Sandwiches

The British invented sandwiches, or at least gave them their name. So they know a thing or two about stuff squished between slices of bread. But the Americans can make a fine sandwich too. There are a few countries (um, France) that can't make sandwiches. They just can't get the ratio of meat to bread right. But the US and the UK are pretty evenly matched at coming up with interesting things to put on bread. America has the Philly cheesesteak and the Muffeletta from New Orleans. Britain has cheese and pickle and coronation chicken. It's all good.

There's only one area of sandwiching where one country stands miles above the other. That is little triangular packaged sandwiches from vending machines and gas stations. The little plastic packages of pre-made sandwiches. I wish I could buy a sandwich from a 7-Eleven in the US and a sandwich from a newsagent in the UK and do a side-by-side comparison, but that would not be worth the air fare. Honestly, side-by-side wouldn't be much different from eating them weeks apart. There isn't a mild, subtle difference between them. Packets of sandwiches from the UK taste pretty good and are usually fairly fresh. A gas station sandwich from the US will taste foul and probably give you botulism.

This is based solely on my own experiences. Here in the UK I've had a variety of pre-packaged sandwiches from corner shops. I've had coronation chicken, ham and cheese, roast beef, pastrami, and even a nice crawfish salad sandwich from a service station in England. They've all been pretty good. In the US I don't remember having any packaged sandwiches that didn't taste a little bit like damp sweatsocks. I also remember an unpleasant trip to an amusement park in which some gas station sandwiches led to half my group spewing from both ends with salmonella.

My advice is that if you are shopping and see a plastic packet of triangle-cut sandwiches, carefully check which country you are in before proceeding with the purchase. British sandwich = good. American sandwich = bad.

Post Offices

The following is reprinted word-for-word (with permission) from www.girlalive.com. Thanks to Alana for loaning me content (and server storage space for some of my files).

If you’re American, you have a certain idea of what a post office does. It is a place you go to mail things. When I go to the USPS web site, I’m greeted with headings like “plan a shipment”, “find a zip code”. Under “products and services” there are headings like, “mailing & shipping”, “postage & options” and “receiving mail”. They do a few other things, like selective service registration and passport renewal. But getting letters and packages from one place to another is the main thing. When you go there, there are things for sale, like stamps and packing supplies, and sometimes they get fancy and sell postcards.

By contrast, if you go to the British Post Office web site, the heading of the page is, “Savings, Life Insurance, Foreign Currency”. The headings on that page are “Money & Insurance”, “Broadband & Phone”, “Travel”, and then as almost an afterthought, “Letters and Parcels”. The post office does everything. If you want foreign currency, go to the post office. If you want insurance, go to the post office. If you want to pay your gas bill or top up your mobile phone, go to the post office. And on top of all that, they sell all manner of crap there. There are the usual post office things like packing supplies, but there are also greeting cards, wrapping paper, toys, knitting and sewing supplies, costume jewelry, handbags, and calendars.

On the surface, you might be thinking, “That’s great, being able to do all those things in one place.” But keep in mind that you have to stand in line with everyone who is doing any of those things. I’ve had to go to the post office two days in a row and the line stretches out the door every time you go there. Yesterday I was in line between a man who was paying his gas bill and buying socks, and a woman who was collecting her pension payment and shopping for birthday cards. I was the only one there who was actually mailing something.

I have really come to hate and dread the post office here, because I know from living in America that going to the post office doesn’t have to be that horrible. It can be a clean and efficient process involving sending and recieving of packages only. I think I miss American post offices almost as much as I miss American peanut butter.


Originally posted 31 Dec 2008 at girlalive.com.

Is that the 12th of January or the 1st of December?

In the UK (and most of the world) dates are written DD/MM/YYYY. That is, day, then month, then year. The US is one of the only places I know of in the world that writes dates as MM/DD/YYYY. As a logical person, I can only give this point to the British.

When you're talking about a date, the date is the most specific part, then the month is slightly less specific, and then the year is the least specific of all. So to my mind (and the minds of most of the world) that's the logical way to present the date. Alternatively, YYYY/MM/DD is a good way, when you're talking about things like computer file names. Then when they're sorted they all end up in a proper order. But there is no situation in which putting the month first logically makes sense.

If you're American, and you just have to put the month first, please spell it out so the rest of the world understands you. If you tell me that your birthday is 12/01/1960, you'll be getting your card in January.

Aluminum or Aluminium?

Atomic number 13, symbol Al, Pop cans and car bodies are made of this light metal. Americans spell it aluminum and pronounce it "uh-loom-i-num". The British spell it aluminium and pronounce it "al-yoo-min-ee-um". So who is correct?

Alumin(i)um was discovered by Humphrey Davy in 1808, and he called it "alumium" because of the already known Al salt, alum. In 1812 he changed the name to "aluminum" because I guess he thought it sounded better. At the same time, a group of scientists in Britain changed the spelling to "aluminium" because they thought the "-ium" ending made it sound more like the other elements.

The discoverer himself called it aluminum, and he was born in Britain. Those who decided it needed to sound more like the other elements and changed the name from underneath him were rude and presumptuous. By their logic, my wedding ring should be made of goldium and my good flatware made of silverium.

Based on the simple rule that the discoverer or inventor of something has the naming rights and in honor of Humphrey Davy, this point goes to the Americans. The foil covering your leftover meatloaf is aluminum foil, not aluminium foil.

What is sherbet?

In the US, sherbet is basically sorbet. It is fruit juice and (sometimes) egg whites frozen together into a dessert that is creamy in texture, but usually tart in flavor, and contains no dairy products. Sometimes orange sherbet is served with vanilla ice cream. It can be floated in punch to cool and flavor it.

In the UK, sherbet is powdered fruit drink mix, or the powder by itself (for Americans: think Kool Ade or Pixy Stix). The powdered sherbet is available as a candy on its own, or as part of another candy.

So which of these is correct?

Sherbet comes from Turkish sherbet or Persian sharbat. Both of those trace back to an arabic word for "drink" and they all referred to a fruit drink. On the surface, this points to the British meaning being closer to the correct usage. However, the middle eastern drink sherbet was often cooled with snow, or blended with snow like a slushy, which is how it got attached to the frozen fruit dessert in the US.

I'm a little stuck on this one. The British usage of sherbet for a beverage is far older than the American usage. However, in actual practice, sherbet in Britain is more often a fruity flavored powder of tartaric acid and sugar. The American frozen dessert usage pre-dates the powdered drink mix/candy. So both usages for the word sherbet are not quite accurate, but not entirely inaccurate.

On balance, I'm going to have to award this one as a tie. Neither one is more or less correct than the other in a purely historical linguistic sense. It annoys me because I totally wanted to give this one to the Americans.

Who's Got Talent?

Since everyone is currently talking about Susan Boyle and Britain's Got Talent, let's look at some of the differences between that show and its American counterpart, America's Got Talent.

The talent: No discernable differences. Both countries have very talented people and also a lot of people who merely think they're talented. Both countries have people who are desparate to be famous for any reason or no reason.

The judges: In Britain you have Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. In the US, you have David Hasslehoff, Sharon Osborne, and Piers Morgan. The problem I have is with the American judges. Only one of them is American. Why are the British choosing who America will find entertaining? I've seen acts that Hasslehoff and the audience loved, but who didn't get through because Sharon Osborne and Piers Morgan don't understand the American sense of humor. Britain would boycott the show if Britain's Got Talent only had one British judge.

The prize: In Britain, the prize is a contract to do more performances, including a performance at the Royal Variety show, all in total worth something like £100,000. In America, it's a million dollars. The American prize leads to only singers getting through. For every clever and funny act that goes through America, you get a chorus of, "It's nice but is it worth a million dollars?" That prize takes all the variety out of the variety show. It narrows the field of "worthy" competitors so much that it isn't particularly fun to watch, other than for the drunken antics of Hasslehoff. The British prize is much smaller. They get to play for the Queen (or Prince or other royals). This means that the only limit is "Would Her Majesty want to see this?" Because of this, they get a much better variety of acts. A street dance troupe might not be worth a million dollars, but they might just be talented enough for a slot in a show for the Queen.

Basically, after having watched both shows, I prefer Britain's Got Talent. It is more true to the vision of being a variety show, and more true to the vision of being a variety show to represent the country in which it is based. My message for America's Got Talent would be to change the prize, ditch the British judges, and maybe you'll have a chance at a tie. For now, the point here goes to the British.

Healthcare: NHS vs. insurance

(We have a guest post from Alana of www.girlalive.com. She is also an American living in the UK. She has worked in healthcare in both countries, so I thought I'd let her share her thoughts on this issue.)

When I lived in the US, I worked for a major health insurance company, and I have several chronic health conditions, so I've gotten to see American health care both as a patient and as a claims processor.

As a patient, I got excellent service under the US healthcare system, as long as I was insured. I had good insurance, so when I had surgery in 2001, I had a private room and any food I wanted any time of day or night. The care was excellent. But that comes at a price.

As useful and completely required as health insurance is in the US, it is also evil. It has created a system where you have to work 40 hours a week in order to get any coverage, and that coverage is sporadic at best. Insurance companies don't want to pay your claim. They want to get as much money from you as they can, and they will sell you overpriced imaginary coverage to do it.
When I worked as a claims processor, I saw numerous people who were sold imaginary coverage. I worked in the mental health division, and they sold plans where, just to say that you had mental health coverage, they would create a system where you have it written into your policy, but you will never see a dollar of claims payout. For instance, I saw plans that provided for no more than 20 psychiatric visits per year, with a deductable of $5000. So you have to pay for the first $5000 worth of treatment, and by the time you've paid that, you've used all of your allotted 20 visits, so it will never pay out. On top of that, most claims are processed by an auto-payment system that will process your claim incorrectly for no reason a good portion of the time. The rest of your claims are processed by staff who are underpaid and forced to work 50 hours a week.

I had a friend who was dying of cancer in the US. He had used all his sick leave and vacation time for chemo treatments, and was having to borrow vacation and sick leave from co-workers because if he lost his job, he lost his health insurance, and would lose his cancer treatments entirely. Does that seem right to you? To me, that seems barbaric. A patient with cancer is carrying enough of a burden, and the US healthcare system just piles another financial burden on top of everything else.

On the other hand, I've also worked for the NHS (National Health Service) in the UK. Here, healthcare is free to all legal residents. You pay through the nose on your taxes for it, but you are covered no matter what.

Service is slow, and if you need to go to the hospital, you can be assured that the hospital will be overcrowded, you'll be sharing an open plan room with at least 3 other people, and you'll have to pay for "extras" like a tv and phone calls. The doctors are surly, overworked, and underpaid. Every minute of your hospital visit will suck. With not enough nurses and cleaning staff in a lot of hospitals, you'll be lucky to get out without a major infection.

On the other hand, prescriptions are cheap. You never need to hesitate to go to your doctor when you suspect something wrong. You don't have to weigh out whether to see the doctor or buy food that week. If you can only find a part time job, you are still covered. If you become seriously ill, you may lose your job, but your treatment will continue regardless.

When I consider the possibilty of moving back to the US, one of the first places my mind wanders is, "Oh, no. Health insurance. 40 hour work weeks. Prescription co-pays." I think that the NHS is incompetent, but it means well. On the other hand, health insurance is both incompetent and malicious. So on balance, I would have to award the point to the British on this one.

Alana

Houses

The main difference between British houses and American houses is the building material. British houses are stone or brick. American houses are wood frame. This doesn't seem like a big thing until you have experienced both.

In an American house, you can rebuild and add on whenever you want. You can even just buy a lot and build your own house. The average American with enough ambition, time and money can build a house in a matter of months. Watch any episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. American houses can be torn down and rebuilt very quickly.

In a British house, the house you buy is the house you will always have. You won't be able to expand or add onto it because your house will be butted right up against the house of one or more of your neighbors. On top of that, you can't build a wooden house. All construction has to be stone or brick, requiring the hiring of contractors and stone or brick masons. Laying brick takes a lot longer than building a wood frame. Waiting for the cement to dry is even more time. While American tv shows build entire houses in a week, the British would be impressed at a room addition completed in under a month.

Wood is cheaper than brick and stone, and land in the US is cheaper than land in the UK, so American houses are much bigger. The land that is home to a house and yard and driveway for one family in the US would probably be three or four houses crammed close together in the UK. Kitchens in the UK are small. Bedrooms are small. Closets are rare. It's almost impossible to find a house with more than one bathroom.

On top of all that, the British houses are cold. Stone and brick are really crap insulators. In the winter, the walls of your house act as a heat sink. In the summer, the walls become sun-baked radiators. Because of this, heating and cooling costs are higher.

There are probably some minor advantages of British houses. They are less flammable? No big yards to mow? That's about all I can come up with.

Toilets

I'm not going to go into the terminology and euphemisms inside of euphemisms on both sides of the Atlantic at this time. Whether you call it the loo, the toilet, the bathroom or whatever, there are fundamental differences between the performance of American toilets versus British toilets.

American toilets are a vast pool of water into which your poop falls with a plop, and it sits there on display until you flush. Now, I don't mind the display part. If your poop looks weird it can be a sign of illness, so I don't mind being able to see my own poop. The part of American toilets that annoys me is the lack of power and the slowness. When you flush, the contents of the toilet swirl around lazily and then may or may not actually go down. They clog easily and need several flushes to handle a large order.

British toilets, on the other hand, are powerhouses. On the down side, once you've pooped, it disappears down a magical hole and you never see it in the small pool of water in the bottom. But when you flush, it makes a might "whoosh" and everything goes down. I've never managed to clog a British toilet, no matter how much curry or kebabs I consume.

On the whole, I think that the British have the upper hand when it comes to flushing. When I recently returned to the US, I was disappointed by the reminder of how ineffective American toilets are. It's sad really.

This only applies to home toilets. When you expand to public toilets, the ground is a little more level. But since I do most of my pooping at home, I'd prefer a British toilet to poop in. Points to the British on this one.

The word "fag"

The word "fag" in America is usually an offensive and derogatory term for a homosexual, and most often for a male homosexual. In Britain, the word "fag" is most often referring to a cigarette.

To begin with, this very dramatic difference in meaning can lead to all manner of confusion for Americans who don't know the British meaning. When a British person says, "I'm desperate for a fag," or "Want to go out for a fag?" an American listening might think, "They certainly are open about their sexuality here." Or when the British say, "Shall we go light up a fag?" Americans may think they are suggesting perpetrating a hate crime.

So let's examine how this word came to mean two such different things.

The American meaning of "fag" probably finds its roots in an old British term for a low-ranking boy in a private school who is forced to perform menial tasks for the older students. That word was from an even earlier term for drudgery or hard labor. It was from an old English word meaning "to droop". But it was quite a journey to go from a menial laborer, to a slave boy at a private school, to a boy who is used for homosexual sex, to someone who has freely chosen to be homosexual. Calling a gay man a "fag" is analogous to calling a heterosexual woman a whore. So it's no wonder that it is offensive.

Let's look at the British term "fag". It comes from a different root. It is from the word fagot, which is from the Greek phakelos, meaning "bundle". Fagot, or faggot are older English terms for a bundle of sticks or twisg bound together, usually to be used for starting a fire. So it is not hard to see where a bundle of sticks on fire shifted to meaning the same as a small stick-shaped cigarette, which you also burn.

Based on this analysis, the British have a clear win. The word "fag" should only be used to describe a burning stick, and not a person. The American usage is quite obviously offensive not only in its modern use, but in its roots.

Chips or Crisps?

So the natural issue to address just after addressing the fries v. chips issue is the chips v. crisps issue. Thin crispy fried slices of potato (or tortillas or whatever) are known as chips in the US and as crisps in the UK.

As we examined in the fries and chips post, the dictionary definition of chip fits the American usage of potato chip. It is a small flake of potato. So there's no real problem there. But there is also nothing wrong with the term crisp. They are crispy, so there is no inaccuracy there either.

If I were going to mandate which term should be used, I would mandate crisps, because it eliminates the ambiguity of American chips versus British chips (fries). But since we have already determined that there is no linguistic reason for the British to call their fries "chips", we'll call this one a tie. Either term is an accurate way to describe a crispy crunchy fried piece of potato.

Fries vs. Chips

Since the name of the blog is Fries or Chips, it makes sense to start out comparing Fries vs. Chips. Everyone knows that what we call french fries in the US are called chips in the UK. But which term is more accurate?

First of all, we know that fries are not French. They originated in Belgium. So where did the French part come from? It most likely comes from an old term for the way the fries are cut, where thin strips or julienne vegetables were termed as "frenched" vegetables. So they are potatoes that are "frenched" and then fried.

Now let's examine chips. In the dictionary, I can find a definition for chip as:

1. A small broken or cut off piece, as of wood, stone, or glass.
2. A crack or flaw caused by the removal of a small piece.
3. 1. A thin, usually fried slice of food, especially a potato chip. Often used in the plural.
   2. A very small piece of food or candy. Often used in the plural: chocolate chips.
   3. chips Chiefly British. French fries.

So by the usual definition of a "chip", the American usage of potato chip as being a small crispy slice of potato is much closer to the original dictionary usage of the word chip. In fact, in the UK, some fried potatoes are called chips and some are called fries. The potatoes termed as "chips" are usually thicker and bigger than the ones labelled "fries". So they don't even fit the definition of being a small piece of something.

Based on that, I'd have to give the win to America on this one, in spite of the use of the inaccurate/archaic modifier of French. There is simply nothing chip-like about a rectangular slab of fried potato, but they are clearly fried, so the term "fries" is much more accurate as a description of a fried potato served with a burger or a piece of fish.