Top 10 UK-US words lost in translation
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The tell-tale signs of being a Brit in Iraq are rarely more apparent than when embedded with American soldiers.
Phrases such as: “Please may I borrow your torch?” or: “Where’s the loo?” draw puzzled expressions on US faces until translated into words they understand, namely “May I borrow your flashlight?” or: “Where’s the bathroom?”
Also, the British accent stands out so much more when surrounded by American voices. Apparently my Queen’s English ensures that I sound intelligent no matter how the dumb the remark I make, which is a bit of a bonus.
Riding around in the back of combat vehicles, I’m encouraged to speak over the internal radio to share various English words such as: “minging” or “minger”.
To any non-English-English speaker, this useful expression refers in the first sense to something unpleasant like sewage and in the second sense to an ugly “bloke” or “bird”, sorry I mean (for any American reading this) “dude” or “chick”.
It is frequently said that Britain and the United States are two countries separated by a common language. Well after a two-week embed with US troops I could not agree more.
Here are my top 10 phrases or words that get lost in trans-Atlantic translation. There are a few swear words that I would also love to share but this is probably not the right forum…
admin @ August 16, 2008