Whenever people ask me about my time living in the states, I always tell them that I was shocked at how different things were over there. Yet, when asked for concrete examples, nothing ever comes to mind beyond "they call petrol 'gas' ". I must have anticipated this problem when I first returned home and actually wrote a list of things that had surprised me, and today I found the list... here are some funny ways in which the US is different from the UK....
1. Cheques = "Checks"
2. People pack your groceries for you and ask whether you'd like "paper or plastic"?
3. It seems that you can drive in any lane on the "highway" you feel like and undertaking is positively encouraged
4. "Straight" means good, but "gay" does not mean bad
5. Things that are "the shits" are good
6. Things that "suck dick" are bad (this one I do not understand)
7. Car insurance only covers you up to a set maximum - don't hit a porshe
8. They pronounce route as "rowt"
9. Crisps are chips and chips are fries
10. Cookies = biscuits and Biscuits = some weird scone-like things
11. You can buy gallon tubs of weight watchers ice cream
12. Americans think that all English people are from London, or near London
13. Keg parties aren't just in the movies
14. It's impossible to order a normal sandwich, you have to choose what size? what bread? what salad? pickles? chillis? fat free dressing? ranch or italian? black olives? what cheese? etc
15. Cici's pizza - all you can eat for $3.99 (that's less than £3 ALL you can eat)
16. There is no £ sign on american keyboards, despite the $ being readily available on all british keyboards
17. The @ symbol is on the 2 key
18. Lots of people actually think mullet haircuts are cool. No, really
19. Thanksgiving is about food, Christmas is about presents
20. 100 channels is the smallest cable package (though it's getting this way in the UK now too. Good ol' freeview)
21. Rims = wheels, whip = car, ice = jewellery and mummies = girlfriends
22. Popeyes - chicken and "biscuits" (see 10 above)
23. Taco Bell - fast mexican
24. Arbys - grease burgers
25. Checkers - fat burgers
26. Dairy Queen - drive-thru ice cream (hell yes)
27. Wendys - square burgers (WTF?!)
28. You have to pay to have a current account
29. Condoms are "rubbers" not "johnnies"
30. Don't ask for a "rubber" when you want an "eraser"
31. People don't say Hello, they say "Hellohowareyou" - this doesn't mean they want to know how you are
32. Milk has a use-by date of 3 weeks after you buy it, rather than the usual 5 days - I'm not sure if they're doing something weird to theirs or whether we're doing something weird to ours...
33. You can't buy small quantities of shampoo
34. You can't buy small bottles of milk (smallest = 4 pints!! but see point 32)
35. Drinks are measured in ounces - a pint is 16oz, a "beer" is 12oz
36. All lighting is from lamps not central room lighting (this was a real shocker, I didn't see a room light the whole time I was in Florida)
37. Grape juice tastes like it's made from an entirely different fruit
38. Banks send you back your cheques (checks) after the person has paid them in (and you can order cheques printed with any pattern/picture you choose)
39. Credit cards have your photo on them (this is actually an awesome idea)
40. You have to tip for drinks (actually this is true in London sometimes)
41. Eating out is cheap, especially at lunchtime
42. Traffic lights instead of roundabouts
43. Libraries have a drive-thru drop-off (well, Sarasota library did)
44. Pancakes are fat not thin
45. Oatmeal cookies are not health food (and taste awesome!)
46. "smores" - toasted marshmallows
47. You can buy guns in Walmart
48. You never have to pay for parking (except at Busch gardens where you pay an extra $7 on top of the $50 entrance fee)
49. Knickers are called panties
50. Trousers are called pants
51. No one owns a kettle but everyone owns a coffee machine
52. They have acetaminophen instead of paracetamol (it took me a long time to work that one out)
53. Nearly all chocolate bars contain peanut butter
54. Things labelled as Cadburys are really still Hersheys (and SUCK)
55. You don't have to return your "shopping cart" (trolley) to the shop, you just leave it wherever you want in the car park
56. Provalone cheese (I still dont really know what this is)
57. Chedder is the colour of red leicester
58. You can sometimes find British food (baked beans, salad creme, ribena, stock cubes) in the ethnic isle of the supermarket
59. You can turn right at red lights (yes, in cars, not just on bikes)
60. Plugs only have 2 prongs
61. Most freezers have an automatic ice-maker
62. Cars only have to have number-plates on the back
63. Book shops always have coffee shops inside them
64. And most enigmatic of all - hole punchers have different spacings.....WEIRD
These observations are obviously based on my time in Florida, so my apologies to any americans who feel they may have been misrepresented by their floridian brethren....
