But what if it's not round...ah, I guess that would be a sub roll or somesuch, wouldn't it, you arsehole. Edit: @Mattie... just tried to 'like' your post and the bloody site censor won't let me. An error occurred. Double Edit: And no folks...I haven't become coarse as a badgers arse for no good reason... Looks like Matwoolf's been at the delete button again. I try to make a point of not calling people arseholes, even if they are. He's one notable exception.
A soft floury bread roll comes in a million different varieties so it would probably depend on the specific type. We have so many nationalities here mixing up the food. Kaiser roll, hoagie roll, sub roll, baguette, yeast roll, Italian bread. Hawaiian buns. There's about 1284 more.
"Rolls." Or "buns" when they're bigger and usually pre-split, as in "hamburger bun" or "hot dog bun." I think that Americans tend to add names as the rolls get harder and crustier. Edited to add: I agree generally with @doggiedude; I see "roll" as the generic for a single-person-sized portion of soft bread, and then they get more specific with different names. As in, "What kind of rolls should we put out for the barbecue?" "Hawaiian! No, wait, let's get those little knot rolls with sesame seeds."
Jumbo, from PT Barnum's circus. He was hit by a train and died in St. Thomas, Ontario, not far from my hometown. Apparently he was the world's first international animal superstar! But not stronger than a train.
obsidian_cicatrix, "So, just while I'm here; what do Americans call soft, floury bread rolls?", the first thing that came to my mind was a yeast roll which I have only had at O'Charleys, and they don't serve Irish Stew(?). A phrase often misused is "to the manor born", I might not even have that right, definitely an English phrase in my mind. A bit off the subject, some years back while driving in Ireland I noticed that they had road signs posted about highway deaths such as '23, target 52' - something like that anyway. To my thinking it sounds like they are trying to get people killed on the highways, the use of "target" obviously has flexibility. Of course Ireland doesn't have an over population problem, so maybe...?
@obsidian_cicatrix - We would call them 'dinner rolls,' if they are meant to be eaten on their own with just butter on them, to accompany a meal. It's common in the USA to serve bread with every meal (not as a starter, but with the main course), and at dinnertime it's kinda posh to have rolls instead of bread slices. What you guys call baps, we would probably call a 'bun.' A bun is a roll that's intended to be used for a sandwich of some kind. Hamburger bun. Hot dog bun. Sub bun. Sandwich bun, etc. We would not call them 'rolls.' these are very posh cloverleaf dinner rolls (I make these, she said, modestly....) These are ordinary quickie dinner rolls
Ex-Yank who has lived in the UK for just over 30 years here. I have never heard anybody in the UK refer to a 'gas pedal.' That stuff that fuels the car is not 'gas' over here, but 'petrol.' I have only heard that particular part of the car referred to as the accelerator. When I used to say 'gas' meaning the fuel for the car, I used to get laughed at a lot. Gas is natural gas, used to heat the home ...or other forms of noxious fumes. But never car fuel.
My driving instructor did. Apparently there was some silly reason why it was supposed to be the gas pedal rather than the accelerator, like the word accelerator denoted too much speed or something. People in the UK might not know what 'bap' means either. It's a huge regional thing, what one calls a bread roll. I say bread roll, my ex from Yorkshire would say 'breadcake'. Teacake, barm and cob are other ones I've heard.
I spend a lot of time in the US for work, and am fairly confident that I can write characters in American settings "speaking American" (which in my experience of around 25 states or so can vary very wildly) , but thats about it. Otherwise I am confused by the premise. You have English characters in America, but its a fictitious part of America. Why?
Oddly enough the only time this isn't used is when learning to drive. Every ADI I have ever had would say "Give it more gas" when telling you to accelerate, and would call the accelerator "gas" when they are taking new drivers over the controls. I suppose "more gas" is less tedious for them to have to keep saying than "Press the accelerator down a bit more, please". Other than that, its hard to say I suppose. Before I started going to the US I assumed films were movies, you asked for the check at the end of a meal, and then visited the restroom making sure to do your pants zipper up. But then I started spending a lot of time in America and while not that common have still certainly witnessed a lot of Americans talking about going to see a film in the cinema, buying trousers, asking for the bill, and following signs in airports that clearly say "Toilets". Iowans drink pop and will tell you that Iowa is the only place that does although it used to be a pretty common British English word. I suppose language is just what you use to communicate to the people around you. It rarely understands that its supposed to have rules or be confined to one place.
Michiganders also drink/drank pop. Have to laugh. Here in Scotland it's called a 'fizzy drink,' or in the part where I live now, it's referred to as 'ginger.' That's the generic term for 'pop.' However, that causes confusion in other parts of the UK, as my husband discovered as a little boy. He was traveling with his parents elsewhere in Scotland, and they stopped at a petrol station so he could buy a bottle of 'ginger' to drink in the car. He went into the shop and asked for a bottle of ginger, and they told him they didn't have any. He knew they were lying, because he could see that their cooler was full of all sorts of ginger, but didn't understand why they wouldn't sell it to him. He slunk off back to the car in defeat.
This was my opinion, until someone pointed out it's short for Gasoline, and then it made far more sense.
Maybe it's different down where you live (Manchester way?) but up here in Scotland, 'gas' is never used to mean petrol to run a car. In fact, it still gets laughed at, if I slip and say it, which I occasionally still do.
So, what colour is fava? Vicia faba, also known as the broad bean, fava bean (of Silence of the Lambs fame), faba bean, field bean, bell bean, English bean, horse bean, Windsor bean, pigeon bean and tic bean, is a species of flowering plant in the vetch and pea family. To the "name that bun" part of this thread, I recently researched Teacake... A teacake in England is a light yeast-based sweet bun containing dried fruit, typically served toasted and buttered.[1] In the U.S. teacakes can be cookies or small cakes. In Sweden they are soft round flat wheat breads made with milk and a little sugar, and used to make sandwiches, with butter, and for example ham and/or cheese. In India and Australia a teacake is more like a sponge cake.
Here in Canada, I grew up hearing both. And that was in a small town in western Nova Scotia during the 1960s, just about as close to living in the Ozarks as one can get without crossing the border. Before cable TV, we used to fight this battle every day, Americanisms vs. Britishisms (and to confuse things even more) vs. Canadianisms. Then we've got the Canadian French idioms and spellings that have crept in. It was a lot to keep track of.
I think Canadians in general are pretty much bi-lingual with US/UK English. We might not use all the terms, but we know what they mean! Our pushy mom and our pushy brother... yip, yip, yip, and we've just sat back and absorbed.
That actual idiom is 'getting on in years' which makes it clear, although a lot of people shorten it. But you're right; context will likely shed light.
The one that caught me off guard was Texas toast. When we moved to Ontario from B.C., we went into a restaurant and that was on the menu as a toast choice (white, whole wheat, or Texas toast). It was simply really thick bread, but on first seeing this menu item, I got visions of hot spicy toast or something with beef in it (somehow) or some kind of imitation bullets.
I just realized @BayView covered part of this, but here's some more info about Jumbo. It was the name of a particularly large elephant bought from (I believe) the London Zoo by P.T. Barnum. It's because of this elephant that the word 'jumbo' came into the English language to mean 'large.' It was covered in an episode of Q.I. during the 'J' series, I think.
