to not understand why Americans call a main course an entrée?

[flummoxedworried]

Does anyone understand why this happens?

I don't know the answer to rhe OP. I'm more curious as to why they say "could care less" when they mean "couldn't care less". It just makes no sense.
Agreed!

"and they don't really have kettles"

My DP was staying in the US in an apartment. Went to Walmart to get himself a kettle and when he couldn't see one he asked a member of staff for help. She couldn't understand what he was asking and thought he was saying "cat tool"* so between the pair of them they were utterly befuddled

*No, I have no idea what a cat tool is either!

I had problems asking for "water". I think it's because I was studying the "t", I can't even remember which part of America it was!! They kept asking me what I wanted. "oh wader" . I can't spell it phonetically to explain. I said more war ter.

Yes Americans don't understand 'water' said the English way.

One thing I find a bit weird is the way the Brits tend to pronounce borrowed French words with the stress on the first syllable, whereas in the US it tends to be on the last - like in 'beret' and 'garage'. I've always wondered why that is (probably because I'm a French teacher- I'm sure nobody else cares ).

My dad came over to the US from England with me when we were completing the paperwork with our realtor to buy our house. He asked about the solicitor!! 😂

Solicitor = prostitute
Attorney = solicitor

Our realtor learnt a lot that day!

The Walmart in our nearest city has a British foods section, and even the dollar store sells Cadburys.

I have an electric kettle, I don't know anyone without one. I have a stove top one too, and use them interchangeably.

There is plenty of all kinds of cheese in all of the grocery stores around here, including eye wateringly strong ones and more unusual varieties.

I butter my sandwiches.

I eat doggy bag contents as a breakfast feast

Home baked cakes in America come from a box mix! I always think that's strange, I mean how easy is it to bake a cake using a simple sponge recipe

pixie I'm always baffled when my american friends share those mini recipe videos on FB.

Homemade this and homemade that...and ALWAYS from a box! Weird.

I make my cakes/cookies from scratch as both DS and I have coeliac disease so its easier, but I always have a few boxes of cake mixes in the pantry for emergency cake providing as I don't have non gf flour in the house.

One thing I think is worldwide is the descriptions realtors/estate agents use. Needs some updating, nope needs tearing down

Wait so do you peel your soft boiled eggs before you serve them? I am overly invested in this egg this.

MAny Americans make cakes/cookies from scratch - if you look at a
uk supermarket there are many box mixes available. ANd those 'recipes' that circulate on FB are about as real as the shite that people post on there.

In fact, the fresh fruit/veg section of supermarkets tend to be bigger than I see in the UK.

MAny Americans make cakes/cookies from scratch - if you look at a
uk supermarket there are many box mixes available.

But it's a lot more common in America to use mixes and they put pudding in the mix too!

Have we done the date thing yet? DMY makes sense as a progression, and YMD makes sense as a naming convention because the things being named can be sorted alphabetically and this will also sort them into date order. But MDY?

Fruit and veg and food in general really are a bit of a minefield. Courgette = zucchini and aubergine = eggplant of course, but then there is sweets = candy and others have already mentioned the pudding confusion and the biscuit/cookie conundrum.

But it's a lot more common in America to use mixes and they put pudding in the mix too!

Not in any of the places I've lived in the US.

Hapshawl, yes you are spot on, it does mean outside the Main Work/Event I got that wrong, I was thinking of oeuvre but got the hors (outside) wrong.

Shows I really ought to just stick with my Franglais threads!

Or should I say "My bad" if we're talking all yanky on this Thread.

Also, if you name your computer files by the date, Office doesn't recognize file names as being dates so they don't sort properly unless you use month day year, which you can't in this country as nobody knows what you mean but oh how I miss it.

Surely that's only because Office is designed to use the American date format?

No the dates is so you can file things properly. If you were filing by date, would you put the files in order by the day or by the month? The day is less relevant than the month: if you say the 1st, there are 12 1sts you could be talking about.

In a "sorting" context The year is the first POI as you wouldn't want your 2014 May 2nd files to be listed after your 2016 May 1st files.

In a "what is today's date?" context the day is the first POI before either the month or the year.

Can't think of a context in which the month would take precedence over both the day and year.

We asked for soft-boiled eggs here in a restaurant once.

They brought out poached eggs...

As a Canadian I can't tell you how surprised I was the first time I was given Yorkshire pudding. What the actual fuck? If it doesn't come in chocolate, vanilla or butterscotch, how can it be pudding?

The concept of "steak and kidney pudding" must really mess with your head.

Oh and what about the calendars - I can't get my head around the US thing of starting the week on a Sunday. Surely Sat/Sun is called the weekEND for a reason.

For those who still smoke, can I recommend NOT mentioning that you're "dying for a fag" in the US. Before I packed up, I did it once in South Carolina and the response was a little ... errr ... surprised

It is actually possible to eat boiled eggs without sitting them in a mimsy little miniature cup.

Wait so do you peel your soft boiled eggs before you serve them? I am overly invested in this egg this.

And, if so, how tf do you shell a soft-boiled egg without it bursting and squirting its runny yolk everywhere?

(Also over-invested in this egg thing)