English vs English

[Thursday Next]

Let's talk about time... Apparently in the US&A you do not use the 24hr clock. I've been told (well told off more to the point) that in America I will be looked at like some sort of nutter if I wrote 23:59:59 in a contract.

[fuchikoma]

Let's talk about time... Apparently in the US&A you do not use the 24hr clock. I've been told (well told off more to the point) that in America I will be looked at like some sort of nutter if I wrote 23:59:59 in a contract.

 

That's true. I've noticed Japan seems to use 24 hour, but in the US and Canada, it's 12 hr. Mainly, 24 hr time is just for the military.

[Hot Heart]

This is not really a 'vs.' thing but I'm wondering what 'stealth fries' are. We get lots of food from Costco, and these are damn tasty but they don't seem any different to oven chips. Is that just the name they have in the US?

[Battra92]

Let's talk about time... Apparently in the US&A you do not use the 24hr clock. I've been told (well told off more to the point) that in America I will be looked at like some sort of nutter if I wrote 23:59:59 in a contract.

 

People know exactly what it means, we just don't use it in most conversations. The big reason is that analog clocks don't use the 24 hour time but instead display 12 hour time. This is one of those cases where if there is an possibility for confusion between AM and PM (such as a 24 hour operations center like a hospital, emergency services, police, military, legal briefings etc.) then the 24 hour clock is used. If I say I'll pick you up at 8, and don't be late, you won't be outside at 8AM.

 

Forcing the US into a 24 hour clock system is something straight out of Orwell (literally) so don't expect us to change our watches to 24 hour time.

[Hot Heart]

As far as I know, we don't use the 24 hour system in speech. Just in written form. I prefer it because there's no ambiguity.

No one was talking about forcing the US into changing...

[deanb]

Then why does Windows automatically use 24H? Or is this another of those "US is officially on metric/24h, but regular folks just don't use it"

 

We don't really use it much either. Everything digital has it, but our mantelpiece clocks are still very much 12h.

[fuchikoma]

I've never seen Windows default to 24 hr, setting the region to Canada, USA, or even Japan... and I've installed windows literally hundreds to thousands of times. It must depend on the version they sell in stores, or maybe it only does it for a few regional settings?

[deanb]

So a question:

 

Why do foreigners who have a couple weeks off to go abroad and choose England as their destination...come to London?

 

"I have time off, lets spend it in a busy and expensive city and look at some buildings"

 

Why not

"I have time off, lets spend it in a leisurely and calming rolling hills of Yorkshire"

 

I know for certain I'd never choose to go on holiday to New York. (When we went to US we went to Orlando n all the theme parks.)

 

So yes, from an Englishmen to a bunch of foriegners: What's the holidaying appeal of London?

[Strangelove]

Sightseeing. New York and London have a lot of history behind them. Plus I think NY and London are places where you can kind of catch a glimpse of what that country is like as a whole. It wont be accurate, but for a few days its a good place to kind of condense it all.

 

Honestly, as a dimwitted American all I know about Yorkshire is that there is a pudding named after it. THAT'S IT. London though? That's another story.

 

BTW Orlando? Really? That's a weird destination.

I think theres an inherent difference betweening tourism and vacationing. Most people don't go to a different country to relax, they do it to get stories and pictures. I personally despise tourists. By going to the most populated cities you deny yourself what life is really like there. Times Square is not fuckin' America. At all. People who study abroad are even worse turds. They come back to their respective country thinking they know so much more than when they left. Thinking they had an original experience, all while seeing the same exact locations and historical buildings tons of millions of people have also already seen.

In short: people all come back from another country with the same goddamn pictures of the same goddamn places, yet they really think they have a good story to tell when they come back. They do not.

[UnstableArk]

Sightseeing. New York and London have a lot of history behind them. Plus I think NY and London are places where you can kind of catch a glimpse of what that country is like as a whole. It wont be accurate, but for a few days its a good place to kind of condense it all.

 

That pretty much sums it up. An average American won't know what or where Yorkshire is. We tend to stick to places we know, so London is going to be the U.K.'s tourism spot since it's common knowledge. It's strange though. If an American travels internationally to visit an amusement park, it might seem insane to us. Then again, I don't see many countries advertising local amusement parks for international tourism.

 

And the damn New York tourists... For the love of god, don't stop in the middle of the damn sidewalk to check the contents of your purse. There are 70 other people trying to squeeze by, we're not going to wait patiently for you.

[Thursday Next]

Forcing the US into a 24 hour clock system is something straight out of Orwell (literally) so don't expect us to change our watches to 24 hour time.

 

Chill out, I'm not dusting off my red jacket just yet. I was told off by an American colleague for putting 24hr format in a contract, so I thought I'd see what the general consensus was here. Globally, most countries (from experience, my European and Asian colleagues) seem to use 24hr (certainly in writing), European countries use it in speech too. I was wondering if the 24hr clock gets taught in the US, or if it's a relatively alien concept outside of the military.

 

To me 24hr seems like the most certain, least ambiguous format. No amount of bad hand writing will make 17:00 look like 05:00, but a scrawled pm could look like an am, so it's the one I prefer to use.

[Hot Heart]

The problem with Yorkshire is it's filled with Yorkshiremen.

[Battra92]

Forcing the US into a 24 hour clock system is something straight out of Orwell (literally) so don't expect us to change our watches to 24 hour time.

 

Chill out, I'm not dusting off my red jacket just yet. I was told off by an American colleague for putting 24hr format in a contract, so I thought I'd see what the general consensus was here.

 

Haha, no I was just being silly. In 1984 (the book) the Party forces the switch to the 24-hour clock.

 

Metropolis had a 10 hour clock:

[Battra92]

So yes, from an Englishmen to a bunch of foriegners: What's the holidaying appeal of London?

 

For us, we will be going to the museums and to see the locations of where famous writers and such lived. Of course, England is so tiny (relatively speaking of course) that one can easily see much more of it via day trips than you can going to a much larger country like the USA.

 

If you do ever go to New York city, take a day trip up to Albany to the New York State museum. Everyone should see the 9/11 exhibit.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I think pretty much everyone in the UK has an electric kettle, but I've never seen one on American TV/film: people always use a cooker-top kettle. Is that realistic?

[deanb]

Ah have we not mentioned this before?

 

Basically the american national grid isn't tough enough. Unless they wire the kettle up to the cooker they only get 120V which is half that of ours. They can't physically boil a kettle. At least without it taking ages and ages. So a pot on the hob works much faster. It's one of the major factors attributed to the fact Americans aren't into their tea as much as we are. We can make a cuppa much easier and faster. However on the inverse they do have much more coffee/espresso makers than we do. (Unsure on the science behind those working and kettles not. Cos it's pressurised/smaller amount?)

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I thought I remembered asking it but not having an answer. Defo nothing like that, thanks!

[fuchikoma]

Ah have we not mentioned this before?

 

Basically the american national grid isn't tough enough. Unless they wire the kettle up to the cooker they only get 120V which is half that of ours. They can't physically boil a kettle. At least without it taking ages and ages. So a pot on the hob works much faster. It's one of the major factors attributed to the fact Americans aren't into their tea as much as we are. We can make a cuppa much easier and faster. However on the inverse they do have much more coffee/espresso makers than we do. (Unsure on the science behind those working and kettles not. Cos it's pressurised/smaller amount?)

 

Not really. In Canada, we use the same electrical power as the USA (1 phase, 120V, 60Hz) and I have an electric kettle at my place. It will boil in a couple of minutes - it just draws around 900W by way of 7.5A, where on a 240V 50Hz system, it'd use 900W by drawing 3.75A.

 

[edit: Single phase, not 2-phase... oops]

Edited October 14, 2011 by fuchikoma

[TheFlyingGerbil]

My kettle is 3kW in the UK

[deanb]

Not really. In Canada, we use the same electrical power as the USA (2 phase, 120V, 60Hz) and I have an electric kettle at my place. It will boil in a couple of minutes - it just draws around 900W by way of 7.5A, where on a 240V 50Hz system, it'd use 900W by drawing 3.75A.

My kettle is 3kW in the UK

Now you see where the "it's not tough enough" comes from. "Minutes" doesn't enter it when it comes to a UK cuppa (unless you're making a teapots worth).

[fuchikoma]

My kettle is 3kW in the UK

 

Ok, that is actually quite impressive, because 15A breakers are the norm for 120V sockets. Do you plug ovens and washing machines/dryers into standard sockets? Here, they're usually on 30-60A 240V circuits with special (NEMA 14) "range sockets."

 

But in any case, it's not that tea is unpopular in the US because it's too hard to boil water. It's not as unpopular in Canada with the same system, and most ovens are electric anyway. I could actually get a kettle that draws twice as much as my current one, but it's just a 4-cup. I suspect people heat kettles on ovens more (if that's the case? It isn't up North here that I've seen) because they don't use them enough to justify an appliance for it, while a cheap metal kettle is only a couple of dollars.

[fuchikoma]

I assumed you meant a teapot's worth. Personally, I usually fill a strengthened glass tumbler with water and throw it in the 1000W microwave until it boils.

Edited October 7, 2011 by fuchikoma

[Thursday Next]

I assumed you meant a teapot's worth. Personally, I usually fill a strengthened glass tumbler with water and throw it in the 1000W microwave until it boils.

 

Is that considered normal?

[fuchikoma]

Is that considered normal?

 

That I can't say for sure. It's not abnormal. I mean, it's likely in an office, but so is a water cooler with a boiling water spout. At home, you might use a microwave, electric kettle or stovetop kettle.

 

The thing is that, indeed it seems the British electrical system is more robust, but I never hear anyone complain about how long it takes to boil water, and there's no shortage of boiled water based drinks here. When I think about it, I'd imagine Americans drink tea less often as a holdover from forming a republic and establishing themselves as "not British." Historically they'd boycotted it due to taxation.

[deanb]

See I'd have thought it'd have had more of an impact if you guys were to boycott the language or measuring systems. Or the accent since...

 

 

Actually I'm gonna ask on this one: In the past few months I've had to put to me (maybe not always directly) that the "American accent" is actually what the welsh/British accent sounded like 300 years. Is that just people trolling or is it something that Americans truly believe. Cos I find it pretty fucking absurd that people would:

1) Think there is any such thing as an "American accent" (or even a "British Accent")

2) That for some inexplicable reason the "British Accent" evolved and changed over the centuries, yet the "American accent" stayed the same.

 

The result can be insufficiently sweetened tea and/or gritty, undissolved sugar crystals in the tea.

This is considered bad?