Some vocabulary to use in the right place

In this article, I want to give some differences between the British vocabulary and the American vocabulary that could be useful if you were to travel there.

In England we say mum, in the US we say mom (mother). In the UK we do not say bathroom but we say toilets. In the US we say that the line is busy  when nobody can answer the phone but in the UK  the line is engaged.

 In the following table I give some examples that I have gathered here and there and that I found useful in the daily life.
 

The UK	The US	France
Mum	Mom	Maman
Diary	Calendar	Agenda
Mate	Pal	Pote
Off-license	Liquor store	Magasin ou on peut acheter de l'alcool
Pub	Bar	Bar
Honking	Barfing	Vomir
Bum	Butt	Fesses
Autumn	Fall	Automne
Ring	Call	Appeler
Holiday	Vacation	Vacances
Sweet	Candy	Bonbons
Biscuit	Cookie	Gateau
Chips	French Fries	Frites
DPhil	PhD	Thèse
Postgraduate	Graduate	Après le master
Toilets	Bathroom	Toilettes

I also advise you to watch this funny video where Hugh Laurie (british) and Ellen DeGeneres make a funny quizz about British VS American slang... They just don't understand each other !  Thus even if those two countries share a common language, some words or expressions have evolved differently and its fun to see that an American can be in a situation  where he just does not understand a British guy because of the accent or the words he uses and vice versa ! Ask James I am sure he has plenty of examples to confirm that !

British humour vs. American humor

In this article we will talk about the british humor and american humor. We will also try to highlight what are the cultural reasons that make this difference. To do so I will base my comments on my own experience, on this interesting article and also on the video below.

The article is written by Ricky Gervais. He is the main actor and also the creator of the british version of "The Office". "The Office" is a BBC TV show which depicts a day-to-day life of office employees. It really looks like a documentary and it is also a lot of fun. Following its success, an American version of "The Office" has been adapted starring Steve Carell. Of course the office is a place of daily humor and these TV shows are a good example in order to compare the two cultures within the light of the humor.

Another interesting example is the video below. Stephen Fry tries to answer this particular question: "What is the difference between American and British comedy?"

 It is interesting to see that both in the article and in the video, the difference in humor comes mainly from cultural differences:

Hero vs. Antihero

"Americans [...] don’t hide their hopes and fears. They applaud ambition and openly reward success. Brits are more comfortable with life’s losers." Ricky Gervais.

This cultural difference implies a real difference between American and British comic heroes. American comic heroes are above everyone, they are smart guys, and they succeed in life (with girls, at work...) whereas British comic heroes are losers, they are a failure, and this is what is funny.

This interesting fact opposes the inebranlable American optimism with the British (or European) skepticism. In some sense, this was something that I saw while I was in the US, and for us, this optimism can sound fake and tiring. Indeed, I remember someone who found everything awesome and always looked happy. For me it was suspicious but I am sure he was sincere.
It is fun to see the impact of such cultural differences in humor.


Irony

Another thing that we often hear is that Americans don't get irony. Of course it is not true but, they use it much more less than we do. Therefore be careful before teasing an American guy; it is maybe not the best way to introduce yourself ;)

Please read and watch the attached documents, I found them very interesting.

More readings : The guardian

Some thoughts about the language : tool vs heritage

I want to talk about something that I observed here and which can be interesting to comment on.

It is about the perception of the language in the US and in the UK. Indeed I noticed that Americans were less regarding about common mistakes that you can make or about your accent when you speak the language of Shakespeare. And I think I know why.

 According to me, American people and British people have two different perceptions of their language.

For American people, the language is a tool in order to communicate. The US were build upon the idea of grouping different cultures and origins in one country. Ben Blatt from Slate has notably created some interesting maps to visualize the distribution of languages other than English in the US. Because 20% of the population is claiming that English is not their mother tongue (against 5% for the UK), it is more common to hear different accents. Thus the English language is more a common denominator than something more important. I think this is directly related to the opposition New world vs Ancient world.

For British people, their language is their heritage as the language of Moliere is French people's heritage. Their language is strongly linked to their history and you can't mess with it this easily.

This is one first reason to explain the quote "Two nations divided by a common language", don't you think?

The dynamism in UK and US research

Dear readers,

James advised me to read some chapters of the interesting book "Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands" which compare a lot of nations from different points of views. The aim of the book is to help people to better understand local practices and cultural cues in order to develop better working relations between people from different countries. The book includes more than 70 country profiles but for this work I just focused on France, the UK and the USA. This book was a starting point for my study.

In each article I will try to give a general concept or idea and I will compare the aspect of this concept in the UK and in the USA. I will do it regarding my own experience and also (most of the time) thanks to statistics or objective facts.


I would like to start with the concept of "dynamism", especially concerning scientific research. This article will be particularly based on my own experience, thus it might be quite subjective, sorry for that!

The USA : Research is strongly connected to industry

My professor back in the USA was both an MIT professor, a department head and also the co-founder of a high-tech company in Boston. During our weekly meetings I could always feel that  multiple experience. He was always talking about the possible applications of my research in the "real" world and for him one of the most exciting things was to be able to transform your research results into a company. And I think that this was not only the case in my lab, but I could feel this tendency in the whole of MIT.

One other interesting characteristic that I remembered was a strong enthusiasm. The idea was to motivate you by saying that your research could truly change the world. As a Frenchman, I was quite dubitative but I have to admit that it was sometimes helpful to give me enough strength to try new things and persevere in my research. Americans are sometimes too much enthusiastic, which can be interpreted as hypocrisy (because we are not used to it) but it is sometimes highly pleasant. Moreover I really believe that people think what they are saying, they have just a different way of seeing things.

The UK : Research as a whole

My experience in the UK is quite different. Here I feel that research is more done to be research as a whole. References to companies or start-ups are less frequent in my lab, but again it is maybe only due to my own experience. Concerning the enthusiasm, it is also different from the USA. I think from this point of view the UK is close to France, indeed a professor won't say directly that your work is amazing or that it is going to change the world. You have to read the implicit signs to get some feedback about your work.



Thank you for the reading!

Some related readings :

Startup and US universities

Next topics : language, communities...

Vous or Tu seen by an American who loves France...

A fun article about the "Vous" and "Tu"....

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-og-bastile-vous-tu-20140711-htmlstory.html