Briticisms

[lethargic_man]

Saw an article on the BBC News site about Briticisms picked up by Americans. Amongst them:

• Gobsmacked. Ah yes, but I wonder how many Americans then realise what "gob" means. (Actually, I wonder how many Brits do too: Is it a general British word or just one from the north-east?)
• Muppet. I wonder how much this word's use to mean stupid person is directly traceable to Steve Wright on Radio 1 in the eighties and nineties?
• Roundabout, touted as a Briticism. Actually, the word was invented by an American living in the UK. The older British term was "gyratory circus". That's why you have place names in London like Piccadilly Circus. (Or so I'm told. For all people complain about inaccuracies on Wikipedia, it's a huge improvement upon the sort of repeating of unchecked anecdotal factoids, which sometimes turn out to be poppycock, which went on beforehand... and still goes on now, as I'm currently helping to demonstrate.)

Comments

[bluepork]

Why do you think "gob" is a North Eastern term?

On circuses, see:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/circus

See the fourth entry. I looked this up because I'm pretty sure that the Piccadily Circus use of the term simply means a junction. This is because the area outside Hendon Tube station is called Hendon Circus. Its part of the official address of the HSBC branch there. I've seen pictures of the area as it used to look before they put the main roads in, and I don't recall seeing one with a roundabout. I'm sure this could be verified with recourse to some old maps too.

[lethargic_man]

Why do you think "gob" is a North Eastern term?

See my comment over on LJ.

On circuses, see:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/circus

See the fourth entry. I looked this up because I'm pretty sure that the Piccadily Circus use of the term simply means a junction.

Junction in a circular area, says above link. Which makes sense; why would they call it "circus" if there wasn't something circular about it? (Remember, the original meaning of "circus", as used by the Romans, meant a ring-shaped racecourse, frex the Circus Maximum.)

[bluepork]

Yup. Its splitting hairs perhaps, but there's a difference between a bunch of roads that meet in a round area, and one with a formal set of rules relating to going round a traffic island, which is what a roundabout is. I'm just saying that don't think either of our "circuses" were named because there was a roundabout there.

Also, I was always under the impression that the difference between a roundabout and a gyratory traffic system is that in a gyratory, there are traffic lights controlling the flow of traffic on the round bit.

According to Wikipedia:

The term "gyratory" (for example, Hanger Lane gyratory) is sometimes used in the United Kingdom when a circular intersection is large and has non-standard lane markings or priorities, or when there are buildings on the central island; in fact, they are more like traffic circles.

The source cited for this is a book called "The history of roundabouts", which must be a fascinatingly dull read, but I bet the author of that could clear this up, if you want to get in touch with him...

[iddewes]

I am reminded of when I was 10 years old in school in Canada - this still annoys me - in a book our teacher was using there were some examples of Britishisms and she was getting the class to guess what they meant. I of course knew ALL of them and she WAS aware that I had moved from the UK and had British parents...I don't know if she just got fed up with me answering all the time but she went onto the word 'boot' as in part of a car - which I immediately answered was 'trunk' in North America - and she said she didn't think it was whereupon another kid answered that it was the spare tyre and she said she agreed with that! I was most put out as you can imagine as I KNEW I was right!!! :P

[lethargic_man]

Why do you think "gob" is a North Eastern term?

ewx actually bothered to look it up in the OED and says that that august volume thinks it's a northern term too, FWIW—not that I knew that at the time!