# Things are a bit sticky Sir.



## Olly Buckle (Dec 17, 2018)

I was reading about American and Australian English versus English English and met a couple of things that puzzled me.

Firstly that Americans spell 'insure' as 'ensure', now we have a word 'ensure' as well as 'insure'. In England ensure means to make certain of. Insure means to take out an insurance policy with an insurance company. My question is if I was in America would it be an ensurance policy with an ensurance company? Do you differentiate between ensure and insure? They are rather similar concepts, I could see it leading to muddles.


Another one was American 'draft' for English 'Draught'. we also have draft, as in first draft of a novel, and I can understand a cold draught from the door being draft, but surely you wouldn't have a 'draft' of ale? In English that would be as though someone had written a draft assigning so much ale, a bit like a banker's draft, not quite the potential to confuse as insure/ensure, but I wonder what others have come across?

By the way, that title, it is what the English brigadier said to his American superior when 600 Gloucesters were faced by 30,000 Chinese troops. They held them for three days and killed something like 10,000 men. Thirty odd Gloucesters escaped, the rest were killed or taken prisoner. There was no support because the American did not translate 'A bit sticky' as 'All hell's broken loose', sometimes these misunderstandings have more serious consequences.


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## Terry D (Dec 17, 2018)

Insure and ensure work the same in the states as they do in your back garden, Olly. It's just that they are oft confused and commingled.


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## Olly Buckle (Dec 17, 2018)

Well that's one the man got wrong 

The book is not that new and in the lists of English versus American ways of putting things there are some which appear dated nowadays, we seem to have converged on some things at least. On the other hand there are things like 'I'll see you at the weekend' as opposed to 'I'll see you over the weekend'. I would say the first if I was simply going to see someone at some point during the weekend, but if we were both off to the same place all weekend I might well say the second. Then there are things like 'He's in hospital' as opposed to 'He's in the hospital', they sound pretty interchangeable, but I suppose the first might elicit the response 'What's wrong', but with the second I might well know it was likely and ask 'Which one?'.


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## Phil Istine (Dec 17, 2018)

In the UK, if we settle up in a restaurant by writing out a cheque (yes it still happens occasionally), we pay thew bill with a cheque.  In American, if I paid cash, I think I would be paying the cheque with a bill - except that it's check.


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## midnightpoet (Dec 17, 2018)

This started back in the 1830's (at least) with Webster's dictionary, and he deliberately wanted to separate U.S. English from British English.  Between him and changing cultures language evolved, as it did in Australia.  It has led to some odd circumstances.  Having listened to a lot of British TV over the years, I've learned enough to be dangerous.


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## Dluuni (Dec 17, 2018)

We ensure that we have enough money to insure our car with insurance from the insurance company so we can ensure that damage to our car is paid for. No, I do not know why there's a difference there, some linguistic artifact or other.
We tell the waitress "Check, please!" so she will give us the bill, which we pay with cash in the form of bills, though we almost never refer to paying for it with a bill unless it is to talk about the physical piece of paper currency itself. I haven't seen anybody pay for anything with a check in quite awhile, I think most places don't even accept them anymore. Even street vendors take plastic nowadays.
Yeah, it's silly, just go ahead and throw sentences like that at us so we can proof them.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 18, 2018)

I've always taken "ensure" to mean "be sure" or "verify" and "insure" as "to promise" or "to guarantee".

Not much of a difference, I know, but that's how I've always justified there being two versions of what seems to be basically the same word.


G.D.


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## Olly Buckle (Dec 18, 2018)

Dluuni said:


> We tell the waitress "Check, please!" so she will give us the bill, which we pay with cash in the form of bills, though we almost never refer to paying for it with a bill unless it is to talk about the physical piece of paper currency itself. I haven't seen anybody pay for anything with a check in quite awhile, I think most places don't even accept them anymore. Even street vendors take plastic nowadays.
> Yeah, it's silly, just go ahead and throw sentences like that at us so we can proof them.



Phil. has it, what the waitress gives us in England is a bill, a demand for money. What we pay with is a note, originally 'a banker's note', so paper money. Room for confusion there.

Edit, and the piece of paper that we write on to present to the bank we spell 'Cheque' in England, though they are rare here as well now.


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## Bayview (Dec 18, 2018)

Canada tends to use idioms from both the UK and the US, but we generally stick with UK spellings...

So we'd pay the check with a cheque. But we might also pay a bill with a ten-dollar bill. At least we're paying, right?


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## Kyle R (Dec 18, 2018)

I've heard UK residents say things like, "Go to hospital" as opposed to "Go to _the_ hospital".

Though, US residents also say, "Go to school" instead of "Go to _the_ school", so I call a grammar foul on both the US and the UK. 

(Interestingly, saying something like "Going to bed" would be acceptable in both regions, but something like "Going to couch" would sound weird to both.)


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## Guard Dog (Dec 18, 2018)

How 'bout "go to hell"?

After all, it is "the" hell, isn't it? 

...or is it okay if I choose?
( I'd prefer if it were... )



G.D.


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## Kyle R (Dec 18, 2018)

I'd say that, since there's supposedly only one hell, it doesn't need to be distinguished (just like there's only one Europe, so we don't need to say "Go to _the_ Europe").

But it does beg the question: Why can't we say "Fly into sky", when there's only one sky? Do we really need the _the_? Whereas we say "Fly into outer space" without the _the_.

Double standards. English is quirky.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 18, 2018)

Yeah, it's like we say "flying into a rage"... but never define exactly which one or what kind.
( Well, sometimes we do, but even then, it's not a necessity. )



G.D.


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## Ralph Rotten (Dec 18, 2018)

Insure has always meant to buy insurance, so far as I know.


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## JustRob (Dec 18, 2018)

Dluuni said:


> We tell the waitress "Check, please!" so she will give us the bill, which we pay with cash in the form of bills, though we almost never refer to paying for it with a bill unless it is to talk about the physical piece of paper currency itself. I haven't seen anybody pay for anything with a check in quite awhile, I think most places don't even accept them anymore. Even street vendors take plastic nowadays.



But in Britain our banknotes are plastic now and transparent in places to prove it, so ...

And what about tin cans, which have really only ever been _tinned_ cans made of steel? Rather than call them cans we have traditionally called them tins over here even though they aren't made of tin and nowadays may even be plastic coated or varnished rather than tinned. In fact they may be aluminium anyway. And let's not get started on how one spells or speaks the name of that particular metal. Surely we can at least agree on the names in the periodic table of elements, or does that only happen periodically?

As for "insure" and "ensure", I still feel the need to mention "assure" as well because in the UK we provide life _assurance_ but _insurance_ for other contingencies on the principle that the aim of insurance is to restore the person affected to their previous situation but in the case of death it is only possible to provide assurance that others will be compensated for the inconvenience of it. Life _insurance_ would be expected to ensure that the person remained alive, but that product we call health insurance. Here we use different words because the purpose of the product is considered to be fundamentally different.


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## Olly Buckle (Dec 18, 2018)

"The names on the periodic table? Elementary my dear Watson." More importantly is the metal spelt or spelled, there is a grain of magic in that.

Did you hear about the salesman trying to sell life assurance to a countryman who simply didn't get it, "Look at it like this" he said, "It's like betting on your life."
"So what happens if you die?"
"You win!"


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## Phil Istine (Dec 19, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> Phil. has it, what the waitress gives us in England is a bill, a demand for money. What we pay with is a note, originally 'a banker's note', so paper money. Room for confusion there.
> 
> Edit, and the piece of paper that we write on to present to the bank we spell 'Cheque' in England, though they are rare here as well now.



As an aside,. my business is one of a shrinking band that still takes cheques.  However, I supply a regular, lowish-value service every few weeks to repeat customers, some of whom aren't able to set up BACS transfers or might not have cash with them.
So they settle my bills with cheques


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## JustRob (Dec 21, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> "The names on the periodic table? Elementary my dear Watson." More importantly is the metal spelt or spelled, there is a grain of magic in that.



Ah, I think it more likely that jest is ingrained in your remark and if words are spelled by a speller then they ought surely to be spelt by a spelter, but I mentioned aluminium not zinc in my post.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 21, 2018)

Now why did people crying over spelt milk suddenly spring to mind...



G.D.


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## J.J. Maxx (Dec 21, 2018)

Man all these talk of cheques... you mean checks? Like, who uses checks anymore? I can't remember the last time I saw a check. Everything is electronic or plastic nowadays.

~ J. J.


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## Olly Buckle (Dec 21, 2018)

Do Americans still use 'gotten' where we would say 'got'?   " I have got down the ladder"  "I have gotten down..."


One of the examples is I'll see you at the weekend, as opposed to I'll see you over the weekend, another that could cause confusion I feel. If I said 'at the weekend' I would expect to see them at some point during the weekend. If I said 'over the weekend' though I feel it would imply that we would be spending a lot of, if not all, the weekend together.


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## J.J. Maxx (Dec 21, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> One of the examples is I'll see you at the weekend, as opposed to I'll see you over the weekend, another that could cause confusion I feel. If I said 'at the weekend' I would expect to see them at some point during the weekend. If I said 'over the weekend' though I feel it would imply that we would be spending a lot of, if not all, the weekend together.



Both of these would be weird. We would just say, 'I'll see you this weekend." Or we might say, "Let's stay at the hotel over the weekend."


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## Terry D (Dec 21, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> Do Americans still use 'gotten' where we would say 'got'?   " I have got down the ladder"  "I have gotten down..."
> 
> 
> One of the examples is I'll see you at the weekend, as opposed to I'll see you over the weekend, another that could cause confusion I feel. If I said 'at the weekend' I would expect to see them at some point during the weekend. If I said 'over the weekend' though I feel it would imply that we would be spending a lot of, if not all, the weekend together.



I think the more common Americanism for the weekend scenario would be , "I'll see you this weekend."


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## JustRob (Dec 21, 2018)

J.J. Maxx said:


> Man all these talk of cheques... you mean checks? Like, who uses checks anymore? I can't remember the last time I saw a check. Everything is electronic or plastic nowadays.
> 
> ~ J. J.





JustRob said:


> But in Britain our banknotes are plastic now and transparent in places to prove it, so ...



Yes, it's all literally plastic and metal over here now, so using the term "plastic" specifically to indicate cards is already out of date.

In our supermarket there is, or at least was, one of those machines that accepts and counts coins and presumably gives banknotes in return. On this machine was a misleading sign stating "Turn your coins into cash!" To my recollection the traditional definition of cash was "coins of the realm" and in fact in old legal documents it was specified that monetary payments had to be made with "coins of the realm". That was because coins were produced by the National Mint, the manufacturer of all our money, and directly linked to the gold standard. In comparison banknotes were traditionally only as reliable as the bank that printed them, so not legal tender. However nowadays Bank of England notes are legal tender across the UK but those of other banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland are not although they are often accepted outside of those regions. Hence it simply isn't possible to convert coins of the realm into cash because they already are by the long-standing definition.

Regarding those cans that we call tins when they are actually made from steel, I  have also encountered "cake tins" made of plastic, so the whole notion  of using the name of the material for an item traditionally made out of  it is hazardous in the long run.

Just a final thought. Now that payments can be made directly using a mobile phone (so I've heard) does that count as using "plastic" or "electrons" or should it perhaps be "silicon"? Let's not go there. Does the US have smart cards yet though, i.e. ones with chips in, because in effect all our cards here are electronic devices just as phones are? I seem to recollect that the US didn't adopt chip and pin cards when we did here.


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