A Health Chat

As it's the start of a new year (well, it's February already, so talk of the "new year" is a little belated I suppose) I guess that explains the sudden surge in health conversations.  That or it's just winter and everyone has colds or "sinusitis" as is more often used here.  I'm still trying to figure out if they use that like we use "the flu."  (aka, the illness we label ourselves as having without really knowing if we have the actual influenza or not).  Anyway, I digress.  On the health subject though, I was told by one of the girls who comes to Kids Kabin today (one on the older side, mind.  Probably 10 or 11.  Side note:  I just ended the previous sentence with mind... I'm becoming Geordie...  ending a sentence with mind as in, keep in mind, or bear in mind but just shorter) that sugar isn't bad for you because kids eat it all the time, and we don't get fat.  IF ONLY!  All my dietary "oops-es" would be solved!

Along the same lines:

poorly vs. sick  (she is poorly vs. she is sick)

tablets vs. pills

chemist vs. pharmacy or drug store (but their chemists are also like our pharmacies or drug store, as in not just medicine.  Boot's Chemist vs. WalGreens)

There's definitely another name for Tylenol or Aleve (which should have been expected on my part since obviously those are brand names that we use even if we aren't taking the specific brand) but I can't think of it at the minute.

And a few other randoms:

cello-tape vs. scotch tape (again, a brand name being used for the thing itself no matter the brand)  Oh!  And about the dispensing of the tape... I swear no one in Britain has heard of a tape dispenser!  I'm forever having to search around and around a roll of "cello-tape" to find the end and once that magical feat is accomplished, you then either have to have a pair of scissors handy or cut it with your teeth...

Along the same lines of convenience items:  I'm thinking of starting a bicycle business here in Jolly Ol' England which solely sells kickstands.  No one has one!!  Once I market the complete and total logic behind such an "invention" I'm sure my millions will start flowing in.  ;-)

polly pockets vs. those plastic sleeves that also have holes punched in the side so you can use them inside of binders)  Speaking of binders... not 3 ring.  They only have 2 here, and they are both quite near the center.

Ending on an ironic linguistic note... I would generally describe the difference between the American accent and the British accent (including all forms of said British accent, Geordie and otherwise) as Americans on the whole having hard "a's" than the British (a as in ape).  However, most words that we actually pronounce the a in a soft way (as in a-cappella) the British use a hard a!  Ok, a-capella was a bad example because I don't know if that's true so for example:  American:  apricot  British: apericot  (phonetically spelled the 2nd time obviously).