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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 41 of 47 14 November 2013 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
hmm....you really don't have a different word for that squarish receptable with a draining board, to differentiate it from the (usually these days) roundish receptable for washing hands and face in the bathroom (or toilet)? Strange. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 42 of 47 14 November 2013 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I was brought up with "serviette". "Duvets" were new to me in the mid-1970s. My parents talked about bedspreads, but it sounds a bit old fashioned now. Where do you stand on "eiderdown"? :-) Obviously this must have meant originally a covering that was stuffed with the down of an eider duck, but we used it to mean any heavy top covering for the bed, to keep out the cold in winter. Now we have duvets, we don't seem to have eiderdowns any more. BTW, the word "trash" was in use in England in the 16th-17th centuries. It appears in a song my John Dowland that was published around 1600 ("Fine Knacks for Ladies"). I don't think it's in common use in the UK nowadays, but you hear "trashed" and "trashy" quite a lot. One American usage that sometimes throws me is that of "school" to mean university. We never use it like that in the UK (although slightly confusingly some universities refer to some of their subdivisions as "schools", e.g. "the school of English"). I suppose Americans aren't confused by this use of school because they would use "high school" when they want to talk about the place where older children go, and "elementary schol" for younger children (in England "secondary school" and "primary school" respectively, although some specific (usually prestigious) schools may be individually known as "xyz High School", usually for historic reasons. ... In the UK "college" has a variety of meanings and common usages. Oxford and Cambridge famously have their constituent colleges, as has London University, and a few others. More generally, "college" would be used for some educational institute that generally has a status lower than a university. ... Then there are specialist usages like "The Royal College of Surgeons" which are not educational institutes in the normal sense (maybe they were historically), but are now (to quote the RCN website): "The Royal College of Surgeons of England is a professional membership organisation and registered charity, representing surgeons in the UK and abroad. We advance surgical standards and improve care for patients." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 43 of 47 14 November 2013 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are American words to describe various aspects of academic life that I have never heard in the UK.
Things like freshman, sophomore, fraternity & sorority. Even semester didn't seem to get used when I was young. The term was term. Also, "trick or treating" was unknown to me as a boy. The ubiquitous Scots term was guising. Edited by beano on 14 November 2013 at 8:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 44 of 47 16 November 2013 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I saw a "use the washbasin only for your hands!" sign on a beach in Malta.
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| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 45 of 47 17 November 2013 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A kitchen sink is actually sunk below the surface of the worktops, whereas a washbasin either sits atop a
pedestal or simply protrudes from the wall. Edited by beano on 17 November 2013 at 11:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 46 of 47 17 November 2013 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Now you're getting technical.
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| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4173 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 47 of 47 18 November 2013 at 7:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've heard both washbasin and sink used to describe the thing in the bathroom. I use sink more often, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that estate agents advertising a house would use "washbasin" because it sounds marginally more grandiose, and people advertising will take any opportunity to use the "posher" sounding of two phrases.
One interesting US/UK difference is the usage of flat/apartment. In the UK, the word "apartment" was adopted by estate agents to suggest a more modern and sophisticated dwelling than a flat, and often used on more upmarket accommodation. Conversely, I've heard that in recent years, American realtors have started to use "flat" for exactly the same reason, presumably due to the habit of associating anything British with sophistication. In fact, I've read that a number of British usages have become far more common in the US with the widespread access to the internet and the increase of Americans accessing British media sources, when previously everything was Americanised for them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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