those "what??" moments (food, slang, etc.)

[MyHeartsInScotland]

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I do remember saying "...what?" many, many times during our first round of dating. I think moving to England took some of the Scottish out of him :P

You're dating a fellow Scot too Harlequin? I took a gander at your profile and you two met on the same website as me and my SO! How weirdly cool is that?! What part of Scotland is he from?

It means close the door, put the wood (wooden door) in the hole (doorway). We're a simple bunch.

Ah that makes sense, and what a cool phrase!

"Nutter butter" I thought it was one of his silly nicknames, it actually is a chocolate bar

Nutter butters are sooo good! But it does make a cute silly nickname. From my experience of talking to others from outside the states, peanut butter isn't hugely popular across the globe, and Americans are considered weird for being obsessed with it. My SO at least thinks so haha.

Haha, that's cute!! The only slang word my SO has picked up is "dude", which is so stereotypically popular here in Cali
He also learned how to make the West Coast gang sign while he was studying here, but I definitely didn't teach him that one

That is so cute! Haha it's funny what they pick up on. My SO's American slang is so outdated. I remember saying something in the car and him saying "fo shizzle." My mom, bestie, and I were dying. No one's said that since like 1995 haha. So now he's modified it to "fo shizlet," but I still can't help but laugh.

[Inspirement]

Unlike some others here I'm trying to throw off my Americanisms and use British or Australian lingo :P They have so many weird words in Australia that I'd never heard of.

The first one I heard of was thongs, apparenly reffering to flip-flops. And apparently some words even they don't agree on what to call. My SO told me at least three different names for swimwear I think, and that she personally call them togs. I don't remember the others. And then there's the slang for afternoon, arvo. Most of them are easy to figure out by context though, but some threw me for a loop :P

[Alsfia]

There's this Swedish word without any substitute in English, lagom, that I use a lot. It means that something is just right, not too much and not too little, but you wouldn't go as far as saying it's perfect. My SO has started using it too and I've even heard his family use it once or twice.

I was really confused by the words insulation and isolation for quite a while, since both translate to isolering in Swedish and isolation was the only word of the two I was taught.

Last Christmas my SO suddenly blurted out "I need to make mince pies!". I was really confused to what he meant with them being sweet, because the only mince I knew was minced meat. We then had a lot of trouble finding any suet for it...

It's very hard to find decaf coffee around here. I'm sure you could, but it's nowhere near as easy as in England where they sell it at any Tesco or wherever...

Alcohol is sold, regardless the level of alcohol in it, in any corner shop AND to people turned 18, again regardless the percentage of the drink. This baffled me since we have to buy anything that is over 4,7% and/or not fermented from a state owned chain of liquor shops called alko... You also have to be 20 to buy alcohol, except if it's under 22% where you can buy it when you turn 18. You can buy stronger drinks at bars and restaurants here, though. Oh, and that if you're 16 and someone over 18 buys it for you, you can drink beer/cider/wine with a meal at a pub over there...

The lack of community owned and run houses, especially for young people, in England... They're in more or less every village here.

Talko. Basically you gather a group of friends and family and you clean up ditches, build a roof, do up a museum, serve coffee at for example an amateur theatre performance, sell stuff from the kiosk at football or ice hockey games and so on. There is always a ton of stuff like that happening here, you even have spring/autumn cleaning in schools where the students are to bring a rake and gloves and they all help cleaning up the ground (at least in my municipality). Sadly they've brought in a new law that's going to make it difficult to for example build a house on talko here now...

The lack of grounded bitter orange peel in the spice racks at shops in England! It's rather important in my Christmas and Easter cooking, I need it in for example gingerbread and memma/mämmi, which is a Finnish Easter dessert that is served with cream and sugar, looking like this:

A beer in England is an ale, whereas beer here is anything from a stout to a lager...

The level of the floor in English houses are often the same as the ground it stands on... Here, especially on newer houses, the foundation raises the level of the floor to up to a metre above the ground, so you need stairs to access the door. This helps with keeping the snow away, too.

Country lanes I was convinced I was going to die quite a few times when driving to Wales to meet my his grandparents... Then again, English roads and driving culture always makes me thinking I'll die... Except when there's a little snow/ice on the ground and all of southern England panics and decide that roads need closing, then it's just funny

Tea in tearooms and coffee houses are sold by the pot, not the cup It's adorable!

...as is the signs warning for elderly people on the roads:

Oh, it's ever so hard to get fresh yeast AND people complicate bread making so much with five different wheat flours and kneading and what not in England. It baffles me.

These are some of the things that confused me a lot before they got explained to me, at least the ones I remember off the top of my head but there's lots more

[Ahava]

Some other good Yorkshireisms for ye:

not enough room to swing a cat - a small room
neither use nor ornament - useless
more brass na brains - more money than sense
were ya born in a barn? - close the door
lug - ear
cack-handed - left handed
Aye up - hello, how are you?
Topped his/her clogs - he/she died

Hehe these are fun.

I think I can add some fun to the list:

Ayup me duck - greeting. Duck is used a lot and means "dear"
Cob (cheese cob/bacon cob) = a bread roll
Scrating = crying
Mardy = grumpy, like a moaning child who doesn't get their way

Now anyone from the area can tell where my SO is from LOL

[SmileyK]

Unlike some others here I'm trying to throw off my Americanisms and use British or Australian lingo :P They have so many weird words in Australia that I'd never heard of.

The first one I heard of was thongs, apparenly reffering to flip-flops. And apparently some words even they don't agree on what to call. My SO told me at least three different names for swimwear I think, and that she personally call them togs. I don't remember the others. And then there's the slang for afternoon, arvo. Most of them are easy to figure out by context though, but some threw me for a loop :P

Yes, when my sister-in-law moved over from the other side of Australia, from Perth, we discovered the slang that differences from state to state, example:

Togs, Bathers and Cozzies all refer to swimsuits.
Bubblers vs. Water/Drinking Fountains.
Poppers vs. Juice boxes (the box that comes with the straw. Not the ones with pop up lids).

There are also lots and lots of words we cut in half and add 'ie' to:

Aussie (Australian), Barbie (Barbeque), Cockie (Cockroach or Cockatoo), Mozzie (Mosquito), Bikkie (Biscuit), Breakkie (Breakfast), Scratchie (Scratchcard), Sickie (Taking a sick day off work)

And there's a lot of really bizarre 'out there' slang, half of which I don't even understand. I don't feel I or anyone I know uses an awful lot of slang, but then there's lots of little bits of slang you use in your every day life you don't pay any attention to, like the thongs and arvo... and servo. .

Don't know nearly as much about the Swedish slang, but I can say it makes for very difficult learning when learning the language! They just seem to shorten their pronunciations and mix and blur their words and sounds together when speaking, but the written word will often stay the same (except in social media *cough* facebook *cough*). Classic example: their word for "och" meaning "and". Often times the pronunciation will just be an "o", and I'll often see it written this way on FB statuses, but then when learning the Frozen songs in Swedish, they'll also pronounce it "o" too, but of course the word is written as "och" in the lyrics. It drives me nuts!

Oh, and I believe their weirdest thing I've yet seen in terms of Swedish food so far is their seafood cakes. For birthdays. Seafood and salad "cakes". How are you supposed to have candles on that?! Give me a sponge/mud/cheesecake any day!

[CynicalQuixotic]

Unlike some others here I'm trying to throw off my Americanisms and use British or Australian lingo :P They have so many weird words in Australia that I'd never heard of.

The first one I heard of was thongs, apparenly reffering to flip-flops. And apparently some words even they don't agree on what to call. My SO told me at least three different names for swimwear I think, and that she personally call them togs. I don't remember the others. And then there's the slang for afternoon, arvo. Most of them are easy to figure out by context though, but some threw me for a loop :P

Why? All of it is English. I actually envy foreign speakers of English, because they can use practically whatever slang they want without sounding affected.

[Alsfia]

Yes, when my sister-in-law moved over from the other side of Australia, from Perth, we discovered the slang that differences from state to state, example:

Togs, Bathers and Cozzies all refer to swimsuits.
Bubblers vs. Water/Drinking Fountains.
Poppers vs. Juice boxes (the box that comes with the straw. Not the ones with pop up lids).

There are also lots and lots of words we cut in half and add 'ie' to:

Aussie (Australian), Barbie (Barbeque), Cockie (Cockroach or Cockatoo), Mozzie (Mosquito), Bikkie (Biscuit), Breakkie (Breakfast), Scratchie (Scratchcard), Sickie (Taking a sick day off work)

And there's a lot of really bizarre 'out there' slang, half of which I don't even understand. I don't feel I or anyone I know uses an awful lot of slang, but then there's lots of little bits of slang you use in your every day life you don't pay any attention to, like the thongs and arvo... and servo. .

Don't know nearly as much about the Swedish slang, but I can say it makes for very difficult learning when learning the language! They just seem to shorten their pronunciations and mix and blur their words and sounds together when speaking, but the written word will often stay the same (except in social media *cough* facebook *cough*). Classic example: their word for "och" meaning "and". Often times the pronunciation will just be an "o", and I'll often see it written this way on FB statuses, but then when learning the Frozen songs in Swedish, they'll also pronounce it "o" too, but of course the word is written as "och" in the lyrics. It drives me nuts!

Oh, and I believe their weirdest thing I've yet seen in terms of Swedish food so far is their seafood cakes. For birthdays. Seafood and salad "cakes". How are you supposed to have candles on that?! Give me a sponge/mud/cheesecake any day!

Hey, smörgċstċrta is great! In fact, they're so great you don't need candles (yea, we have it too, at least us Fennoswedes do)

I've got another one; crispbread. I missed crispbread so much before I found a department on an online shop called "Swedish shop", I could even get the sourdough rye crispbread on there But I was so confused the first time I went shopping and couldn't find any crispbread at all...

[SmileyK]

Hey, smörgċstċrta is great! In fact, they're so great you don't need candles (yea, we have it too, at least us Fennoswedes do)

I've got another one; crispbread. I missed crispbread so much before I found a department on an online shop called "Swedish shop", I could even get the sourdough rye crispbread on there But I was so confused the first time I went shopping and couldn't find any crispbread at all...

I've heard of the Swedish Shop too, and there's also Swedish Goodies - there's a physical store at the Gold Coast but I've never been and it's not like I get down there very often. (But I just looked at their website and their business is up for sale ) I'm hoping to go to the Scandinavian Festival we have again this year though. I went to it last year but didn't buy anything, but now I know what things are and what things I miss so I know what to shop for

[Hollandia]

Tosti's for a Grilled Cheese threw me off. It sounds so cute.

The biggest one is how he says little kittys. Poesje which in American sounds like pussy. I know we have pussy cats but I don't often ever hear anyone calling a cat a pussy in American.........it has ehm...other meanings. So, we have two little kittys and I get to hear the word a lot. It sounds juvenile of me, but it still makes me giggle a bit.

[Inspirement]

Why? All of it is English. I actually envy foreign speakers of English, because they can use practically whatever slang they want without sounding affected.

Well I just personally really like the British way of speaking and the British accents. It just sounds so cosy

Hey, smörgċstċrta is great!

Nah, not too fond of it tbh. We had two kinds for my dad's 50th this week. Both a traditional seafood one and another one with other stuff in it, like Bacon and things. I chose the latter. It wasn't too bad but I don't like seafood. I agree with my SO. I'd rather have sponge cake or mudcake any day xD

[kittyo9]

I've talked about it before, but for some weird reason, lemons and limes are called the opposite thing in Peru, so that the green ones, to him, are "lemons", and the yellow ones are "limes". This is the case throughout Peru. He has offered me his mom's "lemonade" before (which I assumed was made with... you know, lemons, the yellow ones) that turned out to be made with limes (the green ones). He has given me a recipe and told me it needs "3 limes," but what it really calls for are 3 lemons. This has been very confusing on occasion, but more often we just tease each other about it. Google image search is on my side, though.

For food, I kind of expected them to have a variety of dishes I'd never really seen, but there's one food that my SO and his friends LOVE that I would never have imagined. It's called anticuchos, and it's basically skewered cow heart (although sometimes they use other meat parts). You can buy them cheaply from street carts. I didn't want to try it last time, but I might this time.

[BlueCat]

I had trouble using the term lemonade in the USA. In my family, lemonade is just another word for sprite or similar. However, lemonade in the USA, obviously refers to lemon flavoured soft drink (soda) such as Solo or Lift. So once when I asked for a lemonade as a restaurant and actually got proper lemonade instead of Sprite I was confused. My SO was like... "I thought you wanted lemonade, that's what you asked for." and I did ask for lemonade, but I wanted Sprite :P

They also have the term traffic circle. The definition was obvious from the get go, but it sounds weird to me, since we call them roundabouts.

Then there's also biscuits, which in Australia are cookies, but in USA, biscuits are those pastry type roll things that you have with dinner.

We also use the word "tea" to mean dinner, as in my family, tea is the evening meal, but dinner is usually a proper hot lunch. That confused my SO when I would say I was going out for tea, he just thought I really liked drinking tea, when in fact I don't like tea that you drink at all, lol.

I don't like the terms, sweatsuit, sweatpants or sweatshirt. What gross names for items of clothing :P The terms for them here are tracksuit, trackpants (trackies, or trackiedaks.), and jumper. Even though I'm aware that in the USA track pants are completely different to sweatpants.

I know there's many more, but I can't think of them right now.

[kittyo9]

I had trouble using the term lemonade in the USA. In my family, lemonade is just another word for sprite or similar. However, lemonade in the USA, obviously refers to lemon flavoured soft drink (soda) such as Solo or Lift. So once when I asked for a lemonade as a restaurant and actually got proper lemonade instead of Sprite I was confused. My SO was like... "I thought you wanted lemonade, that's what you asked for." and I did ask for lemonade, but I wanted Sprite :P

They also have the term traffic circle. The definition was obvious from the get go, but it sounds weird to me, since we call them roundabouts.

Hahaha, I didn't know that lemonade ever meant anything else! Although when I think of lemonade, I'm thinking of basically lemon juice, uncarbonated water, and sugar. We call them rotaries here, too-- I think it's a regional thing in the states to call them "traffic circles."

[Hollandia]

I had trouble using the term lemonade in the USA. In my family, lemonade is just another word for sprite or similar. However, lemonade in the USA, obviously refers to lemon flavoured soft drink (soda) such as Solo or Lift. So once when I asked for a lemonade as a restaurant and actually got proper lemonade instead of Sprite I was confused. My SO was like... "I thought you wanted lemonade, that's what you asked for." and I did ask for lemonade, but I wanted Sprite :P

They also have the term traffic circle. The definition was obvious from the get go, but it sounds weird to me, since we call them roundabouts.

Then there's also biscuits, which in Australia are cookies, but in USA, biscuits are those pastry type roll things that you have with dinner.

We also use the word "tea" to mean dinner, as in my family, tea is the evening meal, but dinner is usually a proper hot lunch. That confused my SO when I would say I was going out for tea, he just thought I really liked drinking tea, when in fact I don't like tea that you drink at all, lol.

I don't like the terms, sweatsuit, sweatpants or sweatshirt. What gross names for items of clothing :P The terms for them here are tracksuit, trackpants (trackies, or trackiedaks.), and jumper. Even though I'm aware that in the USA track pants are completely different to sweatpants.

I know there's many more, but I can't think of them right now.

Real lemonade in USA is not soda. It is the juice of lemons with sugar and water added to it. The soda that you are talking about is lemon soda or lemonade flavored soda. Lemonade stands are made by kids in their house, or mom, and selling it on the street in front of their house to make some spending money or fund raise for a project has no soda in it, it is cheap to make and easy enough for any tween to do.

[differentcountries]

I think it is funny that when eating fried food, like a chili that has been on the grill, he takes away the black stuff. To my mind, only kids are picky enough to don't want to eat the black stuff In the local grocery store they sell wine displayed together with condoms as a special offer, that made me laugh! Here wine are sold only in special shops that just sell alcohol at fixed prices. Their ice cream (to get in scope) is funny, it is kind of thready and it like never starts to run even if it is hot outside. I absolutely loved their strawberry ice cream on a stick of last year, I already miss it since it is not for sale this season. Their strawberries taste sort of meatier than ours. Their common soda water taste like our more expensive ones. Everybody keeps gardens with eatable produce, even people in flats.