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

[Pipbin]

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

Cheerful Yank 12 hours would be huge to me! But 45 mins from town is a decent commute for London.

Loving this thread. A couple of questions for our friends in the US:

1. Do American citizens really like Donald Trump? He seems like an arrogant sexist man who answers his own questions on The Apprentice. The contestants and people in the audience in the final seem to go wild for him.

1. Why do men wear t-shirts under smart shirts? Also, I've seen guys wearing shirts and ties with jeans and hoodies.

45 minutes drive is very normal distance to your local "big town".

I'd consider 4 hours drive to be "quite long" - enough to be thinking about it and planning it in advance and generally feeling like I'd be doing a lot of driving that day.

6 hours drive would be "a long drive".

8 hours drive would be only in extreme circumstances, consider splitting over two days.

I have driven (or technically been driven) from East Anglia to the alps before but that was a bit silly and I would not recommend it.

"Under smart shirts" is what tshirts were invented for. Wearing them alone was a rebellious thing to do.

We could probably have a whole thread on "what's a reasonable distance to drive?" - I was just giving my thoughts, not claiming to speak for the whole of the UK.

I've never driven more than 6 hours away, I don't think I would either, I'd fly or get the train. Anything longer than an hour I'd consider a bit long though, as in I'd need to have a fairly good reason to drive more than an hour to somewhere.

Whether 45 minutes is next to or not depends I suppose, if it's the next big place then it's next to/near I'd think?

I'm about 45 minutes from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling, but I'm actually next to Edinburgh as it's only about 15 miles and the other two are more like 40 miles I just don't get caught in traffic and can use the motorway so it takes about the same time.

Thanks for the den explanation.

With regard to distances, I read the book Not Without my Daughter as a teenager. The author's parents were described as being "only two hours' drive away" (in the US). At that time my mum's parents were two hours' drive away and it always seemed that they lived a huge distance from us. I also remember an American student in my halls of residence describing Chicago as "only four hours' drive away."

We drove Texas to Florida with the dcs this spring, it was 9 hours so we did 6 and spent the night in Alabama. It was fine but the roads are so straight and boring that you have to be careful not to nod off.

I've driven 11 hours south coast England to Aberdeen a few times, not bad at all, but I do enjoy driving.

When we lived in AZ, we thought nothing of driving 6+ hours to Disneyland for the weekend in California.

But then I enjoyed the recent 4 hour drive to our holiday caravan site. It's been awhile since I've done a proper "road trip." I loved it.

I (with my then-teenage dd) drove my pick up truck loaded down with a trailer full of all our possessions and moved from Arizona to downeast Maine - we took over a week for the drive - had a wonderful time. We drove as long as we wanted to each day, stopped and visited friends and family along the way.

It's often easier to just get in the car and go in the States. My brother lives 7 hours away. With travel time and airport waiting time, it is really easier to pack the car and head up the highway, especially if we take our dog with us.

To be fair, I live very close to an airport...close enough that if someone texts me when they get off a plane I'm there to pick them up before they're out of the building unless it's rush hour. So for me to go to London (which I've done a few times) is a ten minute drive, check in, a coffee or two at the airport and less than an hour's flight time to London City airport, so no huge travel at the other end either.

Or at least an 8 hr drive where I'd get stuck in traffic trying to go round at least one city and it'd cost about the same in petrol as flying anyway.

I think that is one factor, I believe fuel costs a lot more over here, having a quick look online at currency conversion (and units, lol) I think it works at about $9.60 a gallon.

Scone probably cheaper too!

And to contrast with tabula, we have an hour's drive to airport (longer if rush hour), 1.5 hour wait at airport, then to one of the busiest airports in the country (Atlanta), exit Atlanta airport (that can take some time), then another hour to hour and a half to DB's house (more if rush hour).

And yes, Alice it is much cheaper.

We've driven in the UK, but only in Scotland. On our last trip we flew to Glasgow, rented a car and drove all over the country. We only messed up on one roundabout so were pretty pleased with ourselves.

Scone - I'd think the waiting time in the airport is about the same...just by the time I get through security I've used up a load of that time, and I'd rather sit and drink coffee after that than be driving, lol.

If I want to go further up into Scotland driving is really the best option though, I just happen to live near an airport.

I've just checked, out of nosiness, I can fly to London and back for less than £100...it'd cost me nearly twice that to drive.

Yes but fuel is cheaper here, we pay $3.50 a gallon, or just over gbp 2 a gallon, 60p a litre.

Is The Hof loved as much in the US as much as he is here in the UK?

This is fascinating! I got caught out searching for cordial recipes on the internet, being surprised how many of them involved vodka, until I realised why!

Two (probably rather silly) questions that have bothered me in the past from a British perspective:

If pants are trousers in the US, what are what the British call pants? (Am guessing the word knickers is British...)

If gas is what you put in the car, what do you call the gas you heat your home with etc? Is the word petrol not used at all?

UK pants = US pants, panties, underwear, briefs.

UK petrol = US gas

UK gas (to heat home) = US gas (natural gas)

I guess we did use gas for both petrol and gas, tbh, and I don't recall any confusion because it was generally pretty obvious you were either talking about your car or your house? I'm wondering if there isn't a higher percentage of homes using gas for heat here in the UK than there maybe are in the states? I've lived in numerous places - majority had electric forced air heating, some had oil heating, and one or two had gas heating. I suppose there's a wide mix.

I am strugging to think of when I used the word petrol in the states.

It's going to be confusing in the US if cars which actually do run on gas (LPG or natural or someday hydrogen) become common! I know it's an abbreviation for 'gasoline' but it does seem a bit perverse that the commonest usage of 'gas' in the us is a liquid at STP.

Thanks Alice, that's really helpful!

Errol that's true. The word gasoline only seems to be used now in old films and rock songs :-)

I actually have a question more for my fellow American mumsnetters.

Do you change your wording and spelling to post here? I often do with words, I don't want my posts to be confusing because I said "pants" instead of "trousers", but it makes me feel like a fraud. I sometimes want to change my spelling because I worry I'm judged for having bad spelling if I write "humor" instead of "humour", but I then I can't bring myself to do it, because it's wrong to me. I do write "mum" instead of "mom" most of the time, because people seem to have such strong feelings about it.

And UK mumsnetters, would you notice/care about American spellings? If they don't have an obvious username like CheerfulYank would you guess they were American or just bad at spelling? (Both?)

I do miss the world cup flags, it was kind of nice having people see my little flag and be able to assume. Though I had an occasional poster bring it up as something to take issue with me about.

I don't mind Americans using American spellings. I get incensed when The Guardian newspaper insists on using American expressions when there is a perfectly good British one, and worse, uses expressions which are totally meaningless to us to boot. They would probably use America spellings if they could, but readers seem to pull them up on those pretty sharpish.

letter - I think that happens anyway.

I don't type how I talk, the odd word slips through, but...

I don't ever say yes, I say aye and I tend to type yeah or yes instead, words like wee I use sparingly where I say them all the time, but a wee puddle for instance does not read well if you don't know someone is Scottish, lol and I wouldn't use words like juice how I normally would.

I end up using things like SEN and SN where I just wouldn't ever ever say them, not just because it's a different term in Scottish education. If a pupil has additional support needs that's what I'd say as that's what it is called up here, if I was talking about someone with a disability then that is how I would put it. If for instance I was discussing in conversation things like autism...I would always call it a disability and only use SN in here if I'm replying to someone else.

Then of course there are things like gonnae and dinnae, didny and wasny that I say but wouldn't ever write in any format anywhere, lol.

When it comes to spelling, only things like loose instead of lose bother me...and that's just because it's a different word and I have to reread it before the sentence makes sense. If I can read it, I don't care.