find is in a newspaper of 1902). As to frenched (a North American term better known elsewhere as julienne, which by the way has no connection with Jefferson’s chef, being about three centuries earlier than his time), this certainly describes vegetables cut into thin strips.

But the earliest evidence for frenched is much later than that for French fried potatoes, suggesting it was either borrowed from the way that the potatoes were sliced or was an independent introduction. Either way, it is usual not to capitalise frenched. Share this page The Septic's Companion - List of British Words For Eating and Drinking Appliances Clothing Eating and Drinking Events Everyday Speech Insults People Places Science & Nature Sex Sport The Body Travel & Transport Weights & Measures The most common British words or British English terms related to food, drink or drinking. Drinking is a very important part of British culture. afters: n dessert. One would imagine that they�re so named because they come after the main meal, but actually they take their name from their inventor, Sir George After, the Fat Bastard of Brighton. aubergine: n large purple pear-shaped vegetable North Americans will recognise as �eggplant.� baked potato: n potato. Baked. You can buy a baked potato on either side of the pond, of course, but in the U.K. you will specify the filling as you buy the baked potato, while in the U.S. you�ll be brought a small selection of fillings to plonk in yourself.

British fillings tend to constitute more of a whole meal than American ones. bangers: n sausages. Probably most often heard in the name of the dish �bangers and mash� (the �mash� being mashed potato, but I hope to God you worked that out yourself). So called because they make popping noises when you cook them. Banoffee pie: n A charming dessert pie made of bananas, cream, toffee, condensed milk, sugar, butter, methamphetamine and Soylent Green. bap: n 1 small bread roll. 2 woman�s breast (modern slang): Get your baps out, love! bevvy: n alcoholic drink. A contraction of �beverage.� Bill: n the police, in the same sort of a way as �Plod.� There are two possible etymologies: The first, that it�s after William Wilberforce, a Member of Parliament who first proposed a U.K. police service. The second, that all police cars originally had the letters �BYL� in their number plates. The Bill is also a popular U.K. television drama about a police station. biscuit: n cookie. Has nothing to do with what Americans call a biscuit.

bitter: n proper beer, made with hops and served at room temperature (not actually warmed, contrary to popular opinion). The European/American fizzy lager shite is not real beer. brew: 1 n cup of tea: Would you like a brew? Northern English but widely understood elsewhere in the U.K. At a stretch it could refer to coffee, too. 2 n pint of beer: Fancy heading out after work for a couple of brews? brown sauce: n Steak sauce. A mysterious thick brown sort of savoury sauce. Popularly added to burgers, chips and other pub-type food, brown sauce is more than ketchup and less chunky than the American �relish�. I believe it contains vinegar. And probably some other stuff. Also it is brown. bubble and squeak: 1 n dish made from boiled vegetables (often cabbage), potatoes, onions and sometimes some leftover meat. 2 n Greek person, usually shortened to �bubble.� From Cockney rhyming slang �bubble and squeak� / �Greek�: Did you hear Harry�s brother�s gone and started dating a bubble?

butty: n colloquial name for something sold in a chippy that�s served inside a roll or a folded-over piece of bread. It�s a bit of a northern English/Scottish thing, and has more recently started being used to cover pretty much any sort of sandwich. The most popular is a chip butty, but you can also buy bacon or fish butties without seeming strange. May be derived from the German �butterbrot� meaning �butter bread� and referring to a similar sort of dish. candy floss: n cotton candy. The revolting foodstuff one can buy at fairgrounds which resembles a giant blob of fibreglass wrapped around a stick. chipolata: n small sausage. The term originated in Mexico, but somehow never made it big in the U.S. chips: n French fries. However, it�s lately been popular to call thin chips �fries� in the U.K, so Brits at least know what �fries� are these days. Classic chips can be obtained from a chip shop (�chippy�) and are a great deal unhealthier. They also vary quite creatively � if you buy them at 9 p.m.

they are hard, black and crunchy (because they�ve been cooking since 6:30 p.m., when the dinner rush came through) but if you buy them at 3 a.m. you will find them very akin to raw potatoes, right down to the green bits in the middle (because the chippy employees want all of these drunk punters out of the door so they can go home). chocolate drops: n chocolate chips. The idea of �chocolate chips� is enough to turn most British stomachs. The American candy called a �chocolate drop,� but it doesn�t have a lot to do with British chocolate drops. cider: n alcoholic apple juice. To Brits all cider is alcoholic � there�s no such thing as �hard cider� in Britain, and any non-alcoholic apple juice is called simply �apple juice.� Cider is often mixed with a small amount of blackcurrant syrup to form a drink imaginatively titled �Cider and black�. coriander: n cilantro. The herb that tastes like soap, and redefines the term �edible.� Americans still call the fruit of the plant �coriander� but not the leaves. courgette: n zucchini.

I wonder if there�s anything behind the fact that these words both look like they ought to be sports cars. I�m sure someone�s written a thesis on it somewhere. crisps: n potato chips, or any of the corn-based equivalents. It�s worth bearing in mind that crisps in the U.K. cover a wide variety of flavours from Worcester Sauce to steak, and are not restricted to tasting anything like a potato. In fact, producing something that tastes anything like a potato is probably a sacking offence in the crisp factory. This particular confusion has caused me no end of troubles in the U.S. � I�ve never been so disappointed with a �bag of chips� in my life. crumpet: n 1 small teacake made of pancake batter, but with raising agents added to make holes. 2 loose woman. Coming from rhyming slang for �strumpet� (a woman adulterer), crumpet refers to women in a similar (although a little more old-fashioned) way to �totty.� Suffice to say that if you were out looking for some crumpet of an evening, you wouldn�t be intending sleeping alone. In fact, you may not be intending to sleep at all.

Despite it meaning, primarily, a small teacake, it would be difficult to mention such a teacake in the U.K. without someone at the table collapsing in fits of giggles. cuppa: n cup of tea: Surely you have time for a cuppa? custard: n sort of yellowy-looking dessert sauce made from egg yolks and milk. It does sound a little disgusting, but you�ll have to believe me that it�s not. Brits pour it on top of things like apple crumble and sponge cakes. cutlery: n silverware. Knives and forks and stuff. Brits therefore do not have the curious American concept of �plastic silverware.� digestive: n round biscuit that one generally dunks in one�s tea. Whether it aids the digestion or not, who can tell? dinner: n Northern English mid-day meal. This is a bit of a generalisation � the words dinner, �tea,� �lunch� and �supper� seem to be assigned to meals spattered randomly around the day in both American and English regional dialects. double fisting: v holding two drinks at once.

The double-entendre is not entirely lost on the Brits and so it�s best not used in overly polite company. drink driving: n drunk driving. The art of driving a car whilst intoxicated: Sarah�s stuck at home right now, she got done for drink driving last week. Why the Brits chose a phrase that doesn�t make linguistic sense, I am not entirely sure. elevenses: n mid-morning snack. Rather old-fashioned; clearly derived somehow from eleven o�clock. entr�e: n appetizer. Only in America does this not mean �appetizer.� Why, in America, a word that clearly means �enter� or �start� means �main course� is beyond me. Perhaps it�s because American appetizers are about the size of everyone else�s main courses. faggot: 1 n particular variety of meatball. 2 n bundle of sticks. 3 n grumpy old woman (uncommon). 4 n cigarette (uncommon). 5 n prostitute (uncommon). Brits do not use it as a derisive term for a homosexual man.

In reality, the American definition is well known (if not really used) U.K.-wide, so most of the jokes involving the various other meanings have already been made. They all stem from the original Norse word �fagg,� meaning a bundled-together collection of matter. Do prostitutes come in bundles, I wonder. fizzy drink: n carbonated drinks. A generic term much like �soda� or perhaps �pop.� fry-up: n meal (almost always breakfast) consisting of mostly fried stuff (sausage, eggs, bacon and the like). Ideal for those seeking heart disease. gobstopper: n jawbreaker. Very hard sweets intended to break the jaw of the consumer, or at least cause severe injury. haggis: n small Scottish mammal, known better for the unpleasant-tasting dish it is often made into. There has been a lot of concern in Scotland lately that over-farming may endanger the remaining population - if you want to help, please voice your concerns to The World-Wide Fund for Nature. Make it clear that you�re an American, and that you were made aware of the poor creature�s plight by this fine piece of work. high tea: n evening meal; dinner.

Derives from the fact that the meal was typically eaten at the dinner table (the �high table�) rather than the tea table. This usage has become something antiquated recently and the term �high tea� has morphed to refer to the expensive afternoon teas one can buy at posh hotels in the U.K. icing sugar: n powdered/confectioner�s sugar. The very fine sugar used to make cake icing. jacket potato: n baked potato. A potato baked in its skin and usually filled with something. The term �baked potato� is equally well understood in the U.K. jam: n jelly. Sort of. What Americans call �jelly� (fruit preserve without fruity-bits in it), Brits still call jam. What Americans call �jello,� Brits call �jelly.� Oh yes, and what Americans call �jam� is still also called jam in the U.K. I think that�s the jams pretty much covered. jelly: n Jell-o. Gelatinous sweet desert. The Jell-o brand doesn�t exist in the U.K.

British jelly is not like American �jelly� � Brits don�t distinguish between fruit preserves with or without fruit in them � they�re all �jam�. joint: n large side of meat, like a Sunday roast. The Brits, like the Americans, also use the word to refer to cannabis spliffs, which means that these days you�d be unlikely to get away with referring to your �Sunday joint� without someone giggling. lemonade: n a clear, carbonated drink very similar to Sprite or 7-Up, but with only lemons instead of limes. In the U.S. (and in the U.K., but under the moniker �traditional lemonade�) the word �lemonade� refers to a variant that, for want of a better description, is a bit more lemony. It�s darker in colour, not carbonated and often contains bits of lemon. Nowadays young drinkers on street corners in both the U.K. and the U.S. enjoy alcopop lemonade (�hard lemonade�), which is carbonated on both sides of the Atlantic.

By that I don�t mean it�s carbonated on one side of the Atlantic, then flown over and carbonated on the other prior to sale. But you knew that. Marmite: n a sandwich spread based upon yeast extract. Similar to �Bovril,� which is made from beef extract. Australians have a very similar spread called �Vegemite,� which is a little less sharp in taste. marrow: n squash. The vegetable. mince pie: n a sweet pie, traditionally served at Christmas, containing suet and mixed fruit. Not mincemeat. Step away from the mincemeat. No mincemeat to see here. Traditionally they did contain mincemeat, as the easiest way to preserve meat was to mince it and then mix it with various fruits. Actually, that probably isn�t the easiest way at all. The easiest way is probably to bury it in salt. Anyway - the animals having been slaughtered prior to the onset of winter, the mince pies were enjoyed at Christmas because the �preserved� meat was by then pretty much ready to walk out the door by itself. But it was okay, because everyone was kinda drunk.

nosh: 1 n food: Right, the pub�s shut, let�s get some nosh. 2 v perform oral sex: Rumour has it she didn�t answer the phone because she was noshing the vicar at the time. on the lash: adj out drinking: Bob�s in a terrible state since he got divorced � I think he�s been on the lash every night. peckish: adj hungry. Absolutely nothing to do with �pecker.� Only a little hungry, mind, not ravenous - you wouldn�t hear people on the news talking about refugees who�d tramped across mountains for two weeks and were as a result a little peckish. pickle: n 1 a sort of brown, strongly flavoured blobby mass that people put in sandwiches. I�m really not very sure what it�s made of. Pickled something, one can only hope. 2 any sort of pickled cucumber or gherkin (universal). piece: n Scottish packed lunch. Quintessentially Scottish: Will ye be coming for lunch, Willie? / Nah, ah�ve brought ma piece. pips: n seeds. The little seeds in the middle of fruit guaranteed to get stuck in your teeth.

pissed: adj drunk. Brits do not use it alone as a contraction of �pissed off,� which means that Americans saying things like �I was really pissed with my boss at work today� leaves Brits wide-eyed. go out on the - venture out drinking. taking the - poking fun at someone. May well be a throwback to the U.S. use of the word. pogged: n Northern English stuffed; full of food. Derivation is anybody�s guess. Pot Noodle: n Cup-o-Noodle. Little pots of noodles, upon which you simply pour boiling water to the �fill level� and lo, all of a sudden you have a perfectly delicious and nutritious meal for one. One student, one overworked employee or one neglected pensioner, normally. I don�t think it mentions that on the pot. prawn: n the least powerful piece on a chess board. OK, I lied. It�s a shrimp. pudding: n dessert: If you keep spitting at your grandfather like that you�re going to bed without any pudding! Brits do also use the word in the same sense as Americans do (Christmas pudding, rice pudding, etc).

The word �dessert� is used in the U.K. but really only in restaurants, never in the home. To complicate things further, the Brits have main meal dishes which are described as pudding - black pudding and white pudding. These are revolting subsistence foods from the dark ages made with offal, ground oatmeal, dried pork and rubbish from the kitchen floor. The difference between the black and white puddings is that the black one contains substantial quantities of blood. This, much like haggis, is one of those foodstuffs that modern life has saved us from but that people insist on dredging up because it�s a part of their �cultural heritage.� Bathing once a year and shitting in a bucket was a part of your cultural heritage too, you know. At least be consistent. rat-arsed: adj exceedingly drunk. Also abbreviated as simply ratted. Possibly derived from a time when dead rats would be dangled in cider vats to give them extra flavour. At least, according to the person who told me that. rocket: n arugula. salad cream: n A mixture of mayonnaise and vinegar often put on salads. Perhaps unsurprisingly. sarnie: n abbrev sandwich.

A little bit slang-ish - you won�t find a �lightly toasted roast beef sarnie served on a fresh bed of rocket� in your average poncy restaurant. savoury: n non-dessert food. Food such as potatoes, bread and meat are savouries. Things like ice cream and meringues are �sweets,� which is defined elsewhere in this fine work. Probably further on, as it�s supposed to be in alphabetical order. scone: n pron. �sk-awn,� not �sk-own� biscuit. Sort of. A quintessentially British foodstuff, scones are somewhere between a cake and a subsistence food. The British word is creeping into the U.S. via coffee shops. Can a word creep? Scotch: a contraction of the word �Scottish,� this is now only used in the context of foodstuffs (and even then really just Scotch eggs), and whisky � Brits refer to anything else as being �Scottish.� So those from Scotland aren�t Scotch people; they are Scottish people. If they were Scotch people, they would be made primarily from whisky.

Oh, wait� Scotch egg: n a somewhat peculiar delicacy - a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat and coated in breadcrumbs. My mother used to put them in my packed lunch every day for school. scrummy: adj delicious. I believe that this is a childish amalgamation of �yummy� and �scrumptious�: This jelly and ice-cream is scrummy! Scrumpy: n strong alcoholic cider. While traditionally the word refers to home-brewed cider (scrumping being the stealing of apples), it has more recently become associated with a high-alcohol brand named Scrumpy Jack. Don�t go near the stuff. I drank some at university one evening and all sorts of bad things happened. serviette: n napkin. The thing you put in your lap to block the path of food falling onto your clothes. shandy: n an alcoholic mix of lager and (British) lemonade. Usually 90% lager and 10% lemonade, and generally drunk by people convinced that they can get as drunk as a skunk on shandy and still be fine to drive the car.

Shandy has also given us such retail gems as Top Deck, a canned drink which contains not only the cheapest lemonade money can buy, but rounds it off nicely with a dash of the grottiest beer available west of the Himalaya. skinfull: n the amount of alcohol necessary to make one clearly inebriated. If you have a skinfull at lunch, you�ll be less likely to go back to the office and more likely to see whether you could urinate as high as the top of the �M� in the McDonalds logo. smart: 1 adj well dressed: You�re looking very smart today. Job interview? 2 adj intelligent (universal). Smarties: n small sugar-coated chocolate candies, not entirely dissimilar to chocolate M&Ms. Not related at all to the American candy product of the same name, which in the U.K. is known as Fizzers. soldiers: n strips of bread meant for dipping into a boiled egg. And yes, Brits also use the word to describe people who are in the army. To the best of my knowledge this duality of meaning has never caused any enormous problems.

spotted dick: n a suet pudding with raisins in it, often served on festive occasions and with custard. And yes, the Brits do use �dick� to mean the same thing Americans do. squash: n cordial; diluted fruit drink. It�s a little outdated - you�d be more likely to find your grandmother offering you �lemon squash� than you would your children. The vegetable that Americans call a �squash,� Brits call a �marrow.� starter: n appetizer. The dish you eat prior to your main meal. sultana: n golden raisin. Vine-dried green grape. supper: n Scottish takeaway meal served with (British) chips. When dish x is served in a Scottish chip shop with chips, it becomes an x supper. What the English call �fish and chips,� the Scots call a fish supper. swede: n rutabaga. sweet: 1 n candy: Never take sweets from strangers, or you�ll end up a dismembered corpse, rotting in a ditch like your auntie Jean. 2 n dessert (particularly in restaurants). swift half: n a half pint of beer, had swiftly before departing.

Although quite often it�s not really that. You might propose having a swift half with some people after work, when in reality you know that it probably won�t be just one swift half, it�ll be sixteen swift halves like last Wednesday, when Ernie ended up breaking his arm and you had sex with that homeless person. take-away: n 1 take-out food: I think we�re just going to get take-away. 2 take-out restaurant. A hot food retailer (personally I think in this instance �restaurant� is a little too strong) which only sells things that you can take home and eat or stagger down the street drunkenly stuffing in your mouth and distributing down your shirt. Blimey, that tastes good. Damnit, I�ve left my credit card in the pub again. Where are my keys? tater: n Northern England potato. Not exactly sure how America ended up calling the greasy French-fry derivatives �tater tots.� tea: n evening meal. At the risk of sounding terrible, it�s just a little �working class.� Maybe that doesn�t sound all that terrible. There are lots of more terrible things I could say. Ask my parole officer. tea-break: n coffee-break.

A break away from work, ostensibly to have a cup of tea, but perhaps also to have coffee or a sly fag. the razz: an evening spent out drinking. Both Americans and Brits use the term �razzing� to describe teasing someone. tipple: n a demure, civilised drink. Usually of sherry, Martini or some other light spirit measure. You grandmother might acquiesce to a tipple before dinner. My grandmother, as it happens, acquiesced to several tipples before dinner, and a few after. toad in the hole: n a delicacy consisting of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, in a sort of pie shape. The etymology is a tough one to guess at, as the dish itself contains no obvious holes and it�s difficult, although not impossible, to confuse sausages and toads. tomato sauce: n tomato ketchup. In the U.K. these two terms are interchangeable although �tomato ketchup� is in more common use, as tomato sauce could equally easily refer to the pasta-type sauce in a jar or can. treacle: n 1 molasses.

2 darling; honey, An affectionate and familiar term of address, not necessarily implying that there�s a sexual relationship going on, but sort of hinting that one might be plausible: Afternoon treacle! Haven�t seen you since that party at Mike�s house. trolleyed: adj extremely drunk. Perhaps the term came from something to do with ending up in hospital. No idea. tuck in: v eat enthusiastically; dig in: Well, come on, tuck in before it gets cold! This is probably related to the term �tuck shop�, which similarly uses the word �tuck�. Also it might not be related at all. wetting the baby�s head: n an evening in the pub celebrating the birth of a new baby. The event generally involves only the father and his mates, whilst the wife sits at home in a state of exhaustion surrounded by fresh nappies: Are you coming out on Friday? We�re wetting the baby�s head down at the Four Coachmen. wholemeal flour: n whole-wheat/whole-grain flour. I�ve no idea about food; I hope it�s not apparent. I just type what people tell me like a big unpaid secretary.

wife-beater: n beer with high-alcohol content: Give me a gin and tonic and a pint of wife beater. Brits do not use the American definition of the term (a ribbed, sleeveless undershirt).

Question: What do Americans call what the English call "chips"?
Answer: French fries