Americanisms!

Well Bananas their spelling is different to ours and the stickers on the back of cars is probably to do with keeping up with the Jones's as they really are very sporty people apparantly. I have never been to America but would love to go one day. What part of America have you visited.

I suspect your right cheelu, wouldn't want to be keeping up with Jones vicariously through my children. Yes you should go, I have been lucky enough to go to New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Cape Cod, Miami, Clearwater. This year we went to Georgia and South Carolina. Great country, but they have some strange attitudes to some things, that are very different from ours.

I love America. We drove the Pacific Highway about 6 years ago now, Route 101. Wonderful. I have an American SIL and all I know is she says 'fanny' when she is talking about her backside.

But Bananas you could surely say that about just about any other country? And they'd be thinking the same about over here!?

As you have been to so many places in America Bananas, can I as were you would suggest someone go for their first visit to America.

My DDiL is American and they live in Virginia - we are lucky that not only are we invited to visit, we can afford to go at least once a year.
Our first meeting with DDiL has now become a family joke.
The four of us went out walking in the Blue Mountains, suitably dressed in trousers, anoraks and stout shoes. We returned to DS's apartment, and in the evening went out for a meal. DDiL appeared ready to go out, nicely dressed in a skirt and jacket and high heeled shoes.
DH in a rare moment of chivalry said 'You look very smart, D', whereupon poor DDiL seemed a bit bemused, rather than flattered.
We learned many months later that Americans do not understand the word smart to mean well-dressed, only to mean clever, and DDiL couldn't think why DH should suddenly remark on her apparent intelligence, even though it was with obvious approval.

cheelu Get on a plane to New York and take it from there. It will blow your mind

Jeana we have friends in Cheasapeake. Love them to bits, but our downfall was describing a house as homely. We thought it meant feeling at home, and then discovered it meant frumpy! Oh dear.

I would love to do that jane!! funny story btw.

I'll try to remember that miceElf - we visit DDiL's parents when we go there and their house is indeed very homely !!

Grannyknot of course you could say it about any country, here included, but I suppose if I was to be specific, I would be referring to their gun laws with all the recent shootings in mind. Cheelu, it would be hard to pinpoint one place, depends what you would want to get out of your holiday, quiet, or hectic with sightseeing. New York is interesting, loads to see, but quite heaving. If you want lots of sunshine, then Florida or Southern California are fairly hot when the most of the other states are on the receiving end of bad weather, but don't go to Florida between May and August because it's very hot and sticky. Cape Cod is nice in the summer and New England is very pretty with some old towns (well for America). The Fall is supposed to be the best time to go to that particular part of the Eastern States, but I haven't been there then. I loved Los Angeles even though a lot of people told us it isn't worth much of a visit, I liked looking round all the Hollywood haunts that I had read so much about. I really loved the Southern States we went to this year and want to go back, Savannah and Charleston really attractive old colonial cities with loads of 18th century architecture. Also there are some nice beaches where we were staying. The thing is about America it's so vast and it has everything there, beaches, mountains which is probably why a huge number of Americans don't have passports, presumably because they feel there's no need to ever visit anywhere else.

I don't want to sound like an American knocker, I think most of them are great and really welcoming. However, there is an overuse of certain words. Awesome was the one that did my head in last year. Everything was awesome, for example when a waiter/waitress asked what you would like and we said something like coffee, the response would be "awesome". No! very few things are awesome and ordering a coffee isn't one of them!

'Awesome' has travelled across the Atlantic, BAnanas. I have noticed my 10-year-old GD using it - maybe over-using it. Perhaps I will challenge her to find some synonyms for it. She does possess - and use - a thesaurus.

We travel a lot in America; we have friends in Nebraska, who have a cabin on a lake in Minnesota. So wherever we are visiting, we always try to end up there, and it is magical. But I do remember Joan and I standing in my kitchen during her first visit here, and saying "Could you just put some cling film over that dish, please?" and Joan looking at me in sheer bewilderment. Of course, it is Saran Wrap to her! Not really an Americanism as such..

I love America. We have been to the big places, starting with Florida years ago then again two years ago, and New Orleans and the Grand Canyon, Colorado, San Diego, San Francisco. (A lot of conferences!) But some of the best times have been just pottering along on the way somewhere, and stopping in a small town and meeting people, all so friendly. Places like North and South Dakota, off the beaten track for tourists, were especially welcoming.

BAnanas we were in New Hampshire and Vermont a couple of years ago and it was so lovely, and so different.

Yes, "homely" isn't a compliment! And P****d has tw separate meanings.

Here's another euphemism used by Americans, Restroom. It's a toilet or lavatory, for heavens sake, why can't they just say it! Everyone knows what they are going in there for and it's not a rest!

A life jacket is apparently a condom
I would have said it was a life preventer?

Don't they also ask for the 'bathroom' when they actually want the toilet? Must be very confusing when they're directed to a room with just a bath and washbasin in it!

My first visit to the US in 1983 was to Oregon.
I had read something about it and just wanted to see it. We were living in Hongkong at the time and I was sick of the city.
Oregon was wild and had everything - mountains, rivers, forests and the most breathtaking coastline.
The children were aged 6, 3 and six months and we set ourselves easy targets of travelling about only about 100 miles a day.
We stopped in little towns along the way and everyone was so friendly. They were not used to foreign visitors and everywhere we were met with 'you mean you're on vaycaytion? Well how about that!'
Wonderful country and wonderful hospitable people.

Yip would agree on the gun laws. There is a worse problem in South Africa where not only does everyone have a gun, many of them are illegal (or unlicensed). We never owned one when we lived in SA but we were the odd ones out.

Bananas thank you for the insight! you are so lucky to have been to so many places.

Ariadne that cabin sounds lovely, I have seen the type on TV..

Ana

Ana I do that, ask for the bathroom, I am always embarrased to ask for the toilet--I dont know why!

U/non u

Jeni Can you name the six Mitford sisters? Nancy wrote about U and non-U but there were 5 more. Only one left now.

I reada book of their letters to one another. Typical sisters - veered between love and frightful rows.

You could google it...