Active and Passive Vocabulary

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by Tdol

So Brits and Shermans are different species now? That explains a lot.

[Harry Smith]

I wonder how many new words have appeared in AE. Why do Americans say "sidewalk" instead of "pavement"?

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by Harry Smith

I wonder how many new words have appeared in AE. Why do Americans say "sidewalk" instead of "pavement"?

The real question is why the Brits call sidewalks "pavement".

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by MikeNewYork

The real question is why the Brits call sidewalks "pavement".

And why they call the drug-store "chemist's". How many such words have been renamed?

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by Harry Smith

And why they call the drug-store "chemist's". How many such words have been renamed?

There are many of those "pairs".

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by MikeNewYork

There are many of those "pairs".

Do they teach in American schools that those words have pairs in BrE or not?. While teaching I always tell my students about these pairs and they try to learn them very well.

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by Harry Smith

Do they teach in American schools that those words have pairs in BrE or not?. While teaching I always tell my students about these pairs and they try to learn them very well.

I don't think so, but it's been decades since I have been inside a classroom as a student.

(Tdol, what are Shermans?)

[Tdol]

It's Cockney Rhyming Slang- Sherman tank = yank.

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by RonBee

I don't think so, but it's been decades since I have been inside a classroom as a student.

(Tdol, what are Shermans?)

It's similar to "bloody twits" being Brits.

[curmudgeon]

It's a complete surprise to the rest of the world that the Americans write the date in the format "month/day/year" instead of "day/month/year" like everyone else. So "9/11" is in fact September the eleventh, and not the ninth of november. Even more ludicrous is the practice of writing the time as "minute:hour:second", this causes enormous problems if you work in an organisation which must function multinationally. So much confusion is caused by the crackpot American date and time formats.