n carry-on baggage. Belongings you are intending carrying into an aeroplane rather than checking into the hold.
Category: Appliances
The most common British words or British English terms related to domestic appliances. This is something of a catch-all category, I must admit.
n rangetop; stovetop. The top bit of a cooker with the burners on it, where you put pans and things.
n ATM. The term derives from a time many years ago when these devices were nothing more than holes in walls, stocked carefully in the mornings by bank employees. Next to the hole was a notepad, upon which customers wrote their names and the amounts of money they had taken. After some years it became apparent that the system was open to a degree of abuse, and a more elaborate one was invented to replace it. This is not true. Brits do not use the American definition of “hole in the wall” to mean a very small store or food vendor. Of course, this might not be true either. You’ve no way of working out whether to trust me or not now.
n vacuum cleaner. –ing v vacuuming. The Hoover Company was an early manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, though originally they were invented by a company called British Vacuumation. Where are they now? They could have cleaned up. Sorry.
n police car. Also “jam butty.” So called because they are white, with a red stripe down the middle, and therefore are almost indistinguishable from a twelve-foot metal jam sandwich.
n paper towel. The disposable paper cloth, much akin to a larger, stronger version of toilet paper, that one generally keeps in the kitchen and uses to mop up bits of food and drink that have been inadvertently thrown around. So called, I’d imagine, because Brits keep it in the kitchen and it comes on a roll. Americans call it “paper towel,” no doubt because it’s made of paper and works like a towel.
n 1 money. 2 ice- popsicle. A sort of frozen sugary flavoured lump wrapped around a small bit of wood and designed specifically to drip all down your front as it defrosts.
n 1 one of those fiendishly complicated wrench-type devices which can have its tension adjusted by means of a screw on the handle end. Americans know them better as “vise grips,” but it’s probably safe to say that if you don’t know what I’m talking about on either score then you are not going to live life at a great deficit. 2 popular sexual position. This is a joke.
n pocket knife. A small retractable knife, often with several handy fold-out accoutrements for getting into alcoholic beverages and removing girl scouts from horses’ hooves.
n Plexiglas. A sort of plastic equivalent of glass. Perspex is a brand name of the acrylic company Lucite. Their advertising literature probably has all sorts of fancy terms in it about covalent bonds and stress ratings, and perhaps doesn’t even use the phrase “a sort of plastic equivalent of glass.” Unless maybe they have a layman’s FAQ at the end.
n phone booth. One of those boxes with a telephone in it that used to be commonplace but are dying out somewhat now that everyone has a mobile phone. The government still erect a few to give errant youths have something to vandalise in the long winter evenings and prostitutes somewhere to advertise. Of course, they all do that via email now.
n modeling clay. It’s a particular brand in the U.K. but no Brit will ever have heard of any others.
n a sort of prefabricated hut, most often used as temporary offices on a building-site. A portable cabin, if you will. Portakabin is a U.K. trademark.
n baby carriage. An abbreviation for the rather Victorian and now largely unused term “perambulator.”
n baby buggy; stroller. A device in which a small child is pushed along by an obliging parent. The American term “buggy” is squeezing its way into everyday use in the U.K.
n moly bolt. If you don’t know what either of these things is, rest assured that your life may continue.
n eraser. Be very, very careful. Limeys visiting the United States are urged by the government to write this translation on the back of their hands and not to wash until they leave.