4 ms·
As an American who lives in the UK, here are some of the daily things that you might think are someone being cute but are 100% proper and accepted speech, even
by ageitgey 6y ago
As an American who lives in the UK, here are some of the daily things that you might think are someone being cute but are 100% proper and accepted speech, even in a formal BBC news story:
- Vegetables are just called 'veg'.
- You don't get a shot, you get a 'jab'.
- You say 'whilst' instead of 'while'
- You don't get a turn, you 'have a go'.
- Band-aids are called 'plasters'.
- Many vegetables have different names. Eggplants are 'aubergines'. Cucumbers are 'courgettes'. Pickles are 'gherkins'.
So a headline like "To Promote Veg And Vaccines, Boris Johnson Has A Go With COVID Jab Whilst Eating A Gherkin and Walks Away With A Plaster" is maybe a little silly, but totally proper.
They also write 'Mr Johnson' without the '.' after 'Mr' - and they call the '.' a 'full stop'. Basically it's a real nightmare over here.
tl;dr - You should localize your US software for the UK market if you want to fit in. It's more different than you think. Even street addresses work differently here.
- binrec 6y agoIf pickles are called gherkins, what are gherkins called? Or is there no separate word for them? (In the US, a gherkin is a small pickled cucumber. A cornichon is a type of gherkin, but there are other types.)
- chrisseaton 6y ago> In the US, a gherkin is a small pickled cucumber That's exactly what a gherkin is in the UK. What is 'a pickle' to you?
- carmen_sandiego 6y agoI don't think we care that much about localisation in software. Or rather we're very used to not having it. So as a native I recommend not spending that much effort on it. A lot of the above will make you fit in better, but some are kind of colloquial and the standard 'international' ones work fine. Nobody will find it unusual if you use 'while', for example, or ask for your 'turn'. True enough though, 'shot', 'band-aid', and probably 'eggplant' will mark you as an outsider. Some of them are also class-based, which is a whole other thing that I'm happy to say Americans suffer much less from. Also, when in the US, I feel weird calling a band-aid a band-aid because it feels like corporate subservience. A bit like I feel a pang of rebellious disgust when using the word 'hoover' in British company.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoCourgettes (from French) are zucchini (from Italian). Cucumbers are cucumbers but I understand that commonly not the same ones.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Pickles are 'gherkins' Only pickled cucumbers are gherkins. You wouldn't call a pickled egg or onion or whatever else a 'gherkin'.
- samatman 6y agoWhile this is correct, in American vernacular 'pickle' without qualifications is precisely a gherkin.
- jfengel 6y agoMy understanding was different. In the US, if you ask for a "pickle", what you'll get is about 3-4 inches long. If you ask for a gherkin, it's likely to be more like 1-1.5 inches long. The "-kin" suffix is diminutive. Etymology isn't destiny, but I think most American speakers think of gherkins as smaller than pickles. Wikipedia is a little confusing on the subject. It confirms that gherkins are small, but also "up to five inches". Which is indeed small for a cucumber, but cucumbers bigger than 5 inches are rarely pickled (they get mushy). So the notion of gherkins as "small pickled cucumbers" seems vague, and I think people disagree, but I don't know the geography of that disagreement.
- samatman 6y agoThe small ones we call "cornichons" but they're a "pickle", "pickled cucumber" is a redundancy you would seldom hear. And yes, if you get a "gherkin" in the USA it will be on the small side, but "gherkin" in the Commonwealth is just any (cucumber) pickle.