Maternity Benefits in the UK and the US

Maternity is the state of being a mother:
Maternity suits you!
It is also a hospital department for the care of women before and after giving birth and for the care of newly-born babies:
Trainee nurses have to work for some weeks in maternity.
As an adjective, maternity means “for pregnancy and giving birth”:
a maternity dress
the hospital’s maternity ward
Maternity allowance (also maternity benefit) is money provided by the British government to a woman before and after the birth of her child if she does not receive maternity pay.
Maternity pay (also Statutory Maternity Pay) is a benefit women receive in Britain. It is money paid to a woman by her employer before and after the birth of her child if she has worked for that employer for more than six months.
Maternity leave is the time a mother spends away from work immediately before or after the birth of her baby. Maternity leave is taken with premission from the employer and usually with part or full pay. In Britain, the law says that women who have worked for an employer for more than six months must be given maternity leave with some pay by the employer. In the US, maternity leave is decided by the employer, but many employers do not allow very much.

US & UK Customs: Making A Wish

There are several customs in the US and UK that involve making wishes, although people do not really believe that they can affect the future. In the US, people make a wish when they first see a star at night, and in the UK people say that you should make a wish when you see a shooting star.
People also make a wish after blowing out the candles on their birthday cake.
Some public places have fountains, or wishing wells, and people make a wish as they throw a coin into the water. In the US, people think of a wish and then try to blow all the seeds off a dandelion (= a wild plant that has yellow flowers and then white balls of seeds), and say that their wish will become true if all the seeds come off in one blow. Another tradition for making a wish is to pull on a wishbone (= the small V-shaped bone in a cooked chicken). Two people each hold one of the ends of the bone and pull on it, and the person who pulls off the larger piece of bone makes a wish.
Wishes are very important in stories, especially fairy tales such as Aladdin, about a boy who rubs a magic lamp, and genie (= a magical spirit) comes out and allows him to make three wishes.

Wedding Cakes in UK and US

In the UK a traditional wedding cake is a fruitcake covered with white icing. It is arranged in three levels or tiers, with the largest tier on the bottom and and the smallest tier on the top.
The bride and groom cut the cake together and give pìeces of it to friends at the wedding reception. Some couples keep the top tier because it is traditional to save it until their first child is christened.
In the US the cake is also decorated with white icing and it is arranged in tiers but it is not fruitcake. The bride and groom cut the cake together and then feed a small piece to each other. It is traditional for the bride and groom to try to make a mess on each other’s faces with cake.

Drinks: Coffee in UK & US

Coffee is especially popular in the US, where people drink it regularly. People drink coffee at work, and most companies allow their workers to have a coffee break (= a short period when you can rest and have coffee). In the both the US and the UK, people often drink coffee at the end of an evening meal. People also eat after eight mints (= milk chocolate enclosing a mint fondant) with coffee after their evening meals. Some people also believe that drinking coffee will help you become sober after you have drunk too much alcohol.


Types of Coffee

black coffee - coffee without added cream or milk
java - a beverage consisting of an infusion of ground coffee beans
coffee substitute - a drink resembling coffee that is sometimes substituted for it
Irish coffee - sweetened coffee with Irish whiskey and whipped cream
cafe au lait - equal parts of coffee and hot milk
cafe noir, demitasse - small cup of strong black coffee without milk or cream
decaf, decaffeinated coffee - coffee with the caffeine removed
drip coffee - coffee made by passing boiling water through a perforated container packed with finely ground coffee
espresso - strong black coffee brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans
cappuccino, cappuccino coffee, coffee cappuccino - equal parts of espresso and hot milk topped with cinnamon and nutmeg and usually whipped cream
ice coffee, iced coffee - a strong sweetened coffee served over ice with cream
instant coffee - dehydrated coffee that can be made into a drink by adding hot water; "the advantages of instant coffee are speed of preparation and long shelf life"
mocha coffee, mocha - a superior dark coffee made from beans from Arabia
Turkish coffee - a drink made from pulverized coffee beans; usually sweetened
cafe royale, coffee royal - black coffee with Cognac and lemon peel and sugar

White Coffee

In English-speaking countries, "white coffee" is used to refer to regular black coffee that has had milk, cream or some other "whitener" added to it. Cream varieties (often called "creamers" in the U.S.), can be made of dairy milk, corn syrup derivatives, soy, or nut products. Sweeteners used include cane sugar or artificial ingredients.
In the United States, white coffee may also refer to coffee beans which have been roasted to the yellow roast level and when prepared as espresso produces a thin green brew. American white coffee is very highly caffeinated, being only lightly roasted. It is the length of the roasting process, producing successively darker color, which removes the caffeine from the coffee beans. White coffee is generally used only for making espresso drinks, not simple brewed coffee.
In Malaysia, Ipoh white coffee refers to a drink made from coffee beans roasted in margarine.
There is also a form of white coffee, native to Yemen, which refers to the ground shell of the coffee bean. This form of coffee earns its name from its color, and is brewed in the same manner as regular coffee, only with some spices added.
Herbal Tea
"White Coffee" is an herbal tea, invented in Beirut, made with orange blossom water. Traditionally served after meals in Lebanon and Syria, it is often accompanied by candied rose petals, served in tiny, delicate dishes. White coffee is a sedative, and calms the nerves while stimulating digestion after a particularly rich or heavy meal. In Lebanon, orange blossom water is given to fussy babies; it is also used as a perfume, either in the bathwater or directly on the skin.
Lebanese and Syrian white coffee contains absolutely no coffee.

Dancing in the US and UK

Many people in the US and UK enjoy dancing, and music is usually played at parties and other celebrations so that people can dance. Schools often have dances or discos for their students, and in the US most schools have a special formal dance at the end of the school year, called a prom.
Charity organizations and UK universities have formal dances called balls where women wear long dresses and men wear dinner jackets. When young people want to dance, they go clubbing, meaning that they go to night clubs with their friends. American line dancing is extremely popular in the UK, and is done by people of all ages in pubs or community centres.

Ballroom dancing is a formal kind of dancing done in pairs or groups to special music, such as the waltz or the foxtrot. Ballroom dancing is usually done by older people, and considered old-fashioned by many young people.

A dance-band is a group of musicians who play music for dancing to. A dance floor is a special floor for dancing on. A dance hall is a large public room where people pay to go and dance. Dance halls are rather old-fashioned now and are connected in people's minds with dancing before the 1960s. Many older style dances, where people waltz etc, are now held in hotels.

Dance studio is a large room usually with mirrors on the walls and bars to hold onto where people learn or practise danding.

Dancing girl is a professional woman dancer in a place of popular entertainment. People sometimes use the expression "Bring on the dancing girls" meaning "Let's add some more excitement to this occasion!"

Magazines in US & UK: Seventeen

Seventeen is a US magazine for teenage girls, containing pictures and articles about fashion, health, popular music, boys, etc. and answers to readers’ questions about personal problems. In the UK there is a similar magazine called J-17.

Smoking in the US and UK

In both the US and the UK there are more and more restrictions on people smoking in public places, because smoking is considered bad for your health.
In the US most restaurants are divided into smoking and non-smoking areas. In both the US and the UK some restaurants and most office buildings do not allow smoking at all. Most plane journeys are also non-smoking. The governments of both countries demand that cigarette companies print a health warning on cigarette packets.
Fewer people smoke now because of the health risks, although it is common for young people to try smoking. Many people who smoke regularly do actually want to stop, and some use nicotine patches to help them.

Divorce in the US and UK

Divorce is legal in the US and UK. A husband or wife can get a divorce for reasons of adultery, unreasonable behaviour such as mental or physical cruelty, desertion (= when one of them leaves) or separation (= when they no longer live together).
Some married couple prefer a divorce in which neither the husband nor the wife is blamed for the end of the marriage. In this case they usually get a no-fault divorce, which is allowed in most US states and in the UK. In both countries, a special court decides how to divide the couple’s property between them, and who will get custody of their children (= the legal right to take care of them). If one of the couple is financially dependent on the other, the court will usually order the other to pay alimony (Am E) or maintenance (Br E). In the US a court also decides how much child support a husband or wife should pay to help support their children. In the UK, however, a government organization called the CSA (Child Support Agency) decides how much maintenance should be paid.
Today in the UK around 40% of the marriages end in divorce, and in the US the figure is almost as high as 50 %.

Families in the US and the UK

A nuclear family from the past

In the US and the UK, there is a traditional idea of a typical family, called a nuclear family, which consists of a mother, a father and children. Typically, the father goes out to work and the mother takes care of the home and the children. Although this type of family is often praised by politicians and often shown in advertisements, fewer and fewer real families are actually like this.
Most married women now have jobs, and there more one-parent families partly because of divorce and partly because some women have children without being married. Divorce also leads to more complicated families, if parents who are divorced then get married again and have more children.
There are also some families in which the partners are homosexual people living together as if they were married. As a result of these changes, there are now many different types of family. Another type of family, the extended family, a large family group all living together, including grandparents, cousins etc used to be common in former times but is now very unusual in the US and UK.

Social Groups: Gypsies in the UK and the US

A gypsy is a member of a dark-haired race which may be of Indian origin. Gypsies live in the UK and most European countries, but very gypsies live in the US.
Gypsies typically do not live in one place, but travel from place to place while living in a caravan. In the past, their caravans were pulled by horses, and were usually brightly-painted.
Gypsies do various jobs to earn a living, but traditionally they are thought of as horse traders, musicians, basket makers, and fortune tellers.
In the UK some people do not trust gypsies, and treat them with disapproval because the gypsy way of life is so different from the way most British people live. In the US people imagine that gypsies have an interesting life, travelling and not worrying about money.

Did you know?

Romani is the language of the Gypsies, belonging to the Indic branch of the Indo-European family, but incorporating extensive borrowings from local European languages. Most of its 250 000 speakers are bilingual. It is extinct in Britain

Capital Punishment in UK and US

Capital Punishment is punishment by death according to law; the death penalty.
Capital punishment was used in the UK until 1965, and is still used in some states in the US. Politicians in the US and UK disagree about whether capital punishment should be allowed. Some people believe it is morally wrong to kill a criminal, no matter what they have done. Others believe that capital punishment is morally right if it is used for punishing murderers. In the US, people who do not support the death penalty often protest outside the prison where a criminal is about to be killed.

Did you know?

The death row is the part of a prison for housing inmates who have received the death penalty. Also called death house.

Animals: Pheasants in UK and US

A pheasant a large long-tailed bird, shot for food, the male of which is usually brightly coloured. Pheasants can legally be shot in certain seasons in Britain and the US, and in Britain shooting them is considered an upper-class sport.

Cool Link:
Animal Symbolism of the Pheasant

Corporal Punishment in UK & US

Corporal Punishment is the practice of hitting someone as a method of official punishment.
Corporal punishment is now illegal in schools in the US and the UK. In the past, boys used to be punished in this way more often than girls. They were usually hit on the hand or the buttocks with a strap (= long thin piece of leather) or belt, a cane Br E (= a long thin stick) or a paddle Am E (= a piece of wood with a handle).

Did you know?

Spare the rod and spoil the child is an old saying popular especially in the 19th centruy in Britain, meaning that children need to be punished by being hit in order to grow into well-behaved adults.

Immigration in US & UK

An immigrant is someone coming into a country from abroad to make their home there.
The US has received large groups of immigrants from all over the world throughout its history. In the 19th century large numbers of Europeans, especially Italians and Irish people, came to the US as immigrants. They left their home countries because they could not get work there or because they were treated badly because of their religious or political beliefs. Many people came to live in the US because they saw it as the “land of opportunity”, a place where you could become rich and successful.
The UK has received large numbers of immigrants. Some were refugees, especially before and during World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, many people went to the UK from the Commonwealth, especially from India and Pakistan. In the 1970s a number of boat people from Vietnam were allowed to live in the UK.
Today there are strict laws preventing people from going to live in the US and UK, and unless one of their parents is from there, they are married to a US or UK citizen, or they are bringing a large amount of money with them, it is very difficult for someone to live in either country permanently.

Businesses: Inns in Britain and America

An inn is a small pub or hotel, especially one built in the style of many centuries ago:
an old country inn
British people use the word inn only when talking about a particular old-style pub or hotel:
I know a very nice little inn quite close to here.
The usual word is pub or hotel:
Let’s find a pub and have a drink.
Where’s the nearest hotel?
In American English, inn does not have a particular meaning apart from hotel or restaurant and is sometimes used instead of them in the names of businesses wanting to appear old-fashioned.

Drink driving in US and UK

Drink driving is the act of driving while under the influence of alcohol:
Although more breath tests for drink driving were given, the number of positive results dropped.
Drink driving is also called drunk driving.
It is illegal to drive in the US and US if you have drunk more than the legal limit of alcohol. If the police stop you when you are driving and believe that you may have drunk too much alcohol, they will usually breathalyse you (= test your breath using special equipment) to find out how much alcohol you have drunk.
In the US and the UK, drink driving is considered a very serious crime, for which you can be put in prison, lose your legal right to drive, or have to pay a large fine (= money you pay as a punishment) . There are many advertisments, especially during the Christmas period, that try to persuade people not to drink and drive. Some large cities offer free transportation on New Year's Eve so that people will not drive drunk.

The breathalyser (also drunkometer in informal Am. Engl.) is an apparatus used by the police to measure the amount of alcohol that the driver of a car has drunk. In many countries it is illegal to drive after you have drunk more than a legal limit of alcohol.

MADD is an abbreviation which stands for Mothers Against Drunk Driving; a US organization started by a woman whose daughter was killed by a driver who was drunk. It has been successful in bringing the problem of drunk driving to people's attention in the US, and in encouraging the government to make stronger laws against it.

Stereotypes: Policemen in US & UK

In the US there is a stereotype that police officers sit in places that sell doughnuts all night, and eat too much while they are waiting for a police job to do. In the UK the old-fashioned stereotype of a policeman is of a friendly man who walks along the street
and helps people, for example by telling them how to get to a place, or by telling them the time.

Did you know?

The term bobby is used to refer to a London policeman, from Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), Home Secretary of England, who introduced the new Police Act in 1828.

Homosexuality in the US and UK

A homosexual is a person, especially a man, who is sexually attracted to people of the same sex. A woman who is sexually attracted to other women is usually called a lesbian. The term lesbian literally means "pertaining to the island of Lesbos". Lesbos is a Greek island in northeastern Aegean Sea (the name originally may have meant "wooded"), home of Sappho, great lyric poet whose erotic and romantic verse embraced women as well as men. The term lesbian hence means "relating to homosexual relations between women". Closeted and in the closet are labels for a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person who has not disclosed his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. The term in the closet seems to be an evolution of “skeleton in the closet”, specifically referring to living a life of denial and secrecy by concealing one’s homosexual or bisexual orientation.

Cultural note

Until the 1960s, it was illegal in the UK for men to have sex with other men, and people were sometimes seriously punished for this. It is now legal in the UK for people over 18 who have agreed to have sex, although it is illegal in the Isle of Man (= a small British island). In the US, some states still have laws against homosexual sex, but in most states these laws are never actually used. Although homosexuality is no longer a crime, many people still regard it is wrong or unacceptable, and because of this some homosexuals, especially well-known people, are unwilling to "come out" (= to tell people they are homosexuals).

There is still quite a lot of discrimination (= unfair treatment) against homosexuals. People disagree about whether hmosexual couples should have the same rights as married people or be allowed to adopt children. People who dislike homsexuals sometimes call them offensive names, but homosexuals themselves prefer the word "gay" to describe homosexual people.

Homosexuals in the army

In the UK, homosexuals are not allowed to serve in the army, navy, etc, but in the US they are allowed to serve if they do not tell anyone that they are homosexual. The US government calls this policy "don't ask, don't tell", meaning that the army does not ask about people's sexuality and people serving in the army do not mention it.

The Gay Community in San Franciso

San Francisco is a city and a port in California, US, known for being a very beautiful city built on hills next to a bay on the Pacific Ocean. Its famous areas include Chinatown, where many people live whose families orginally came from China, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the prison island of Alcatraz. The city is close to the Saint Andreas Fault, and was almost destroyed by the earthquake and fire of 1906. It is also known for its cable cars and for having a large homosexual population.
San Francisco is widely known for its high population of gays and lesbians. How did so many gay people come to call the city by the bay their home? As it turns out, the military is the main reason so many gay men settled in San Francisco. During World War II, the United States armed forces "sought out and dishonorably discharged" homosexuals. Many men who were expelled for being gay were processed at San Francisco bases.
San Francisco was indeed a point of departure during World War II. Gay men often stayed in the city after completing their military service. Since then, San Francisco's gay and lesbian population has continued to grow.
In the 1960s, an activist organization called the Society of Individual Rights (SIR) gained popularity in San Francisco and made many advances in gay rights. Additionally, the 1978 murder of gay city supervisor Harvey Milk inspired residents, particularly those in the city's Castro district, to speak out for gay rights. Today, San Francisco has the highest concentration of gay men, women, and same-sex couples in the country and possibly the world.

Halloween in US and UK

Halloween is celebrated both in US and the UK. Children dress in special clothes to try to look frightening, for example as ghosts or witches, and people make jack o´lanterns by cutting faces in pumpkins and putting a light inside. Children go trick-or-treating (they go from house to house, dressed as witches, ghosts, etc. knocking on doors and saying “trick or treat!”). The people in the houses must then either give the children a “treat” (usually sweets) or the children will play a trick on them.

Children and older people sometimes go to Halloween parties, where they play games such as “bobbing for apples”, when they try to catch an apple floating in water by using their teeth. Food at these parties is usually made to look weird, for example by making it a strange colour or by making it in the shape of a witch, as ghost or a bat. Many of these Halloween traditions originally come from the US, but they are now also common in the UK.

Villages in UK & US

A village is a collection of houses and other buildings, such as a church, school, pub and one or more shops, in a country area, smaller than a town:
the village pub
village life
Village is also used to refer to all the people who live in such a place:
The whole village turned out to the baker’s funeral.
A villager is a person who lives in a village.

Cultural Note:

When American people use the word “village” in American English they are usually talking about an old, attractive, small town in Europe or a small area of simple houses in a less developed country, for example in Africa. “Village” is not usually used to talk about places in the US. In British English, however, “village” is used for small towns in general, whether they are new, busy, old or quiet.

Village Green

Village green is an area of grass in the centre of an English village for the use of all the people who live there. People often think of a game of cricket on the village green in the summer as being a very traditional English scene.

Village Idiot

The village idiot is a stereotype of a very stupid person, usually a man, living in a village. He talks and behaves like a child, knows nothing of the modern world, and is generally treated kindly by the other people in the village.