Let's get into a little conversation about the differences between American English, British English and regional dialects. Some words are specific to certain dialects (lass is Scottish, the lads is British, etc.). Some words take different meaning (theatre vs. cinema to mean “movie theatre”). Pronunciation is obviously different, and spelling can be (neighbour/or, gray/grey, etc.).
What I wonder is this: are there some specifically British (or American, or whatever) idioms. I don't see why there shouldn't be, but I can't think of a single one right now. So, can you come forward with such idioms with the following constraints:
- the individual words do not markedly belong to one dialect
- it does not refer to a specific cultural element: geographic place, local dish, …
It would be fun to have some from a wide variety of English dialects, to broaden the perspective.
Edit: to clarify, an idiom in this question has the meaning of “a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words”
No comments:
Post a Comment