Katta's English

[kattahj]

Every year in Lund, there's an English competition for high school students, and every year the newspaper posts the questions a few days later (and the answers the day after that) so that anyone who wants to can test their English

Comments

[artaxastra]

Ok, these are really hard! Some of them are British English and very idiomatic, so I didn't get them either!

How do you define gooseberries? I mean, they're a kind of berry. Gooseberries are gooseberries.

Pop his clogs must be a British idiom. I've never heard it before in my life!

OK, I can see Turkish Delight. It's a confection but not really a candy. My sister makes it at Christmas. It's quite good. But I'm really not sure how to define it. It's sticky and there's rosewater in it, and it has powdered sugar on top....

[emmaco]

As an Australian English speaker, why isn't it candy? I thought candy= US term for sweet/lolly/confectionary in general - is it more specific?

[artaxastra]

penknife and I are now debating the difference between Candy and Confections! We thought we had something for a minute that candy isn't cooked, and confections are, but no. We came down to Turkish Delight, fudge, pralines, and Divinity are confections but not candy. (Points if you know what any of them are!) Nobody calls them candy, but I have no idea why. Except that they're things that are made in a block, like a cake, and then cut into individual pieces, rather than made in individual pieces like candy?

This one's baffling. What would you call them?

[emmaco]

I've never heard the word confections used in conversation - I think of it as a slightly old fashioned word for desserts - "what delightful confections you make Mrs Peabody!". But we'd say confectionary for all sweets, including Turkish Delight and lollies and maybe chocolate? (generally we have chocolate bars and lollies, with the awareness that candy is American for such items). I don't really know, though, I don't think there's any rules!

[emmaco]

Wow, tough words that I doubt lots of native speakers would get. My partner didn't know "pop his clogs" and GCSE is very British cultural knowledge rather than English per se. Is British English deemed to be what's useful for Swedish people?

The one that gave me pause was "the ouster of the Minister". I'd probably say "for the Minister to be ousted" or "the ousting of the Minister" but that's probably because I don't speak grammatically :)

[kattahj]

Is British English deemed to be what's useful for Swedish people?

It used to be - it's what my teachers' generation was taught. When I went to school, we were told we could pick American or English, but had to choose. Which is a freaking impossible thing to do when you barely know what's what. So I still speak a bastardized English.

[lilacsigil]

I'd say "pop his clogs" but I don't think many people would!

As for Turkish Delight, I'd call it a lolly (equivalent to candy or sweet) if it was covered in chocolate or bought in a packet, but if it was on a little stick at a Turkish restaurant, I would call it a confection. Coconut ice or baklava I would call a slice, if served in a large piece, or a confection in a small piece. Maybe it's a single bite of something that would otherwise be a dessert?

I've never eaten a gooseberry, though apparently kiwifruit is related.

[artaxastra]

I've had gooseberry jam, but never plain gooseberries. They don't grow where I live. But I can't see what to call them besides gooseberries. It's like finding something to call kiwifruit other than kiwifruit! Those green things?

[npkedit]

Another name for the Chinese gooseberry is a kiwi (almost nobody in the U.S. calls it kiwifruit...and they sure as hell wouldn't call it a Chinese Gooseberry).

[isagel]

Oh, this brings me back. I got second prize on this back in high school. Can't for the life of me remember what my score was, but the prize was a 5000 SEK travel check that helped pay for my first trip to London, and a copy of Norstedts stora engelska ordbok which I still have and honestly wouldn't know how to live without. And I can't believe that was, um, 12(?) years ago now. Time flies. *g*

[kattahj]

You're smrtz! I never made it to the top, though I always had enough to get the best grades. :-)

And has anyone ever scored a 150 on those tests?

[tarchannon]

Gooseberries are a kind of like green lingonberries, though a bit bigger like small grapes. They are associated with Scandanavia by most of the rest of the world. Cloudberries are yellowish and complete the trinity of Scandanavian berries. For a pic of gooseberies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry

Turkish Delight is a confection or candy - a pink/rose colored jelly containing pistacios and rose water. Most people think it's *gross*. :D

CGSE, CCTV, and 'pottered about' are pretty much never heard in American English. 'Byword' and 'ouster' are rarely used in American English, and 'bamboozle' 'bite the bullet' and 'off-the-wall' are very collquial (slang) for an English test. Interesting. :D

[tarchannon]

In *actuality* you are quite correct, but in general American perception (at least here in the Midwest), gooseberry are rarely hear and seen (there is only one grocery store in my city that stocks them), and they are thought of as a Scandinavian fruit. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it's because the three fruit preserves that you can buy at IKEA are lingonberry, cloudberry, and gooseberry. :P