h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A very nice (which, of course, could also mean "extremely precise") entry, but surely English speakers usually refer (or used to refer) to "record covers"; "sleeves" is American for the same thing and seems to indicate a strange inability to distinguish between, on the one hand, a cardboard bag twelve inches square and not very thick and, on the other, the part of a shirt into which you poke your arms. Perhaps (if it hasn't already happened) someone should contribute an item on the strange differences of use between the language that Americans speak and English; the most obvious example (to English-speaking eyes) is the weird American use of "hopefully" (now, alas, spilling over the Atlantic Ocean), but there is scope for a doctorate on the recent belief that the performer of an action is marked by the termination "ee" instead of "er" - as in "attendee" when what is meant is "attender"; a moment or two spent thinking about the difference between "addressee" and "addresser" will clarify the point.

And I remember being challenged by a teacher to work out who was the "drawee" of a cheque.

It's the Bank!

Your suggestion to compare American English to what's spoken in England is a great one. I'm an American who served (as a member of the U.S. Air Force) in England for two years, and I learned a few things:

1.) "Pissed" means "drunk" in England, but "extremely angry" in America ("pissed off" is the same thing over here).

2.) "Fag" means "cigarette" over there, but "homosexual" over here. I once walked into a Safeway store in North Yorkshire, saw a frozen package of "faggots in gravy" on sale, and laughed so hard I almost lost consciousness. I wasn't laughing at England, its English or its people, of course, it's just that such a package is so unthinkable in America that it caught me off guard.

3.) The word "c**t" is used a hundred times as often in England as it is over here, and is the one word you just don't say in front of a woman over here. You can call a woman anything else, but if you use that word you're asking to be killed.

4.) "Boot" is, if I remember correctly, a storage compartment in a car over there, we say "trunk."

Well, I've started us off, now it's your turn.

All the best,

Rick

There is lots of information on this subject.

Here on H2G2, the official list is: A128143. If you are interested in this sort of thing in general, you could try browsing C37

In the British English thread, someone has just recommended:

http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/dict.html

That last link, BTW, mentions the "-ee" suffix right at the top.