The “Other” English Language

Okay, maybe I am thinking a little too much ahead of myself, but I have been searching Amazon and Ebay UK to find house supplies that we might need when we get there (even though we are still home searching). However, there has been a big challenge to this...many times different words are used for the same item in the U.S.

Examples...

U.S.                                                        U.K.

Comforter                                              Duvet

Dish Sets                                                Dinning Sets

Queen Mattress                                     King Mattress

King Mattress                                        Super King Mattress

Box Spring                                            Does not exist- If it is found it's 

                                                              referred to as USA Style

*This is because the box springs are usually implemented into the bed frames.

Bathroom                                              Bathroom-Indicative of a Bath

Bathroom                                              Shower Room-Indicative of a Shower

½ Bath                                                  Toilet

Backyard                                              Garden

*These ones have been really confusing while searching for a home.

I can tell this will be a little bit of a learning experience for me. I never anticipated having so many words with slight differentiations from American English.  I am kind of embarrassed, because I did end up bookmarking “www.translatebritish.com” to avoid confusion. I am working very hard to be aware of my speech by keeping tabs on the thick Wisconsin accent, which has included doing my best to enunciate and learning to find other words to describe similar things. In fact, I started doing this as a result of my University thinking my last name was P-E-R-I-O-D, because when quoting them my email address jessica.ann.kohls@gmail.com they did not understand what period meant...so I have used full stop, and dot, to try to replace period, since I really do not want period to be my last name!

In other news, we are currently waiting on a bank statement we get the end of July to finish filling out our Visa Application, once this is submitted we have to get our biometric details taken, and when we finally get our Visa we can book our flights (which can only be after August 19^th because you can only arrive 1 month before your course work starts). While we are doing this we are looking for a home...which has proved rather difficult. Maybe we are being spoiled Americans but we want a home that has a bathroom (aka a bath), 1-2 bedrooms, enclosed rear garden (aka backyard), and the one thing we are absolutely unwilling to sacrifice, which is a pet friendly property, so we can finally get our dog. We would like to get a home right away so we can settle in immediately, and do not have to live in a dorm, or a hotel, it is just too much additional stress. So, wish us luck!