I don't know, Mom, just stick your finger in and see if it feels good.

[Aixbelle]

I've gotten in trouble with the word "pants" since living in England.  To my mind they are trousers, but here in England they mean underwear, or panties.  I'm sure I am endlessly embarrassing friends by telling them I need new pants, or that I was working in the garden and got a hole in my pants.  lol

Not craft related, but I love this.  I had a Scottish boyfriend for awhile. So I went to visit him, and his friends were having this big long conversation about playing "torch" tag when they were kids and visiting some friends in the States once.  And I was like, isn't that dangerous?  And they said, well, I guess if you trip in a hole or something.  And I said, well, what if someone gets burned?  That sounds really unsafe!

My boyfriend looks at me and says "torch means flashlight."  (Not, apparently, large flaming sticks.)  Oh god, how moronic.

[Imsleepy]

Ok.. again, not craft related, but definitely related to the topic. 

I used to answer E911 calls at the state police barracks here in VT.  I worked the night shift, and generally knew by sight most of our night time troopers.  One night I was outside on a cigarette break, and there were a bunch of troopers that I had never seen, bringing things into the area that they stored things (evidence, mainly.)  Trying to be friendly, and commenting on the unusually large number of officers there, I said, "Looks like a party" to one of them.  He didn't respond, just gave me a look.  I shrugged it off, figuring he had a bad day.  When I went back upstairs, I told my boss what had happened.  After about 5 minutes, when she was able to breathe again and stop laughing, she told me that they had just had one of the biggest drug busts in years, and they were bringing in the equipment that the drug dealers used to grow the pot and process the drugs. 

Have I mentioned that I'm kinda naive? 

[Le Mieux]

Then he brought me a couple balls of yarn and he asked if it would be enough. I said no, for a willie warmer he'd need to grab one more. The look on the shop owner's face was priceless. That might have been because I think she thought I was his daughter, we get that a lot. 

    

[Persephone Hazard]

I've gotten in trouble with the word "pants" since living in England.  To my mind they are trousers, but here in England they mean underwear, or panties.  I'm sure I am endlessly embarrassing friends by telling them I need new pants, or that I was working in the garden and got a hole in my pants.  lol

*That's* the thing you keep getting in trouble for? I still wince and recoil every time an American says 'fanny' before I remember...

[Retromiad]

The word fanny has always meant to me what it means in the UK, I don't know why some people think it means behind.  It may be a regional thing, or it may be because I grew up overseas.  I've never actually said that word out loud.  I never will.

[Persephone Hazard]

Really? It's always seemed to me to be a US-wide thing. Hmm. I wouldn't have any trouble with the discrepancy, only as it happens I really don't like the word at all - which is a great shame, as it's the most commonly used word for ladyparts here in the UK, much more common than any of the others! But oh, I hate it, and won't use it. Ugh.

[LaughingLark]

In Wisconsin, where I grew up at least, it was a quaint and old-fashioned way of saying "buttocks". Something an exasperated mom might say... "Get your "  " out of  bed and get ready for school." Until I got on the internet, I had know idea it was a vulgar word in the rest of the English-speaking world. I can't count all the times in the winters of my childhood that I was advised to be careful on the ice lest I fall on my...

 Years ago, my hubby and I used---um---"waist packs" to keep change in at craft fairs. I first found out the British meaning of the word when I went online to buy some new ones...with the American name.