A quote you will often hear is that “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” Although people aren’t too sure who originally said this, with George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell and Dylan Thomas, among others, often being given credit.
It does seem that the Brits do get a little upset by some of the American’s usage of our language, although whether we can take credit after borrowing so much of it from others, should they be upset with us?
Here are ten words that many believe to be of American origin but are, in fact, British to start with.
Fall
Surely autumn is a much better word than fall. What are the other months called? Grow, hot and cold? We say autumn in this country, and that’s what it should be.
However, the first use of the word appearing in English usage, in England, was as early as the 16th century, very shortly after Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It is believed to be the shortened version of fall of the leaf or…. autumn.
Gotten
Americans feel that they have a modern take on the word Got buy saying Gotten, but this isn’t the case. It was definitely a part of the language by the late 12th or early 13th century, and many linguists and historians believe that it goes back much further.
Trash/Garbage
Could you get anything more Uncle Sam than saying trash or garbage? It seems so yes, as we have had these words in English for quite some time.
The word trash comes from at least as far back as the 13th century and comes from a Scandinavian word meaning fallen leaves, waste, or worthless things.
Garbage is an even older word, believed to date back into the Middle Ages, but the first time it is seen in print was in 1422.
Mad
It is often seen that Brits use the word mad as an alternate to saying insane, and variations of this, but the Americans use it to say that somebody is angry. However, the usage of the word to mean angry started out on this side of the pond.
The usage was used in both ways, as far back as the 13th century, although amad was often used to mean insane, and even earlier, the Old English word gemǣd was used to mean the same thing.
Faucet
I’m really tapping into something here, as surely we would never have used the word faucet, but yes, we did.
It is not known when this was first used, but it could go a very long way back, as it not only stems from the French word faucet (sounds familiar), but also the Latin word faucis, meaning throat.
Soccer
I’m not a fan, but even I say the word football every time I hear somebody using the word soccer, but I shouldn’t though, as it is a British word.
It comes from Associated Football, not to be confused with Rugby Football. If you are confused by the two, I suggest you don’t step onto the field. In the 1880s, Oxford University students used the word SOC as a shortened form of association, then added the ER on the end, in much the same way we also say rugger. The word football soon took this over though, and very few people called it soccer after this.
As an aside, which has absolutely nothing to do with this article. When he was starting to write the Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Conan Doyle (not a Knight at this point) played in goal for Portsmouth, using the name A.C. Smith. He knew a thing or two about words.
Diaper
We all know that Americans say diaper, and those who speak correctly say nappy. Everybody knows that, right?
As far back as the 16th century, diaper was a word used in Britain to describe a diamond shaped cloth, used for swaddling.
Pants (meaning trousers)
It is believed that in Britain we say trousers and in America they say pants. In one country you are arrested for removing your pants in public, but not always in the other.
This isn’t the case though, as we also once called trousers pants, but this is because we originally had pantaloons which, as with everything, were shortened to pants (not the pantaloons, the word). Pantaloons date back far into the Middle Ages.
Period (meaning full stop)
There are countless jokes made about periods and full stops by those on both sides of the language barrier, but there was a time when we all used the same word – period.
Back in the 16th century, we were happily using the word period, without a care in the world, but it was then changed and full stop started to become popular, until it was all that was used.
Cookies
While we do say cookies in the UK, it is only for a certain type of sweet deliciousness, not for all biscuits. For general biscuits we use the word… biscuits.
Back in the 17th century though, we used the word cookie to mean all of them, having borrowed the word from the Dutch koekie.
So there you have it, ten words that have likely made you balk at some point when spoken or written by an American, but they were doing nothing but using words originally created (or derived) here in the good old U of K.
