How does the term ‘car bonnet’ sound to Americans and how does ‘car hood’ sound to British people? I mean how familiar are you with those words?
Thanks,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: It’s been a tough week, hasn’t it?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Good afternoon Torsten, Car bonnet is the only reference you will ever hear in England, Same with car boot … never car trunk.
Bill.
We only have car bonnets and car boots here in Ireland, too.
For a long time I was puzzled when I read the term car trunk somewhere.
To me a trunk is a large suitcase. 
Hi Bill,
Thanks a lot for your quick response. What if you watch an American movie or TV show and the word ‘hood’ or ‘trunk’ is mentioned? How do British people react to that?
Regards,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: Where will the convention be held this year?[YSaerTTEW443543]
When Americans hear “car bonnet”, it sounds like the Amish somehow started allowing their adherents to drive cars, or that it’s a term derived from some part of a horse-drawn buggy.
If Americans hear “car boot”, it’s likely to sound like a tire boot, one of those weights the police lock onto the wheel of your car to prevent you from driving it away.
However, any American who knows anything about cars will understand those terms, but he will probably imagine the driver to be a grey-haired man in a tweed coat and a green cap that’s squashed down in the front.
If you google “car hood” asking for only UK sites, you will see that in Britain the term means the soft roof of a convertible.
At street level, people call car parts whatever they have always called them, but working with the automotive industry, I can see that many of the specifically American terms have become international and have to be “translated” specifically for UK consumers.
Torsten, we do understand the terms, but we choose never to use them.
Similarly " tire " is to wear down. ( with work )
Trust the Americans! If you don’t have a language of your own, invent one, or easier yet, steal one.
More like, perfect one, save it from obscurity, and make it predominant the world over.
No need to thank us, we did it for us, not you limeys. You just get a free ride on our coattails.
Come to think of it, we should probably charge Britain a licensing fee or something.
Kitosdad is really funny in his anti-American obsession, or as the famous French writer Jean-François Revel called it in his great book, “le syndrome anti-américain”. And he’s really out of his depth when he starts pontificating and moralizing on linguistic issues.
The English drove large numbers of people from their own country, either through oppression or exile. These people were originally largely monolingual English speakers, and they planted their own native language on the American continent. Despite the facts of history, you now get British subnormals who seem to think that Americans originally spoke Esperanto, Volapük, Tokpisin, Igbo or some other obscure language, or maybe no language, until they one day decided to heist the language the British were speaking.
You see, languages can be “stolen”, just like the wallet out of your pocket, and the “thieves” are guilty criminals. But oddly enough, after someone “steals” your language, you still have it. It’s the first theft in history in which the victim remains in possession of what has been stolen.
These are irrational emotions typical of some citizens of eclipsed empires, and they’re not that different from the opinions propagated by the Ku Klux Klan or the neo-Nazis. They have their source in similar psychic pain.
Should we send the royalties to Filidelfia ? The next we’ll hear is that the Yanks invented the auto-mobile, conveniently forgetting the French, the Scots, and the two Germans who were way ahead of the good old US of A.
Whatever next ?
ps, I now have subnormal to add to my list of insults … Thanks.
Yeah, it’s fun to tweak his nose. You’ll note he never attempts to castigate the Irish, Scots, or Aussies for their uh, (“bastardization”, I believe was the exact term he used) of the English language?
Personally, I suspect he was denied a residency visa, and is having a case of sour grapes. Or else he hates himself for wanting to move here, and attacks us in some kind of Freudian subliminal attempt to reconcile his true feelings with what he wishes to hide from the world.
Wouldn’t be the first time somebody has attacked Americans out of jealousy.
What say, Kitosdad? Need a citizenship sponsor? Learn some proper vocabulary, and maybe I could put in a good word for you with INS. Probably be less work teaching you English than it is my students. And I’ve got a couple of older students too, so the slower learning pace won’t hamper us at all.
Sorry, any American who knows about cars understands that the automobile was invented in several different places at the same time. The Americans were simply the first to manufacture cars on a production line.
I have recently read an advertisement from Scotland claiming that TV was invented there. And it certainly was, but not the TV that was finally adopted for use. A Scot invented a mechanical TV system – I believe it was even color TV – but when he went to an exposition in the US and saw electronic TV, he realized his mechanical TV had no future, and he gave it up.
Many Americans think that the telephone was invented by an American, but it was first invented by a German. The German academy of sciences laughed him out of the hall and told him not to waste their time with such a useless invention. Then a Scot invented his version of it in the US, and it was the Americans who saw and developed its potential.
Once a Brazilian told me that a Brazilian was the first person to build and fly in an airplane. When I told her that the Wright brothers had flown a couple of years before him, she snapped, “BUT NOBODY SAW THEM!”
A Russian once claimed to me that a Russian had invented the first airplane, and that it was steam powered. I looked up the information and found that this Russian had indeed invented a steam-powered plane, but it wouldn’t fly unless you dragged it up a mountain and pushed it off.
Skrej, the last thing I would ever want is to go to America. There are more than enough of you jerks swanning around London .
Anyway, I’m obviously out of my depth here talking to you two scholars. I think I had better scarper before you start proffering violence toward an old pensioner.
Kitosdad.
I find this feud increasingly embarrassing in a public forum.
Perhaps it would be a better idea to take it to private mail.
Neither of you is making a good impression on newcomers.
Hi,
I find it quaint that there is always this absurd over reaction when remarks are made about the differences between two versions of English.
Come off it!
Alan
At last Alan. I thought you had fallen asleep in that comfy chair of yours. Let’s get a real scholar involved, by all means.
At last, somebody who recognizes sarcasm. Huzzah!
See how they run … three blind mice.
@ Jamie K
“…many of the specifically American terms have become international…”
“…and have to be “translated” specifically for UK consumers.”
“any American… will probably imagine the driver to be a grey-haired man in a tweed coat and a green cap”
Completely ignorant comments !!!
Ok. let me just start with the last statement of the post above cause it bugs the heck out of me. Calling american’s narrow minded for describing the stereotypical view of an englishman is not called for. I can say the same of englishmen. As proved from so many of you brits in this forum, you stereotypically believe americans are stupid. I grant, that the stupid people are typically the ones on TV. And we love laughing at them as much as you. But in turn, “a grey-haired man in a tweed coat and a green cap” is what is typically displayed in media when talking about english. Kitosdad was also being very narrow minded when he said “Anyway, I’m obviously out of my depth here talking to you two scholars. I think I had better scarper before you start proffering violence toward an old pensioner.” he himself reflecting on the american stereotype of being violent, and at the same time giving a grate example of the stereotype of brits being stuck up snobs.Anyway, they are the only physically different things about us, so of couse they will be put out of proportion.
Now on to Language. “Trust the Americans! If you don’t have a language of your own, invent one, or easier yet, steal one.” was previously said. The problem with this is that english is a stolen language on its own. Almost all of its rules and words can be found to have originated in other languages. Onto the spelling. The fact is, by spelling differently than british, Americans are actually stealing less. The use of ou in british english is actually taken from french. The way brits use s instead of z is also stolen from french. French S’s sound like Z’s when between two vowels. Americans have not ruined the language, we’ve made it more independent and not stolen.
Hood vs Bonnet, they basically the same thing so neither one is better
Trunk vs Boot, A trunk means suitcase where things can be stored, and the use of it in a car is to put stuff in, so trunk is actually better. a boot is a shoe, and I cant find any definition that relates to the way it is used in a car.
Oh and yes, many many americans terms have become international. Emphasis on terms, not spelling. Mostly slang terms. They start in the USA and then get used in the UK because of media. It doesn’t happen as much the other way around because way more american media is shone in the UK than UK media is shone in america.