Why were you surprised? Aside from the government mandated minimum CND content the majority of media Canadians consume is American.
Then consider that that, percent wise, the number of English speaking Canadians in Hollywood are over represented wrt non California (again, English speaking) North Americans.
Then the family mixing between Canadians and Americans is huge. Most famously the families of the draft dodgers, but Im always surprised by the number of Americans who tell me they had a Canadian grandparent.
Finally, like my uncle (who also lived in and travelled extensively in the USA and CND) told me when I first arrived to the US from Canada: there’s a larger difference crossing North America East-West than there is North-South. Look at MN. They sound like they’re from Thunder Bay.
In short; Canadians help make US media, Canadians consume US media, Canadians are intermarried w/ Americans and demographically its as hard to distinguish an urban Canadian (Vancouver, GTA) from an urban American (Seattle, Jersey) as it is to distinguish a flyover Canadian from a flyover American.
Makes me want to say "yes I am sensitive to spelling. Especially to misspelled words ;) " (especially as curb having the same origin as curve) but yeah, it's not hard to see what it means.
Seems like it was spelled that way looking at the etymology to differentiate kurb and curb. Seems like when horses were still prominent curb referred to a strap used on horses.
Basically, curb was a type of restraint meant to hold back. So a curb/kurb on the street is just a tiny retaining wall holding back dirt. Some times it is fun to look at etymology. Also makes phrases "like curb your ambition" make more sense.
Something to remember is that not very long ago, many words didn't have an accepted spelling, they were spelled phonetically. Although Curb would sound correct since it might be to curb things on the road from hitting the pavement/sidewalk, spelling it as kerb would have been OK.
Bill Bryson talks about this in one of his books (long time ago, I can't remember which) and it explains weird things like why the US pronounce Derby as it sounds but the Brits call it so it sounds like Darby.
I guess you've seen it somewhere so your observation is equally as valid as mine, but I've lived (UK) in the North West, Midlands, and South West, and have worked in London, and I've never seen the word kebop anywhere ever.
The data suggest that over 80% of people in the UK know what 'pelmet' means.
I had to look it up, so the 80% number surprises me. Perhaps it's because I've always bought blinds instead of curtains, or maybe the sample isn't representative? Or maybe I just need to pay more attention...
> The data suggest that over 80% of people in the UK know what 'pelmet' means
I think it's whether they recognise it as a real word or not, not if they understand the meaning. From the paper:
> For each vocabulary test, a random sample of 67 words and 33 nonwords was selected. For each letter string, participants had to indicate whether or not they knew the stimulus.
And cheese variety such as the Italian provolone. (It's weird that the cheese shelves in a big supermarket basically only contained cheddars.) EDIT: To be honest, this was Tesco Ireland some 15 years ago. There may have been cheese in other forms such as soft mozzarella and powdered parmesan, but definitely no provolone, gouda, manchego, emmentaler, port salut etc. It's just natural that you might not know a cheese if your supermarket doesn't stock it.
Provolone seems to be a fairly 'American' cheese. I almost never see it anywhere in Europe, even in stores that otherwise have a wide selection of quality French and Italian cheeses. In the US it's far more of a staple cheese. I've also noticed that at least some cheese sold as "Provolone" in the US isn't actually from Italy, something which would not be allowed in Europe.
> Provolone seems to be a fairly 'American' cheese.
It's definitely quite common in Italy (together with the smaller "provola"), but not so much in other EU countries.
> I've also noticed that at least some cheese sold as "Provolone" in the US isn't actually from Italy
This doesn't surprise me... I hear that there is also plenty of "Parmesan-like" cheese sold in US supermarkets too (not sure how good or bad it resembles actual Parmesan).
"Muenster" Cheese in the US is another one that surprises people. Tastes nothing like real "Munster" cheese from Alsace. Which is making me wonder if Provolone in the US tastes anything like Provolone in Italy.
I'm fairly sure that almost none of the "parmesan" cheese you can buy in a US grocery store is actually parmesan. I'd have to look it up, but I think the stuff that comes in a plastic shaker is mostly "filler" of some kind.
If you want actual parmesan cheese in the US, you're probably looking for "Parmigiano Reggiano".
You can describe your wine as a "burgundy style" in your marketing material, just like you can say your wine is made using the "champagne method", but the words "Burgundy" or "Champagne" cannot appear on the label of your wine.
As the other commenters said, yes. And of course, at least Italy (but probably more countries in the EU/the whole of the EU) would really like to enforce the same limits on denominations in the US.
To be honest I only knew about manicotti because of the sopranos, not necessarily because I'm American. Although it's possible that's why more Americans know about it.
> Probably one in a country that exited their trade bloc full of countries known for a variety of cheeses.
We still get EU cheeses in the supermarket - and photos of bare shelves/shortages in the media are pandemic-caused not Brexit-related (for the record I was a remainer so would gladly blame Brexit if that were the case).
However, even if we didn't get the EU cheeses we'd hardly be desperate given that some estimates put the varieties of cheese produced in the UK as high as 700 placing us alongside (or above) both France and Italy. We're certainly in the running for most varieties by most measures (though only around 10th or 11th for volumes, and to be fair a number of our varieties are more like variations though that doesn't take away from the point that the UK is a great cheese-producing nation in it's own right).
I was surprised to find the word "to abseil" being known in the UK. It clearly is of German origin and used literally (eg. to descend a mountain on a rope = Seil) as well as figuratively (to sneak out of an unpleasant situation).
Both the activity and the word seems common in the UK. We did it at least a couple of times in school as part of some "team building" adventure day. Specifically it meant lowering yourself down a vertical wall using rope, a climbing harness and a figure-8.
There are also a lot of „expedition“ related words (e.g. Rucksack) that made their way to Japanese.
IIRC the Germans did a lot of expeditions/Mountaineering in the Himalaya, etc. and I assume that this is how these words transferred to English/Japanese.
I wasn't aware of the figurative connotation, I will remember this next time I'm retreating from a climb.
"HMS carabiner" is also common amongst anglophone climbers (for the "Halbmastwurfsicherung" knot you might use as an alternative to your sticht plate).
I have to admit that I (British) can't even think of another word to use in place of abseil, that word is so common. I've always presumed that was the only word there is for that particular activity.
Knew 10/20 UK and 9/20 US, as a continental European.
Fun article, but I am not really sure if these brand name catchall things should really count. Although Acetaminophen as a different abbreviation than Paracetamol is interesting, most people here would just ask for an Aspirin or generic painkiller (unless at the pharmacy, being exact) if they asked a friend for some painkiller - so it's either more unspecific or just wrong in this case
My only exposure to the word paracetamol in the US is from playing the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game. Think we looked it up in the dictionary the first time we played in back in the 80s.
No I meant it exactly as I wrote it, without any judgement. Aspirin is just used as a generic term for painkiller by a lot of people, and until like 10-20y ago it was also the most common thing. I'd say most people are migrating to Ibuprofen these days for stuff like "I have a headache that's not killing me" but people still say Aspirin, usually followed up by a question if whatever is available is ok...
In the US, Tylenol is the term commonly used instead of acetaminophen (Tylenol has been a major brand name for acetaminophen for many decades and is quite prevalent) and I thought perhaps you had Aspirin and Tylenol mixed up. I've never actually heard someone refer to Tylenol as Aspirin, and I've never heard of Aspirin being a generic term for painkiller, so I attempted to come up with what I had thought might be a more plausible explanation based on my experiences.
Took a while until I grasped what Sudafed is because afaik it's not even on the market here and never has been. There was some sort of Pseudoephedrin pill I actually took against hayfever a while ago, but not the standard "clogged nose because cold thing" (please excuse if I described Sudafed poorly, but see above) :)
It's very common for the older generations to call any pain or fever medicine "aspirin" and for the younger generations to call it "Tylenol".
I tend to be specific, but I still use "Tylenol" instead of "acetaminiphen" because few people would know what I meant if I used the latter. "Ibuprofen" is commonly used enough that I use that term, but I've heard people refer to it as "Motrin" almost as often. Almost no one would know what I meant if I asked for "naproxen" instead of "Aleve".
I live in the South, and the above may or may not be true elsewhere. It's definitely not limited to mediciations, either. Where I live if someone offers you a Coke and you accept, there's a good chance you're going to get a Pepsi, a Sprite, or some other arbitrary carbonated beverage.
As a Brit who lived in the US for roughly ten years, I knew most of them... which I guess is unsurprising. I didn't know albuterol, we called that ventolin when I was a kid. I also didn't know kwanza and manicotti, I guess those are due to the Italian and Jewish cultural influences in the US.
To be clear, I'm not stating a position of value judgement with this statement; it seems relevant to me to state it because it's not even a well-known thing in the United States. An older person from the UK would have had very little chance to be exposed to it.
I'm from the US and in my 50s, and read quite a bit, but never encountered the word 'bespoke' until a couple of years ago. Not sure whether it's rising in popularity or what. I see it fairly often now.
It's been used as long as I remember for high-end custom garments. I've also seen it for a long time related to firearms in the US - but only very specifically when talking about custom, extremely high-end English rifles and shotguns. How high-end? Well, the Wiki page for Boss & Co. cites a quote by King George VI: "A Boss gun, a Boss gun, bloody beautiful, but too bloody expensive!”
Basically, "bespoke" has been used in the US in reference to goods desired by or consumed by the English gentry class.
Recently I've begun seeing it used to describe anything where you'd paying more for ostensibly hand-selected products. The example that comes to mind is "Bespoke Post" (https://www.bespokepost.com/) - which is, ironically, pretty much the opposite of the historical meaning of the word.
It seems like the long-term impact of the "Hipster" culture on the SV world.
It's interesting how quickly a word can gain widespread acceptance. I don't recall seeing "payed" used outside of nautical contexts before a few years ago but now it's rapidly pushing "paid" out of use. It might not be to the 50% point yet but it's certainly spreading in use quickly and might become dominate soon.
Most of them are loan words from other languages, but not all.
"Crawdad", "chigger", and "goober" stand out to me as being actually "American" in origin.
A crawdad is a small fresh-water crustacean - they look like small lobsters. They're found in creeks, springs, and similar moving shallow waterways. Also known as "crawfish" or "crayfish". They're very common in the southern US.
A chigger is an insect found pretty much everywhere in the South. They're so small they're effectively invisible, very common, and leave ~3-5mm itchy red bumps on your skin. If you go for a walk through tall grass, you're going to itch for days from all the chigger bites.
Goober is an old word, and can mean a couple of things. It usually means "peanut". I know that in the South in the late 19th Century, peanuts were at least sometimes called "goober peas" because there was a Confederate marching song of that name. At some point it also came to mean a stupid/ignorant person. I suspect that's because of the stereotype of the poor farmers who typical grew peanuts. The mechanic on the Andy Griffith show was named "Goober", which probably either started or popularized that association.
It grinds my gears that "tamale" is on this list. The singular of tamales, in Spanish, is "tamal". God forbid English speakers have to remember to drop one syllable.
As a Canadian I was disappointed to find my familiarities sided more on the US side than the UK. Now excuse me as I go look up 'gazump' ...