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Comment by ChrisRR | Hacker News Reader

Americans often don't twig how many random american terms we brits have to learn the double meaning of and don't pipe up about. I'm not talking the well-known ones like cookies, but even things like "the ER" meaning "A&E"

Sometimes it's their turn to repay the favour

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If you want to read some hilarious reactions of Americans panicking when they are suddenly exposed to non-American English/British accents, check out these threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/1q68v16/british_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/17wcsdm/my_digit...

I'm not sure "panicking" is the best word to describe a couple of parents wondering why the characters suddenly have different accents. But maybe I'm too American and "panicking" means something else for Brits.

Not even the accents - different voices are annoying enough. When I was young I watched some cartoons in English, and hearing them in Dutch later, despite being my native language, was still uncomfortable.

> How do I get it back?!

> Inexcusable that Paramount used the UK dub on some episodes

> Just downloaded it and had the same panic in my house

Sure I was being hyperbolic for effect but a lot of the tone is closer to panicking than “wondering”.

We are exposed to American accents all day every day. Americans often seem to want to protect themselves from having to be exposed to anything non-American, even going as far as to remake entire TV shows rather than just broadcasting the original.

It's outlandish to suggest that the country known as "the great melting pot" wants to be protected from anything as trivial as a non-American accent. I don't think you realize how many non-American accents we hear in our day-to-day lives just living in this country – it's part of the American experience. Those parents that you've honed in on were concerned that the characters their children are used to suddenly sounded like different characters, confusing their children who are too young to know what localization is.

> even going as far as to remake entire TV shows rather than just broadcasting the original.

I guess you're talking about The Office? The British version of The Office would've been a flop in the US because British humor is just inscrutable outside of the UK.

The Office. The IT Crowd. Red Dwarf. Coupling. Life on Mars.

They even wanted to remake "Fawlty Towers" without "the tall idiot".

If those posts are examples of 'panicking' we have yet another idiom I've just learned about.

Sometimes Americans wonder why English characters start talking about a basic cable channel when they really should be seeking medical help.

As a non-American I don't know what "basic cable" is (or what the other tiers are), just that you don't have free-to-air TV

As far as I'm aware the US does have free OTA TV. A quick google tells me that basic cable means the cheapest tier of cable. So maybe equivalent to a sky/cable entertainment package?

Yep, we do have free OTA television. Basic Cable generally comprises the local free OTA channels plus a number of mostly ad-supported channels.

The basic cable A&E began its life as “Arts & Entertainment” and was originally a mix of British import shows and high culture presentations (e.g., televised orchestra concerts). But much like carcinisation in aquatic invertebrates, for basic cable, apparently channels tend to evolve towards mostly showing Law & Order reruns.

I've watched the World Cup over free-to-air TV, US has a really fun match last night. I don't know where you got this idea from. I haven't paid for television service in decades.

Cable channel? Are you talking about fibre-optic frequency channels? What kind of cable are we talking?

Perhaps you can be more inclusive in your language on the future.

I wish US english had a term as good as ‘twig’ for when someone doesn’t get something.

Do you mean A&E the television channel?

You could just use the US terms, then you wouldn't have to learn both.

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