Do Americans understand British English?

[knickernicker]

I can't think that there is any American phrase, word or accent that I wouldn't understand, but I wonder if an American would understand everything I say.
I remember sitting for a meal with some people from Boston and being acutely aware of needing to edit what I said to remove any British idiom. It was an odd feeling as when watching American films I forget they're a different nationality.

Don't get me started on Fanny Packs

High Street concept is called Main Street in US.

Until the advent of BBC America, most British shows were shown on PBS (Pubic Television System) and were/are considered a bit high brow.
Masterpiece Theater featured, for example, Upstairs Downstairs, The First Churchills, Poldark, Brideshead Revisited, Love in a Cold Climate (the one with Judi Dench). Downton Abbey is now Masterpiece's most popular series ever.

Later we began to get the "Britcoms," Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Are You being Served, 'Allo 'Allo, You Rang, M'lord, Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Goes By. No soaps.

But PBS was very much for (and still is) a niche (pronounced "nitch" btw) audience, so many Americans would not have watched them.

Now we have much more with BBC America. Luther, Broadchurch, etc.

We also had and still have quite a lot of British mysteries: Morse, Inspector Lewis, Inspector Banks, Miss Marple, Foyle's War (my current favorite), Rebus, etc.

Band-Aid for plasters
Rubber band for elastic band

Shot for jab (or jag in Scotland)

I remember fondly a stint working in LA with a UK living Texan boss who was keyed into BritEng. We were having dinner with the rest of the team, which included my extremely pompous NY counterpart. After a few drinks I couldn't bear him any longer and I told him he was talking"a lot of bollocks". He queried this directly with the boss in front of everyone and I held my breath... my wonderful, genial boss said in his Texan drawl "I'm afraid she doesn't quite see eye to eye with you on that one, son..."

I live in the States and can honestly say that everyone I know understands everything I say. The only time I have ever really had a problem was in a Drive Thru when a Hispanic woman misunderstood my, "Dr Pepper" for "Orange" about 20 times. However, it entertained my children who still laugh about it to this day.

Funnily enough, I'm originally Spanish, but just sound forrin, as oppossed to Spanish... no-one picked up on it, assumed Brit throughout... loved it.

The way we talk about time is confusing to many (most?) Americans. Half-past, quarter-to/past don't mean anything to them. I've also had the look of confusion at the mention of "fortnightly". And was once met with a furious scowl when I described an American's lovely, cosy apartment as being "really homely".

There are so many baby-related words that are different (diapers, stroller, pacifier) - we are so exposed to American culture that we understand their words, but the same does not apply in reverse to nappies, pushchair (which I would have thought was obvious), dummy).

I find myself switching a lot when I'm in the States. I taught EFL in Ecuador and my students requested that I teach them American English as it's more relevant for them in a work context. So typical changes are things like trash can/rubbish bin. Tbh the only time I've ever really had mass confusion was when we were in the South on our honeymoon and people had a really hard time understanding me (from NW but don't use glottal stops and do pronounce distinctly, which apparently was harder than slurring) but got my DH's accent (Midlands) very easily.

In the South, where I am from, half-past, quarter-to/past are common ways of referring to time, which is a reminder that we Americans don't always understand each other. There are many regional expressions, especially in the South, that have not migrated to the rest of the country.

Didn't know that, Scone - we used to live in NY and nobody there seemed to have a clue what I was talking about when I'd suggest meeting at half past something (to the point where I used to use these expressions deliberately, as the refusal to understand something so patently obvious was a particular bugbear of mine).

This is a constant in my house as I am an American living here now with the British DH. I have dropped a few jaws here with my use of fanny/spank/babyisms. However most of my friends and family seem ok with DH's accent- what he would call "posh scouse" which I am beginning to understand is an oxymoron.

The only issue I have noticed come up often is when he says his name. Most seem to think it's Don, when in fact it's Dan. My poor mom was also really confused why my DH would put his motorcycle in a carriage.

Pronunciation is a huge source of hilarity and conflict in our house. I chuckle at the way he says scone, Nicaragua and controversy.. He laughed for over an hour when I pronounced Greenwich "Green-witch" to be fair though I had been up hours with a sick baby.

So what do they say instead of fortnight?

Clothes can be interesting.

Sweaters (US) v cardigans and jumpers (UK)
Sneakers and tennis shoes (US) v trainers (UK).

Smashley, on pronunciations, there is also:

Schedule
Data
Adversary
Leicester

An American friend of mine was working as an assistant in the Games department at an English boarding school. She wanted to ask the girls she was coaching to collect the balls at the end of a lacrosse session.

She told twenty 14 year old girls to get on the field and shag the balls.

Beastofburden: two weeks.
Fortnightly= every two weeks (no special word)

Sultanas don't exist.

YY blueshoes- been through those. :) On reflection I must just have a hard time with place names over here. DH often jokes that I think England is Middle Earth. Any place with -shire at the end is pronounced like "the shire" York-shire made my BIL spit his food out.

You all will be happy to know after 4 years here I have almost stopped doing that.

An american asked me what "chuffed" meant the other day

I've worked for an American company for over 25 years, and lived in the US for a couple, so I've come across a lot of these miscommunications. The first one I remember was the Americans being totally baffled by something in our (at that point entirely English-written) software being referred to as a 'one-off calculation'.

So what do they say instead of fortnight?
Two weeks.

Nowadays, the group I work with in the US doesn't include anyone born in the USA (Chinese, indian, germans, brits and a Canadian) so we steer a middle course.

Not about language but at Boston airport, I asked for a cup of tea at a coffee shop. it was anathema to themi thought Boston was known as the most British place in America.I bet Frasier could get a cup of tea if he wanted one

You're lucky they didn't bring you some tea leaves in a cup of salt water .

I was rather shocked when further south, 'tea' by default meant iced tea. You had to specify 'hot tea' if you meant, uh, tea.

I remember causing uproar by saying to the children of the family I was staying with that we were going to have and chips for dinner. They were distraught that they didn't get any crisps and went into meltdown and the parents were really annoyed with me despite the fact that I had been in the country for less than two days . They also didn't understand the word 'queue' and we're highly amused when I told them how much I weighed in stones and pounds.

were