6 British Things That Are Actually American 

My memory, at least as subject to corruption as the average computer’s, remembers it as, “Some times you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. Peter Paul’s Almond Joy has nuts, Mounds don’t”. That’s at least partly because my superannuated memory recalls a time before corporate mergers swallowed up the Peter Paul candy company. I can almost, but not quite remember the tune to the jingle. Perhaps it’s best I don’t quite remember the tune. You wouldn’t want to hear me attempt to sing it.

And they both can be found in milk chocolate and dark chocolate!

@@markholm7050 I recalled the tune reading your comment. 👌👌

@@larrybrown1824 Yep, and Mounds is one you can eat with a nut allergy...and is a lot like a haystack except mass produced

LOL it's drilled into my brain! You got chocolate on my peanut butter!

I am sure Japan would disagree with the last part of that statement.

​@@jefferyindorf699but part of American ethos is delusions of grandeur, and revisionist history...so on brand while definitely inaccurate...

Leave it to us to find the quickest and easiest way to get rid of loose tea and a strainer

​@@derrickbridges2611what's the deal with Irish t?

@@jefferyindorf699 Japan thinks tea goes in Kat Kats, so what do they know?

Mesoamericans had a form of solid chocolate but the modern chocolate bar was reinvented in England by a man named Joseph Fry. Yet another thing the Brits invented & we take credit for😂

​@CEOofWasrael That would not have been possible without the Americas. Cocoa comes from the Americas, and the word "chocolate " is a náhuatl word. Who infused it with milk and sugar is usually attributed to the Swiss. But it starts with Cocoa. In the Americas.

​@@LindaC616No, it starts with fudge, a product of european beet sugar and european cows' milk.

​@CEOofWasrael whatever helps you sleep. Your entire belief is based on what some colonials said about the native people of South America. Then of course, a white man came along and made chocolate bars. Sure.

@-Subtle- It is true that the bars that we buy in stores as a sweet treat did not exist then. It was used as a drink, and it was consumed bitter and not everyone got to drink it. The infusion of Cocoa from the Americas with milk and sugar did happen in Europe. Think of chocolate bars like bounty in Galaxy, etc as a result of the fusion of cultures. But it definitely would not have happened without the Americas.

You can't have bear baiting without bears.

The "Pooh" part of his name was named after a swan.

Laurence DID specify that there aren't any _in the wild._

​​@@Trebor74all imported as curiosities or luxuries by the nobility, no free bears have lived in Britain since about the year 1000. The round barbican of the Tower of London, for example, was definitely used for baiting - the Tower was often used to house a royal menagerie, right up to the early 1800s, and the barbican was already arena or theatre-shaped. And they probably baited just about any animal that they could manage to get there alive 😢

I was positive Winnie the Pooh was published before WWI. Google does say it was first published in 1926, though. So thanks to you, I corrected a wrong fact in my head.

Is it wrong that I think more highly of someone who doesn't remove their cat from the frame while filming? That cat is definitely loved.

​@@cate9540 Or feared. Rightfully so, probably.

@@joycastle. There was no fear in the body language of either of them. He pet the cat without even thinking about it, just like so many of us do as we're reading or watching TV.

I love seeing Laurence's cat!

Kafka has been slacking on his own channel, he's only doing cameos now

Greetings from Post 11326

Yep. Even had some Golden Poppies ❤

Yep. The VFW. Every year.

Don't tell the "suckers and losers" guy.

I always associate In Flanders Field with Dropkick Murphys.

My English great aunts lived in York, Nebraska. one day the highway patrol sent a sheriff to tell them all the poppys had to be ripped out as that was a source of opium. The flowers are gone but WW l remembered.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't

Further, both normal Almond Joy and Mounds have Milk Chocolate - there are Dark Chocolate versions of both, but they are alternate versions.

​@@deathybrswell one ver normal ver is milk choco the others normal ver is dark

@@deathybrs Damn straight!

70s actually

And then popularized by an American company (Disney) through the popular cartoon. Kind of a crazy journey.

@@ringo-lf3cd Disney's version bears NO resemblance to the original. I've sat through their version when babysitting and it is an affront to Pooh himself.

An affront to Pooh himself. Had a good chuckle at this.

There was a movie made in the last few years about the life of the real Christopher Robin - apparently he got bullied in boarding school when the other kids figured out who he was. He was so upset by the whole Christopher Robin thing that he rebelled and enlisted as a soldier against his father's wishes in WW2.

And the original name was “Winnie the $hit” but they toned it down.

My mama rocked us to You’ll Never Walk Alone in the 50’s & 60’s. I rocked my own to it in the 80’s & 90’s. It never had anything to do with your football. We are fans of musicals.

​@@jeannie457they started out kind of sweet but then became bitter with the "your football" comment. Just enjoy your thing while also allowing them to enjoy theirs.

I grew up in the 60's and early 70's (when I went off to college) watching the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon raising money for Muscular Dystrophy charities. He always sang this song to some of the kids at the close of the telethon. That is the only memory I have of it. IIRC he started his telethons about the same time in the 60's as this song was written.

@@hectorsmommy1717 Actually, the song was written in 1945, which is the year the Rogers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel” opened on Broadway.

Very few music groups wrote even one song, "in the days". When the Beatles' first album came out and it was all "John Lennon and Paul McCartney" it was a shocker to many.

The whole poppy thing is still very popular in Canada on Remembrance day.

The VFW predates WWI, being established after the Spanish-American War since the preeminent US veteran organization at the time, the Grand Army of the Republic, was only for Union veterans of the Civil War.

Mediocre “of only average quality; not very good” Agreed.

I much prefer herbal tea too. I grew up with it though, and I also can't have a lot of caffeine for medical reasons

Herbal tea isn't actually tea. It's more of a tea substitute.

My mom's Dad was born and raised in England,Stokes on Trent,to be exact, I hope I remember the name correctly. He and Grandmom lived with us for a 1year .He taught me some strange eating English foods The best was black tea., I have to have a cup or two every morning.

​@@LoveClassicMusic0205 Your comment made me look it up. It's true, there's a specific tea plant/ bush. I never knew that is where the name tea came from. I thought tea just meant any plant based mixture that brewed in hot water to make a drink. Learn something new everyday 🙂

Actually the tea leaf is an herb, so technically regular black tea is herbal.

We are 50 different countries in a complicated marriage . I've traveled all over, coast to coast, north and south here. I love my fellow Americans and have met many, many incredible people . I find our cultural differences to be a source of fun when meeting new people . Our govt on the other hand.......... 🙄🙏😮

Lol Hellman's? Dukes will change your life.

@anitapeludat256 you're right, it's fun!

@80sGamerLady I have never heard of Dukes lol....wonder what it's called here?

​@@80sGamerLady WV here, Dukes, yuk! Hellmans here.

I had always assumed that tea bags were the inferior American way of making tea, and was surprised the first time I visited the UK to discover how common they were. The only place I went that used loose tea was a Chinese restaurant. (Y'all still make better tea. A lot of us don't properly boil the water.)

They play it at Liverpudlian funerals a lot as well. Typically because of the football anthem. I’m a huge Liverpool football fan and have seen many videos and read many articles in evidence. YNWA is the teams an acronym and stamped on many a fans coffin.

Not a chant anthem for Liverpool fans especially after the 89 tragedy where 96 fans died .

Is that the same song played on the Jerry Lewis telethon?

​@@dreadfulspiller8766I think so

I just went and listened to it. It’s got such a somber sound. Strange to me that it’s a chant.

I'm American, and we've mostly forgotten, but my late husband grew up in Ontario and I got to appreciate the custom. I have a poppy pin on right now.

Even their baseball team is named after it hahah

Heinz is an American company from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and they own Heinz beans in England. Walker's crisp in England is actually owned by the American company Lays potato chips

Of course Heinz is American! Although we associate it more with ketchup

American here, we had baked beans with supper tonight

You are so right.

Canada is our hat. We will protect this hat. And yeah, the UK can count us as a permanent brother. Not that the UK has much to fear in this day and age, but we'd throw down like mad if anyone messed with them.

The Anglosphere is a bond thicker than water in general. US/UK/Australia/Canada/New Zealand.

I love Canada. I love Canadian accents across the continent as well.

I've often in a simplistic way thought of my USA, Canada, Australia and UK as siblings although us latter 3 having common background as far as how we were terrible to indigenous peoples and that we had gold rushes.

They must have been a bit Saudi stir crazy. I don’t recall cheering anyone’s death back in Britain.

You are correct. Apparently, those Brits forgot a bit of history.

@@nicolad8822 What a lie. Look at the Ukraine war and don't claim people won't cheer other's death in Britain.

Yes. It's just that it is so hot and humid down here that we like our tea with ice.

I am an American tea drinker. The only way I can stand coffee is sweetened and creamed heavily- it's just too bitter to me taken black. Even though I generally go with iced tea in spring and summer, hot tea in fall and winter, I do occasionally switch up😉

My mother’s family had lived in New an England for 150 years, th we love their tea. I grew up with afternoon and high tea and nothing drives me more insane than modern British people calling popovers Yorkshire pudding. They are 2 different things, dang it, and should not not be conflated!

Truly, do not come between Southerners and their iced tea. Now, if only we could play nice with each other when it comes to sweetend and unsweetened.

@@pegasusgold50 I actually like it both ways, but my husband only drinks his sweetened.

When I was a kid living in Alaska after coming inside from skiiing or sledding, we had hot Russian tea made from lemon-essence Lipton tea powder added to orange juice or Tang powder with cinnamon, a few Labrador tea leaves from the bog down the hill that we picked and dried in summer and a small pinch of nutmeg. So plain tea wasn't a 'thing' until I married my Japanese husband who drank straight very fine green tea, and sometimes barley tea if sick. So, cold, even iced, sweet tea was rather foreign.

After leaving the UK for NYC it took me years to enjoy iced tea,it was so foreign to me,and tea without milk isn’t my cup of tea.

@@JanetBrown-px2jn Lol, I'm the opposite, tea with milk (hot tea, I mean) doesn't taste that good to me 😅. If I'm going to drink hot tea, I only add sugar and maybe honey. But I can certainly understand that such a drastic difference can be hard to adjust to!

@@engletinaknickerbocker5380 I too used to live in Alaska as a kid! But I've never had the teas that you mentioned. Those sound really interesting.

@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley We lived at the top of a 'hill' bordering what must've been a glacial river to the ocean many millennia in south-central (north of Anchorage). On the edge of the hill embankment were willows, and we used to climb them and try to swing over the 'river bottom' as far we could (in winter --so we'd land on the snow). The 'river bottom' was an area of collective dampness in the early part of summer, as runoff from melting snow in the mountain made its way to the sea. There were places not far away with springs and artesian wells, but in late summer this 'river bottom' was dry enough to walk through. Still, there was sphagnum mosses, and horsetail, and covering in patches were Labrador tea plants. My mother was a Girl Scout leader and encouraged us to learn as much as we could about the natural flora as a source of natural remedies and pharmacognosy. Anyway, hot Russian tea was great with a little honey for a sore throat --in the winter. I don't ever recall drinking it when it was warm out! Some added dried rosehips for 'extra' vitamin C.

So you use salt AND pepper!?!! 😁

@@-Subtle- I know, it's practically a scandal! 😆

He included them for a lark, you're telling us? ;-)

Very traditional tea shops and hotels will serve loose leaf.

Loose teas making a bit of a comeback here in uk with those cups or tea post with infusers (a sort of leaf cage) that is integral to the cup/pot.

@@nicolad8822 I literally came back from Ireland 2 weeks ago and stayed at 3 B&B’s and 6 hotels. Even the upper crust of staying at Kilronan castle served teabags. 🤔 Maybe it’s more in England. I’ll find out next year when we go to Scotland/England. But I find either way, loose leaf or a bag, makes a fine cup of tea. And English Breakfast is my favorite.

​@@sbishop6450yeah that hipster shit is popping up everywhere

@@purplepanties26 It's because the language of convenience is universal. If something is convenient enough, it can transcend even nationalism.

I grew up in the United States in the 1960s and 70s and we had Bounty candy bars

Didn't British pudding make it to America in the form of fruit cake? It's not identical, but seems like it was inspired by British plum pudding.

Fruitcake and plum pudding are different. Fruitcake is baked and plum pudding is steamed. They have a few ingredients in common but are very different. I have been an American all my life 😎 as my family has been since the American revolution and I have been making plum pudding for most of my adult life. My husband’s family, also American, makes carrot pudding. Why carrots? Because there were no plums on the frontier and prairies. Our family loves both.

I've never had plum pudding, but a _good_ fruit cake is really delicious!

@@jovetj agreed. I had a real one long after I had learned to hate the version that looks like baked Jujyfruits.

@@jovetj agreed. Plum pudding is quite good too, especially with a nice lemon curd .

When I was a kid back in the 1960s and 70s we had Almond Joy candy bars and mounds and bounty

Exposure. Not as many people knew at a glance what they were, so no impulse buys (which are the mainstay of candy bar sales).

Or India.

@@jesseberg3271 This was my thought as well. In fact I have a nice first flush darjeeling in the cabinet from a very British sounding place, Castleton Estate.

The Indian tea market was created by the east India company. So basically, English. Though the Indians have taken that ball and run with it. Kind of like cricket.

I was thinking the same thing. Actually, it's a good song in context with the musical, but otherwise it's quite annoying.

Don't forget to throw at them it's called soccer in every other English speaking country . . . including England. Where TV programs have "soccer" in the title.

No one here claims it a British song lol its actually just an anthem for the 96 Liverpool fans that died in 1989 so it is sentimental to the people of Liverpool.

Futbol*

My friend is from Liverpool and I’m from California and I CANNOT WAIT for him to wake up so I can rub this in his face

@@AnglandAlamehnaSwedish Fußball

But if that's true.. *looks at Welsh flag* -begins contemplating effectiveness of missiles against dragons-

@@mattkono7816 keep contemplating lol.

Nope.

An useless fratricide of a war, tragic.

I'm American, and knew from somewhere that chai meant 'tea' since I was a kid. Something I read, no doubt. I laugh myself silly whenever I see products named chai meaning tea with spices. It's really masala chai. Masala means 'spices' in Hindi. I have a tendency to start repeating 'tea tea' and giggling. Thank gawd I don't do it out loud. I'm 68, I'd get some weird looks. 😄 (It's best made at home. Not hard at all.)

I didn’t realize Eastern Europeans didn’t know what tea was until I had a rare non-Hispanic housekeeper in Las Vegas. I think he was from Russia or Ukraine. When I went to Eastern Europe, I discovered everyone called it chai. Even Romanians call it that despite speaking a Romance language.

The two words (tea and chai) are closely related, both being derived ultimately from different dialectal versions of a single Chinese word for tea. The less common (at least in the U.S.) cha and char come from the same source.

Now try Toad in the Hole. Cook some sausages in a 9"x9" or so baking dish in the oven until browned, then pour Yorkshire pudding batter over them and bake. Recipes all over the web. Absolutely wonderful! I personally discovered it around 11 or so and have been enjoying ever since. Otherwise I've never had popovers. 😆

We have sweet tea in Canada as well. Though as we don't trade in any unsweetened varieties we simply call it iced tea.

@@MorinehtarTheBlue I’ve had both and sweet tea is usually considerably sweeter than what we call ice tea in Canada.

@@robertpearson8798 Yes, Southern sweet tea will make your teeth hurt... but it tastes so good. LOL

Yeah I always understood Brits had sort of a disdain for teabags. I like them though because I like my tea extra strong.

@@Lootoodle Jamestown and Plymouth are only about 400 miles away. Even by the ridiculously teeny standards of Europe, that's hardly "almost as if into separate countries." And there was nothing disrespectful - just as there was nothing inaccurate - in my statements.

​@@LootoodleI may be wrong, but it seems to me the only mistake made was calling Jamestown successful. Admittedly there has been a lot of recent discussion about whether Plymouth or Jamestown counts as the starting of the country, and while I believe the spirit, the founding of who the US came to be was through the Puritan Pilgrims, I will still admit that Jamestown was first.

@@thomaswilliams2273 The bar for successful is really low. Basically since it didn't disappear like Roanoke and allowed further settlement.

@@thomaswilliams2273 "Successful" by historical standpoints meaning permanent, not profitable. People remained in Jamestown even after the charter was revoked. The same thing happened in Plymouth. (Which also had its charter revoked, although nobody seems to remember that!) In both cases, new Royal charters were issued once the old ones were revoked. So it's not like people packed up the colonies and moved elsewhere. They continue to operate under new management. So, from the perspective of a historian, they were successful. They led to permanent settlements. Roanoke, by comparison, did not. And that is considered a failed colony. Now, if history were written by economists instead of historians, the story might be different. It would also be pretty boring. Honestly, instead of stories about people struggling against all odds in new and challenging situations, we'd have pie charts on expenditures versus assets. Yuck!

@thomaswilliams2273 - You were correct the first time. Jamestown was the first successful British colony. They had good relations with the indigenous peoples, grew crops and their settlement lasted lasted 100 years. Their religion was Church of England.

@@Click_Profile_for._.more_info I am trying to, but having issues doing it. Help I am lost in the dm pond!

Not only was Glenn Miller lost over the English Channel, there was a theory that a returning British bomber might have dropped a bomb on his plane. Supposedly a flight of Lancaster bombers returning with undelivered bomb loads saw a small plane below, thought it was German, dropped their bombs, and hit it! The story has been mostly disproven. Apparently the timing and location of the flights don't quite line up.

I've heard a convincing talk from a large distributed network of researchers that Glen Miller wasn't on the aledged plane and that there's a much more interesting story about what actually happened to him and the reason behind it.

The way I've heard it was that bombers returning to the UK with undropped bombs would drop them over the English Channel as it was too dangerous to land with them still on board. The plane that Glenn Miller was on was just unlucky to be caught underneath. @@MickAlderson

I suppose a lot of beer went into the brainstorming of it. 🙂

Proper tea is made with loose leaf tea, the stuff that goes into teabags (although they are convenient and great if you're going out for the day, easier to make a mug of tea with a bag than loose tea during a picnic) is often the stuff left over after loose tea is boxed. It's basically all the little bits that are too small to be loose tea where the leaves have been rubbed almost into dust. Just not as good quality (although I believe some brands are far better than others) and using teabags in a teapot isn't that easy to do. Convenient but that's about all you can say for them. Incidentally you can also get coffee bags, same thing but with ground coffee in them instead of tea.

Usually they object to individual teabags at least. Some will make a pot of tea with a bag or bags.

@@ABC1701A Proper tea can be made whichever way you want to. Don't be a weird sanctimonious blowhard by trying to gatekeep someone enjoying a hot brown liquid.

3 letters.

He's a hoot. I like him too

Snobbish brits don't like to admit it, but over 95% of tea in the UK is sold in bags. (And, as another fun fact, France has more McDonald's than any other country in the EU.)

Georgeadams, this would seem to date "Builders' Tea" as definitely postwar. Author Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling introduced the term to this side of the Pond recently.

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary has an informative write-up on this topic that I recommend you take a look at. It should be easy to find with a simple web search.

And then there is Zwarte Pete...

@@juliejindra1325 he’s been gradually replaced by chimney Pete. Just some black smudges on his face, because he goes through the chimney he has soot on his face. The national entry on television only has chimney Pieten. And some are just white.

Not me

Sinterklaas is Saint Nicholas in English, yes? December 5th is his saint's day. We Americans have kind of jumbled several stories together to get Santa Claus. My church's old pastor used to dress up as Saint Nick every year for the kids, complete with bishop's mitre, cope (gold, not red), and crosier.

The original Santa Claus is from the country of Turkey but the United States created the modern day Santa Claus in the red suit that we see today

Yuk.

Right? I’ve only seen those Heinz baked bean cans on Brit shows. I don’t know anyone in the US that eats Baked Beans on toast with breakfast. 😮

Heinz Beans were never popular in the US and haven't been directly sold in the US for decades, outside specialty shops and international food aisles.

I was shocked to find out that Heinz made something besides ketchup. In my mind Heinz=ketchup and ketchup=Heinz.

@@jasonlescalleet5611 Same here