UK and America are two countries separated by a common language, UK and US Q&A

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Continuation of the previous thread where posters from the UK ask questions like 'what the hell is going on with the gaps in US toilet doors'; and posters fro the US ask things like 'what is with wearing stripes'

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2149133-to-think-there-is-something-wrong-with-Americans?msgid=48969042#48969042

Wow, yes that's much better than their stingy employers! My male cousin's girlfriend gets 4 weeks, but my female cousin's boyfriend is having to take all his 2 week entitlement at once, because they're all coming to Europe: UK, Holland & Germany, all in a fortnight.

My husband has worked for his firm for five years and has three weeks holiday.

Washers cost a dollar each time around here, and dryers another dollar. It really adds up even if you don't have an extra large family. Before buying my old house I lived in a second floor walkup and had to carry laundry and DS down the outside back stairs with DD1 accompanying us. I washed frequently so as not to have to carry too much down and then back up as well as baby DS. Looking back, I think I would have got it done cheaper if I had taken them all in the car to a launderette once a week, and there wouldn't have been cobwebs or creepy crawlies to deal with either.

Sorry but a dollar is quite cheap compared to most places outside the US, in my hometown a washer costs £3.60 at the cheapest, and you need to keep feeding dryers with 50ps.

I only usually use launderette a in the US and always get a shock when I use one in the UK or Europe.

I have a question. Do all Americans generally have perfect teeth? I understand that those on the telly will, but your average joe? Who doesn't have a fancy job or loads of money? It just seems unlikely to me, given that US healthcare is insurance dependent.

Tootsie rolls are similar to taffy.

Another thing we don't have.

But I seem to remember 'salt water taffy isn't actually made with salt water' thank You Ross Geller

The dollar every time was for basement laundry facilities in an apartment building almost 25 years ago now but generally machines still take that much or up to $2 nowadays around here.

For a laundrette the smallest wash size here will set you back $5 each load, and you feed the dryers with quarters according to the time you want.

A neighbour has recently returned from three years living in the States and one of the first things I noticed when I bumped into her, were her teeth.

Both her, her husband and eldest DD had obviously had extensive work done while they were out there and it's very noticeable but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. They look awful. They all look as if they're wearing dentures as everything is just too perfect, it looked very odd and 'fake'. Would love to know how much that lot cost!

I worked for a city (police department) and even after working there 10-15 years, I still only had 3 weeks off holiday time per year. And 12 days sick time, that accumulated. You could take time off if you were sick or if your kids were sick, but then on your yearly review, you'd get penalised for any time taken off sick, even if it was for your kids. As I was a single parent of a child with severe asthma, I missed some work here and there.

At one point, I was written up for having "more than the department average of sick time used" so I had to write the comment on there that when the department was made up of single parents with children with a chronic medical condition, then I'd likely be right in there with the rest of them, but that it was unfair to compare me to a mostly male group of employees that had wives that didn't work and never had to take time off when their child was sick. Pissed me right off, it did.

No, Americans don't have perfect teeth. Dental work is very expensive and only affordable if you have dental insurance of some sort, are wealthy, or on benefits completely. No NHS dentists there. It's all pay as you go.

Tator tots are kind of like fat potato rostis. Yum.

Is teaching classed as a 'profession'? Is it respected as it is (was) in the UK? What are the wages like? I recall chatting briefly to a barman in Fl. and he said he had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet.
For context, I earn ~£30K (before tax) as a qualified full time teacher w/6 years experience.

...the barman was obv. full time teacher too.

Blimey has anybody looked at that school list?It must cost an absolute fortune 24 eraser pens(which are extortionate),12 pencils(for grade 5)paints,tissues,even play dough for the little ones,computer headphones......

With 3 kids it would cripple me.Literally everything has to be provided by parents.What if you're poor?Don't taxes cover it?It must take you all summer to buy it all

And there is me whining about the cost of school,shoes over here.That said I love buying stationary.

I'd like to know if everybody is sporty.

On TV,blogs etc everybody seems to either do sport,watching it on TV or be going to see it.You must all be way fitter than us.How much sport do kids actually do in school and in their free time?Are you expected to participate more?

Here only football fans go to see football,rugby,cricket matches,not the entire family or even community iykwim.

And labelling all that stuff.Don't tell me you have to label every crayon.

They must need a trailer to carry it all on in on the first day back.

I can only answer briefly about teachers, it depends a lot on your degree. f you have a Masters, Doctorate, etc. the higher the degree the more money you make, although I've heard it's harder to get a job when you have a doctorate because they just can't afford to pay you the wage. I also think it's depends on which state you are teaching in. I'm from Utah where the Education budget is smaller than other states and class sizes are typically around 40 kids per classroom. I'm not sure about the general population, but I think choosing to be a teacher is a respected position.

Everybody is not sporty, a lot of people do enjoy watching sports, but not so much playing them. I find that people in the UK are a lot more sporty, ie going to play football with their mates. It's much more popular to gather around the TV and eat food, then go to the park and actually do stuff. When I was in school we had PE and did some sports, depending on my age. The younger I was, the more sports I did. They have a lot of private sports things you can sign your kids up to, like Little League (baseball), Junior Jazz (basketball), etc. but you don't do it through the school.

if you want to throw another wrench in it

That would be a spanner here. A wrench is something different.

Whenever I watch a US TV show or film they seem to never close the curtains at nighttime, is this normal or just for 'dramatic purposes'?!

Loving this thread. I havr family in USA so have come across some of these differences .

Root beer is lush. As is grape soda

IMO teachers are treated the same way in the US as they are over here. I do feel that nurses get much more respect in the US than they do in the UK.

lol LaVolcan that is correct regarding the wrench. Although I can't say as I'm sure what a wrench is in the UK - I have used the term a few times when referring to a spanner. Have I said something dreadful??

The curtains thing IMO is just a television thing. Everyone I know closes their curtains after dark just like most people I know here.

Grape soda. Oh my, I haven't had that in ages. I only like root beer in root beer floats.

As far as sporty goes, nope. About the same as here - some are sporty, some are not. Same kind of mix as the UK.

How do they get all those school supplies to school?And what about the kids whose parents can't afford it,it must be so humiliating.

DD's school didn't say "everyone has to bring this.." they sent home a list saying we need x number of this, this, this... Please donate either the items or money. Usually those who were struggling financially would donate an item or two, whereas those that were in a better financial position would donate more. I always tried to put quite a bit extra in, as I've been in that position of not being able to purchase the stuff, and it's humiliating. So I very quietly sent in extra supplies and money to help cover it. (but I also didn't purchase all the items sent home to buy throughout the year either - I don't like school trying to get kids to fund by selling. So that was basically my main donation to the school for the year.

We lived in a single stores house in Houston, but friends in two stores houses had their washers and driers upstairs - great idea as it saves all that lugging up and down stairs, but no so good if you get a leak.

Our neighborhood had pavements, but nobody walked anywhere - people would slow down in cars and stare at me when DS and I walked to the pool or the playground. Well it was 35C and about 98% humidity, so we were obviously not local!

I loved having hummingbirds in the garden, and we quickly got used to the idea of avoiding spiders and watching out for snakes - I must have been very naive as it didn't occur to me that there might be venomous spiders and snakes before we arrived.

My washing machine was a top loader, and great at making tiny holes in clothes - although that might be a function of the washing powder as they all seemed to rely in bleach to get rid of stains. My tumble dryer was huge, and we managed to find a similar one in the UK when we returned (no, it doesn't have a window in the door).

I have a condenser dryer here in the UK - no window on the door. I don't remember ever having a dryer with a window in the states either.

And the teeth thing - cosmetic dentistry seems to be a huge business, we used to get flyers through the door saying things like "Didn't get that job? Maybe it was because your smile wasn't white enough!" A friend had slightly receding gums and had them fixed - it involved a lot of pain and consuming only liquids for about a month.

Religious schools are interesting, DS went to a Southern Baptist pre-school (our lovely neighbours found us a place) which was a wonderful nursery school. We had "autumn and harvest" themes rather than Halloween. The school extended up through junior, middle and high schools, which presented problems when you had to get your head around creationalism rather than evolution (kind of hard when you're a geologist - I overheard a geology lecturer in Utah talking to his mate in a bar explaining that he was struggling to teach creationalist paleontology, which involves understanding evolution through fossils).