Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 December 19

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December 19

How does an American communicate with a British person on British soil?

Let's say an American really needs to go to the bathroom. Would the British person understand if the American says, "Where is the restroom?" or would they think of a room for resting? What if an American wants to make a casserole dish and needs the ingredients at the supermarket to make casserole? Would there be any linguistic barriers despite that the language is "English" in getting the correct ingredients? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 18:19, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I think nearly all of us here in the UK would understand most American terms these days. In the supermarket, the visiting American can just look at products to find what they want. If you asked for a zucchini or an eggplant you might not get what you wanted. Dbfirs 18:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Most Brits are pretty fluent in American. Unfortunately the reverse in not true. 86.28.195.109 (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Prove it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It's trivial. We are bombarded with a constant stream of mediocre American TV, whilst the average American has far less exposure to real (not the Queen's) English. 86.28.195.109 (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

So you can't prove it. Just as I thought. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:43, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

You might be interested in our Comparison of American and British English, which shows that more separates the two dialects than merely lexical differences (i.e. choice of words). Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

British English speaker here. I would say that if an American in Britain knows that the BrEng term for "restroom" is "toilet" or "bathroom", they should use that term out of deference to the fact that they are in the other's country. Of course, they may not know the "correct" BrEng term. --Viennese Waltz 09:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Those terms are unlikely to result in confusion today and in fact most words with differences will be understood due to context. What makes things difficult is when the context doesn't help. An American in a UK supermarket asking where to find the "jelly" will be sent the wrong way, as will the same tourist in a men's fashion outlet asking to see "pants". But if they said "jelly for peanut butter and jelly" and "pants to go with this jacket" they'd probably get sent the right way. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to make an ass of myself and mention the slang meanings of fanny. Akld guy (talk) 11:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

• Curiously enough, when I started reading this thread, I completely misunderstood the opening sentence. I took "Let's say an American really wants to go to the bathroom" as really meaning that he or she "really wants to go to the bathroom", i.e the room with a bath in it, as opposed to the toilet, which would probably be what "Where is the bathroom?" would be taken as meaning in American English. The second sentences revealed that the first question actually meant "Let's say an American really wants to go to the toilet". I find it fascinating that someone (presumably an American) is so used to "bathroom" as a euphemism for "toilet" that they are able to use it in this context, using it to indicate that what is "really" meant is something which I had always thought even Americans didn't think was "really" the bathroom.
• I sometimes wonder what an American says if he really does want to know the way to the real bathroom, and not the toilet, as asking for the bathroom is likely to get the wrong result. Does he or she say "Hey, where's the room with a bath in it?"
• I see that the page User:Viennese Waltz says "This user is English". I am surprised, therefore, that he or she considers use of "bathroom" to mean "toilet" is, as he/she puts it "BrEng". To me, it is an unmistakeable Americanism. Possibly Viennese Waltz is much younger than me, and huge number of American terms have been adopted into British English from American television, so that what seem to me like American usages may seem like normal British English to people of a younger generation. However, as far as I remember I have not come across that with this use of "bathroom" before.
• However, differences of the kinds discussed above, while seeming strange to someone on the other side of the langauge divide, are easy to learn from observing the languages of people on the other side, whether in the flesh or in television, films, books, etc. There are, however more subtle differences, which can be harder to see, and which I find much more interesting. For example, I was once on a beach in California, and referred to the huge body of water next to me as "the sea". One of the people I was with was astonished to learn (as she thought) that I thought it was a sea, not realising that it was in fact an ocean. To me, the big body of salty water that covers most of the surface of the earth is the sea. Particular parts of it have names, and generally the smaller ones have the word "sea" in their names, the bigger ones "ocean", but that does not stop the word "sea" from being also used as a general term to refer to all of them. Apparently in American English the word has somewhat more restricted use. Now, the thing which makes this more interesting to me than words like "faucet"/"tap" and "zucchini"/"courgette", or different usages of words such as "bathroom" is the following. Anyone observing a different version of the one he or she speaks will notice differences like that, because the word either don't exist in his or her version or don't make sense in the context, so it will be obvious that there is a different usage going on. However, in all my years of watching American films and television and reading American books, I had never noticed the absence of anyone saying "sea" in reference to the Atlantic or the Pacific. I had come across uses of "ocean" where I would have been more likely to say "sea", but without any reason to stop and analyse what had been said and why, it would be likely to just pass through my brain as someone who for some reason chose to emphasise the fact that this particular bit of sea was part of an ocean, and I never had any reason to realise that the word "sea" would not have been an available option in the context. Only through interaction between two speakers of different varieties of English could I discover that there is a difference in usage, not through mere observation of Americans talking to one another. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:05, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that "bathroom" is not exactly standard British English. However, I would always where the bathroom is, not the toilet – not because "bathroom" is an Americanism, but because it's a euphemism for "toilet". --Viennese Waltz 13:09, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

In American English, as you may know, "bathroom" is not a euphemism for "toilet", but rather the room in which the toilet is found, "toilet" meaning only the piece of plumbing, never the room.

But "toilet" itself is a euphemism, of course, meaning literally a place where you get dressed (which of course you don't do in the piece of plumbing, so there's that). And "commode" means something that makes you comfortable. A "lavatory" is really a washbasin. I recall someone once saying that this was a concept for which there were "euphemisms and dysphemisms, but no word that is simply descriptive". --Trovatore (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

But 'go to the bathroom' = 'do a no. 1 (or no. 2)' As in the young US man in a sitcom who complained: "The dog has gone to the bathroom on the carpet." Or the kid who exclaimed: "I've gone to the bathroom in my pants."Djbcjk (talk) 06:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, at least 99% of Britons know that bathroom means toilet. However, our hypothetical American may get a facetious answer. I once heard a conversation that went something like this:

American visitor to an office in London: "Excuse me sir, can you show me where the bathroom is?"

Ex-military commissionaire who knew damned well what was being asked: "I'm afraid we don't have any baths in this building."

American: "Oh, I mean where's the rest room?"

Commissionaire: "Well sir, the toilet is just round to your left, but you really wouldn't want to have a rest in there". Alansplodge (talk) 20:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

James asks, "I sometimes wonder what an American says if he really does want to know the way to the real bathroom, and not the toilet, as asking for the bathroom is likely to get the wrong result. Does he or she say 'Hey, where's the room with a bath in it?'" This is not a question that's very likely to arise; if you're in a hotel room it's obvious and if you're in someone's house then the bath will be in the bathroom. But if you really needed to ask it, you could just ask where the bath is. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 10:52, 22 December 2016 (UTC)