> Some are mondegreens, a term coined by the author Sylvia Wright when she heard “And laid him on the green” as “And Lady Mondegreen.” (“ ’Scuse me while I kiss this guy” is a mondegreen for Jimi Hendrix’s lyric “ ’Scuse me while I kiss the sky”, and Taylor Swift’s long list of ex-lovers are lonely Starbucks lovers.)
Oh there’s a word for this. The first time I was in the U.S. I was looking for an ATM and someone said there was a biyouvet down the road. I wasn’t sure what a biyouvet was but it sounded French and exotic. I asked them if the biyouvet had ATMs and was assured it did, and went on my way to find the aforementioned biyouvet - before I could though I found a Bank of America which did in fact have ATMs.
I seem to recall baffling people on my first visit to the US by asking them if they knew where a "cash machine" could be found. Either that wasn't a common term for ATM or my strong British accent confounded them.
Ha, people in the US should know what a cash machine is. It may have been the accent, but I’m having a hard time imagining how even the most severe British accent would make “cash machine” that hard to understand. Now if you were Scottish, on the other hand…
Virtually a BBC accent, so who knows? A bit later in Texas I had trouble ordering a tuna sandwich because of the stark difference between "tooona" (US) and "tyouna" (UK). To be fair they're very different sounds.
The first time I was introduced to a Glaswegian colleague I just smiled and nodded because I had not the faintest idea what he was saying (the ear tunes in pretty quickly though).
Yeah, the ew sound isn't commonly understood - try asking for a Mountain Dew. I've been visiting America for 20 years and I still can't get people to understand what I want to drink.
Which means Americans have homophones that are not homophones in other variants of English. Leading to, for example, confusion over whether someone should "make do" or "make due". In British English, there is no ambiguity, and one makes do
Not a common term here. It is somewhat ambiguous with "cash register", so some people's brains may not immediately or strongly select the correct interpretation. Some will just fine though.
The person directing them to the ATM said “B of A”, and the person looking for the ATM heard “bi youv ay”, which they thought was a word they hadn’t heard before. “B of A” = “bi yuv ay” = “biyouvet”.
Oh there’s a word for this. The first time I was in the U.S. I was looking for an ATM and someone said there was a biyouvet down the road. I wasn’t sure what a biyouvet was but it sounded French and exotic. I asked them if the biyouvet had ATMs and was assured it did, and went on my way to find the aforementioned biyouvet - before I could though I found a Bank of America which did in fact have ATMs.