Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related UK versus US English: Smackdown 2004

As the person who expressed opinions on UK English on IRC...

Both of those are *possible* in UK English. The first sentence strongly emphasises the "possibly"; the second almost completely de-emphasises it. As a writer, my feeling is that in the second sentence, the "possibly" should just be dropped, since it's not pulling its weight. For that reason, the second sentence sounds odd to me, and I'd only use the first.

I certainly feel that the first sentence is the one that trips more easily off the tongue.

Mere

I love my electic kettle for tea water!
True. But with an automatic off, the water still boils and waits for you to come back. It's only a few minutes more. So 110 isn't that much longer than 220. A benefit of 110 volts is that we don't have circuit breakers on every line as a safety measure. We have circuit breakers for sections of the house.
As to pot noodles, they're sold here in the US as "Cup of Noodles" (dessicated noodles with seasonings in a little packet) or Top Ramen, which comes instant (boiled water poured into styrofoam cup) or boil-on the stove. They were lifesavers in the office when you could have a hot meal with your tea water pot. The main objection as I understood it was that they are high in salt content and thus not good for you.
Also at McDonalds in Hawaii you can get Saimin there with your meal. It's a noodle-based soup oriental style and very good. Look here: http://www.aloha-hawaii.com/dining/saimin/

Artemis

Oh they are definitely of no nutritional value whatsoever. <G> Even if you discount high salt content. Which is why I always feel guilty when I put them on the shopping list. (Only do that every so often though.)

LabRat

On the voltage/kettle debate, I was dismayed to discover that my dual voltage travel hairdryer delivers no more than a pathetic puff of air when plugged into a Canadian power socket. Took me about 4 times longer than it usually does to get my hair dry! I wonder whether a hairdryer designed for the lower voltage would somehow manage to be more efficient - any thoughts?

Yvonne

This discussion made me hungry for pot noodles, so I just had some for lunch. It was Albertson's (think Sainsbury's) Ramen Noodle Soup in beef flavor. But by the time it steeped in the cup (3 min), it wasn't soup, it was flavored noodles. Then I remembered I always added more hot water halfway through to make it a soup. Oh, and my electric tea pot heats a full pot in less than a minute.
As to hairdryers, it's the watts that count. Mine is 1500 watts, but not dual voltage. I remember burning up a non-dual voltage dryer on my first trip to London (England) some 20 years ago. So I think the fan isn't going to blow as hard going from 220 V to 110 V. On the cruise ship we were just on (built in Germany for Star Cruises) there was one 110 outlet, but it had a 500 watt maximum limit. We were warned some hairdryers would blow the circuits on the ship. So I dried my hair by going outside on the balcony (O.K. I just had to sneak in the fact we had a balcony stateroom). Anyway, the bottom line is that I think dual voltage is just going to give less air blow. The option would be to buy a dedicated one for 110 volts and if you travel enough it might be worth it. They are quite cheap here.

Artemis

ok I'm coming really late to the convo and I've only read the last three pages. I was suprised to discover Americans don't use electric kettles, and the voltage argument just isn't working for me. Why not just design them with step up transformers?

ok so a couple of things:
'swim suits' I call bathers, swimmers or even cozzies.

Kae, that pic of the chips and mushy peas nearly made me puke

and why would anyone put cream on their scones before jam? And when we're talking scones, you mean the food made from self-raising flour, butter and milk right? I wouldn't consider them anything like crumpets.

Also, I've often wondered why americans put cream in their coffee? I only ever have milk in coffee, adding cream just seams like adding fat for no reason. Again with the cream thing, I have no idea what clotted cream is. I've only ever had whipped cream (u whip it yourself, the stuff from the can is sick and wrong ) or thickened cream.

I just had to butt in. Ramen used to be a staple of family dinners when I was a kid and had softball practice in the evenings (or my brother had baseball). It's quick and easy and all that. We often had it with sandwiches. And we made it the "American" way, keeping the water and making soup out of it. It's still one of my favorite kinds of soup, despite everything.

My husband, when he was in school, ate a lot of the stuff, but he basically skipped all the steps. He ate the noodles raw out of the package. Scary, isn't it? But it was apparently one of the main staples of his diet for a few years. It's a wonder he's still around to tell about it.

What about peanut butter and banana sandwiches, or bologne and relish sandwiches?

Hi FM:
They do. In this case a step-down transformer from 220v to 110v. But you don't get something for nothing. Again, its the watts, a measure of the energy going into the hairdryer. Watts = Volts x Amps. A hairdryer basically coverts electric energy to evaporation energy (airblowing plus heat). So in the U.S. we have 110 volts, which is half the volts in the UK. You could compensate by increasing the current, the amps, but we don't because high amps are dangerous. So Yvonne's hairdryer had less energy going into it in Canada than it did in the UK, thus the hair took longer to dry. Things are a little more complex with regard to the fact it's an AC circuit and the exact coil design in the hairdryer.

Artemis

Artemis, I think we got our wires crossed I was referring to the kettles. A kettle uses your typical heating element (conductor) which uses electrical resistance to heat the water. The more current you pass through the element the hotter it gets. So the amount of time it takes to heat would depend on the amount of current, the resistance of the conductor and the duration of current flow.
If it takes longer to heat water using 110V wouldn’t that same argument apply to the any other appliance? It’s just a matter of conversion. The reason why Yvonne’s hair dryer was so pathetic using 110V was because it wasn’t designed for it, so if you design an appliance to use 110V you can get the same results.
BTW Australia uses 240V, 50Hz.

FM:
Yeah, same arguement with the kettles. Supposedly my Krups should take longer with 110V at 60 Hz to heat the water, but I can't see that it does. The thing is that a given appliance design is optimized for the country it is built for. When you have the travel variety of anything it won't perform as well when you take it to countries using the other system. Yvonne's hairdryer was optimized for the UK and didn't perform as well at the lower voltage. Hot water kettles are not very common in the US. Coffee pots are ubiquitous. You can make a tea pot by throwing out the coffee perculator hardware before the first use, by my Krups was designed as a tea pot and that is very new here.

Artemis

I got this in today's New York Times headlines email, and just had to share... Excerpt from the article itself:
Mere

So can any of you language experts out there help me with a UK cooking term ?

I have some recipes from my Scottish Grannie, and the one for shortbread cookies calls for
castor sugar.

What the heck is that ?
Is it the fine powdered sugar that we call icing sugar ? Or something else ?

Thanks

Allie

Hi Allie, and welcome to the boards!

Caster sugar isn't icing sugar, but it is a very fine sugar, and according to a Google search it is called 'superfine sugar' in the US.

See here and here for help with understanding what caster/superfine sugar is and where to find it.


Wendy