• blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    When you ask an American how much they weigh, they’ll just tell you how much they charge! “I was £600 but now I’m only £400”. I don’t care pal, I’m not paying you a damn thing.

      • fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk
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        3 days ago

        Yes, but its meaning depends on where exactly in the country you are.

        The phrase “You alright, pal?” Might mean “Are you okay there, friend?” or it might mean “If you take one step further, me and me mates are going to absolutely smash your wee bastard face in”.

        Normally you can hear the threat in the tone, so you won’t often get them confused.

      • tinned_tomatoes@feddit.uk
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        2 days ago

        Which British accent do you have in your head?

        British accents vary wildly. You’d definitely hear pal more in the Midlands and the North, and maybe even in Scotland.

        It probably still doesn’t sound like you think it sounds, though.

        • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          For those like me who never heard the term:

          Estuary English is an English accent, continuum of accents, or continuum of accent features[4] associated with the area along the River Thames and its estuary, including London, since the late 20th century. In 2000, the phonetician John C. Wells proposed a definition of Estuary English as “Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England”.[5] He views Estuary English as an emerging standard accent of England, while also acknowledging that it is a social construct rather than a technically well-defined linguistic phenomenon.[5] He describes it as “intermediate” between the 20th-century higher-class non-regional standard accent, Received Pronunciation (RP), and the 20th-century lower-class local London accent, Cockney. There is much debate among linguists as to where Cockney and RP end and where Estuary English begins, or whether Estuary English is even a single cohesive accent.[5][6][7][8]

  • Zip2@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    We like to use metric when Americans ask. It’s still the only thing they understand.

    I get paid seventeen and nineteen twelve quart cups.

  • klu9@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    Moved from US to UK as a kid, first month there, watching an advert (US: ad) for a domestic appliance on TV and I genuinely asked: “Mom, why are the washing machines here so heavy?”

    • cook_pass_babtridge@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      Washing machines are heavy. I recently had to take one apart and there were 2 concrete blocks in there, I assume to keep it stable while the motor flings your clothes around.

        • cook_pass_babtridge@feddit.uk
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          3 days ago

          Haha maybe not that heavy, it depends when you were seeing those ads and what inflation was like. I reckon in the 90s it would have had £-lb washing machine parity at some point.

          • klu9@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            This was 1978, back in the days when many people in the UK would rent appliances!

            • cook_pass_babtridge@feddit.uk
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              2 days ago

              Oh yeah, so less inflation but a much more expensive appliance with less built-in obsolescence! I bet they were heavy AF back then.

  • omega_x3@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Then when you ask how much something weighs they just tell you how many rocks they are made of.

  • HubertManne@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    sometimes you would hear the term pound sterling and im wondering if a pound was at one time worth a pound of silver. would make more sense the things set in olden times were the common folk are like. a whole shilling. wow.

    • Malgas@beehaw.org
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      3 days ago

      That’s exactly it. The main currency of medieval England was the silver penny (aka sterling) which weighed 1/240th of a tower pound. So 240 pence was a “pound of sterlings”.