Janice Harayda
1 min readDec 6, 2021

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That might be an interesting list for you to do sometime if you know of other words like "clever," "brilliant," and "quite," that *appear* similar but have different meanings in American and British English: fresher than the usual list that just translates idioms unique to American or British English.

Another word with a similar-but-different meaning would be "tea" (not the drink but food) because we do have something called "tea" that you see on menus, but it typically would have only sweet items or delicate "finger foods" (i.e., cucumber sandwiches). Even "sweet" seemed once to be used differently, but that might have changed now that American candy stores have moved in to London.

See, I've written half of that post for you!

@SimonDillon might have ideas on other words. He's a U.K. film critic who might be more attuned than most to some subtle differences because he hears them so much in American movies.

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Janice Harayda
Janice Harayda

Written by Janice Harayda

Critic, novelist, award-winning journalist. Former book editor of the Plain Dealer and book columnist for Glamour. Words in NYT, WSJ, and other major media.

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