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

[flummoxedworried]

Does anyone understand why this happens?

My American colleague would say that she had the fixings for dinner or the fixings for a sandwich, and she meant the ingredients rather than sides.

Fixing to me is akin to constructive twiddling. Which is what you do when you make bread sauce, pigs in blankets etc. You can also fix a match, fiddle your taxes.... Fiddle, fix and twiddle are kind of the same word

I'd consider "the fixings" to be "the necessary things". The things. Adjust as necessary.

Roast turkey with all the fixings.
The fixings for dinner.

Just the things

Ooh I have a few !

Why do Americans pluralize Lego to Legos , yet make mathematics ,math ?
Are jumpers always pullovers or sweaters or do you also have jumpers ?
On a menu ,what is meant by starches ?
Why is a fete called a bake sale ?

Am I allowed to question the semantics of South Africans now. My friends son will send a text asking if he can be " fetched" from town. Really WTF?

Suspenders mean braces in the US. Found that one out the hard way.

Jumpers are knitted - like we would say "woolie jumpers"

No idea on the Lego / Maths thing

Starches are carbs side dishes, I think, so things like potatoes

A bake sale is a bake sale, not a fete like we would use the word - not quite sure what you mean by that one. Have you seen it used in that way somewhere?

habibihabibi

I believe these are jumpers to most North Americans.

I think they'd call a jumper a sweater.

Well, there you go. OlennasWimple experience is different than mine. The US is huge and has much variation within its borders.

(Yes, I know. I'm Canadian. But I know a lot about the states' and its culture having been raised in front of the tv, watching, primarily American programmes. Or should I say "programs"? )

I don't know if this has been said but when I watch My Kitchen Rules the Aussie version they call each course a meal. I'd never heard that before!

ByThe fetched from means the same as got from or, in that context, picked up from, surely? I think it's more a northern thing but it's English English, surely?

I don't know if it's still the case now, but in California in the 1990s, tights meant leggings, and flan (as in quiche) was a bit like creme caramel. And I only asked a neighbour to "give me a bang" (to go together somewhere) once

I'm not allowed to refer to DG's cat as a pussy cat in the US but am expected to refer to a bum bag as a fanny pack!

Tights definitely don't mean leggings anymore. In the US we'd call a fete a faire (or possibly a festival in a school setting.) Americans I know are always a bit mystified by the British various names for meals-dinner, tea, supper...especially tea!

Why do Americans pluralize Lego to Legos , yet make mathematics ,math ?

Same reason British people reduce mathematics to math, but reduce gymnastics to gym. Language is like that.

Why is a fete called a bake sale ?

Why is a bake sale called a fete? Surely it should be a 'fete worse than death'?

I don't know if it's still the case now, but in California in the 1990s, tights meant leggings, and flan (as in quiche) was a bit like creme caramel.

That would be because Flan is a Mexican dish like creme caramel.

The tights thing I cannot help you with - leggings are called leggings by every American I know. Lularoe are making a killing selling leggings.

Aha! Becky and Be - I'm too old for leggings now (actually, too fat...) but good to know I'd no longer be confusing people up and down the Western seabord. And Mexican flan? All becomes clear!

Two nations separated by a single language

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

For some reason, this really made me snigger. From now on I shall call egg cups 'mimsy little miniature cups' - so much more descriptive.

(But seriously, how do you eat a soft boiled egg without putting it in a mimsy little cup? Do you peel it first? How does that even work???)

BeAlert I don't shorten gymnastics to anything. That is the name of the activity. I would shorten gymnasium to gym tho.

You just hold the egg, cut the top off and scoop it all out onto a slice of toast then eat with a knife and fork. Egg cups do make it a bit easier but are not really necessary.

I can remember visiting an American friend in Texas and being when she made me a cup of tea by putting milk, cold water and a teabag in a cup and microwaving it.

Some time later she visited me in the UK, and witnessed me making tea with a kettle. "Oh my gahd I love your electric tea maker!"

Wh0Kn0wsWhereTheTimeGoes well that's not dippy soldiers. You might as well poach an egg...

I have soft-boiled eggs on toast quite often. It's not the same as a dippy egg! You have to dip a piece of toast into the runny yolk (there's never enough yolk). Then scoop out the white. Then turn the empty shell upside down and say I'm just about to eat my egg.

Then bash the empty shell until it's squished into the egg cup where it stays until your mum finds it & has to spend ages trying to flick tiny bits of shell out... I don't do that so much anymore... Wouldn't want to give my DC ideas!

I've bever come across it being called dippy eggs, just egg with toasted soldiers, but really I just thought it was something from children's fiction, not something anyone actually does.

Then again, I always thought entree meant main course in Britain too but that it was an old fashioned term that you never really come across nowadays. Shows how much I know!