An American woman living in the UK has shared the four words that have very different meanings in the US.
Ashley Jackson has been documenting her experience in Britain ever since she moved to Manchester from her native Texas.
The 42-year-old – who is married to a Brit – racks up thousands of views on her TikTok posts, including a recent clip where she shared the British words that don’t quite mean the same thing where she’s from – leading to some mishaps.
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She listed some of the ones that “make her giggle”, saying they’d often caught her out when speaking to Brits – including ‘braces’, ‘fanny’, ‘rubber’ and ‘pants’.
“Braces are for your teeth, but here they’re they hold up your trousers,” Ashley told What’s The Jam.
“But I would call them suspenders, which is also probably a funny word.
“Fanny – to me, this is just a normal word, it’s not offensive.
“We use it for a fanny pack, but you guys [Brits] would say ‘bum bags’.
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“And I know what it means here, and I’m sorry to say it, but it is what it is.”
Next up is a seemingly innocent one: rubber.
While for Brits it’s an eraser used to correct faulty pencilwork, in the US, where Ashley is from, it means condom.
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The mum joked: “Every time my son or my daughter asked for that, I kind of just laugh inside because it’s fun.”
Another word that has a different meaning to Ashley is ‘pants’, which means trousers in her native US.
She added: “I always mess this one up.
“I always have to go back and say ‘oh trousers’ as pants mean underwear here.
“I can only imagine the conversations I’ve been having with people – [but] I’m sure they can infer what I mean.
“However, it was a little embarrassing to me because I was like ‘oh my gosh, I’ve been using pants to talk about trousers’.
“I quickly realised my mistake and corrected it, slightly embarrassed.
“A friend of mine and I were walking in the park with our kids, and I said I was having a hard time finding pants for my son that fit because he was growing so tall.
“She looked at me. a little taken aback, and said ‘oh, do you mean trousers?’ and we laughed.
“That’s the first time I realised the word ‘pants’ was used differently here.”
Ashley’s video garnered 37,000 views online, as well as hundreds of likes and comments.
Among them, one person said: “We say braces for teeth too! And up north we say pants. Down south they say trousers.”
Another viewer wrote: “I thought you were in Manchester? We say pants to mean trousers up north. So you’re correct if you’re up here.”
“On number 4, literally every Brit knows that Americans call trousers ‘pants’, so you need not worry about past transgressions,” someone else added.
Another user said: “Braces also mean dental ones here in UK, although sometimes referred to as train tracks.”
“Braces are for teeth too,” someone else agreed.
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