Things you were shockingly old when you learned

gruel is like watery, savoury porridge, or somewhere between porridge and soup, there is a medieval restaurant in the czech republic where I once had some and it was actually very nice. I guess the congee I have about once a week is technically a gruel too.

pease porridge is guacamole

I'd never heard the word 'flapjack' used before setting foot in the UK so I'm already wired to view it as the correct referent.

Oatmeal is what you use to make porridge, but is not actually porridge, isn't that it? Also, why is it Scott's Porage Oats and not Scott's Porridge Oats?

In France, it's 'porridge' – 'gruau' is gruel (thinner and more watery).

Huh, is it a Europe/Canada divide? The French-speaking care workers I've known say "gruau". I've only heard "porridge" in English and tbh wouldn't know how to pronounce that in French.

https://www.deliver-grocery.ca/869-large_default/quaker-instant-oatmeal-60-packets-221-kg.jpg

isn't that it?

For you.

flapjacks are lavvvly

Huh, is it a Europe/Canada divide?

Yes. 'Porridge' is not a typical breakfast meal in France. It's viewed as mildly exotic and typically English.

I feel like I've only ever seen 'flapjack' used in the US in the context of maybe like diner food or advertising? I don't know that I've ever heard an actual human refer to pancakes as flapjacks. And I grew up all over so I've experienced a pretty broad range of regional colloquialisms.

Incidentally, I did weirdly find that the English spoken in Montreal struck me as more American than just inside the Ontario border.xps

xpost Like it's something a '50s sitcom dad would say. 'Boy, I sure could go for some flapjacks right now!'

a flapjack is a man's pancake, a mancake, something you would be proud to stack

I've never heard the French word 'gruau' before

Sund4r, could that be kind of an urban/rural divide, or do you mean a larger city in Ontario?

xp i've only heard it spoken once, by my dog

For you.

And everybody else in the UK?

mh, no, I mean even compared to Ottawa (which is right inside the border) or Toronto but idk could be a weird impression. All I know is my wife talks about "porridge".

Incidentally, I did weirdly find that the English spoken in Montreal struck me as more American than just inside the Ontario border.xps

It's true. I think it's because we get more of our exposure to English from American media due to it being a minority language. There is such a thing as a Montreal accent in English, though – it just happens to be almost imperceptible (unless you're in Saint Léonard). And there's the marry/merry distinction.

And everybody else in the UK?

Yes, that's what I meant.

... sorry, Scotland.

Rolled oats are commonly used in England, oatmeal in Scotland and steel-cut oats in Ireland.[14]

Told you!

Wikipedia says rolled and steel-cut oats count as oatmeal.

Cat: 'Mieow?'
Me: Oh hello cat, how are you today?
Cat: 'Mieow.'
Me: That bad, huh? Have you had anything to eat today?
Cat: 'Gruel'
Me: Gruel? Where did you get the gruel from, cat?
Cat: 'Grey Owl'
Me: Grey owl gave you the gruel?

etc....

This oatmeal thing is complicated. Also, the French think of porridge as typically English when the English think of it as typically Scottish - or used to.

Chinese whispers. Or, as the French call it, le téléphone arabe.

Ha, that's "broken telephone" where I come from.

Americans just call it 'telephone', due to their notoriously politically correct public discourse no doubt.

Montreal accent

Btw Sund4r this is what I had in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yYPD6JJtDM

Works for both languages, incidentally.

Fwiw my friends from Southern Ontario sound simultaneously more American and more Canadian to me.

Americans call Chinese burns Indian burns

From the internet:
"Porage: this is a word made up by A & R Scott in Glasgow when they launched Scott's Porage Oats in 1914, and combined the old Scots word poray with the French word potage."

Also from the internet:
Dictionary of the Scots Language

Results of Quick Search for poray
No results were found.

Full Text Search Results
No full text results were found either.

I call cream of wheat porridge and oatmeal, oatmeal. I used to really like eating instant oatmeal uncooked.

also sounds like 'pourage', like... something you'd pour I guess?

this version of the porage origin story makes a bit more sense: https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/producers/things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-scotts-porage-oats/

(though not much more)

Americans call Chinese burns Indian burns

― YOU CALL THIS JOURNALSIM? (dog latin), Monday, November 25, 2019 9:29 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

So long as we're all resolved to refer to this particular kind of burn in quasi-racist terms.

Her vowels (I think in both languages) sound a lot broader to me than those here, which is also the first thing that strikes me when I drive across the US border:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-igydws4gSA

xp to pomenitul

(I mean the adults in this video)

Yeah, I can hear it. Speaking for myself, I sound a lot like Anne-Marie Withenshaw in English and while my 'abouts' may not be as echt-Canadian as those of anglophone non-Montrealers, they still sound ridiculously Canadian to everyone I meet (especially the Americans, as Brits have a very hard time telling our accent(s) apart from those of our neighbours).

porridge is stirabout

stirabout is fair whey

Flap Jacks are the badness what occur when are missing some key ingredients of Parkin but are all dressed up to bake this nastiness anyway.

flapjacks are what happens if the contents of a horse's nosebag get soggy and clump together

my "abouts" were lightly canadian for a week or so after my montreal trip this year

Americans call Chinese burns Indian burns

― YOU CALL THIS JOURNALSIM? (dog latin), Monday, November 25, 2019 9:29 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

So long as we're all resolved to refer to this particular kind of burn in quasi-racist terms.

― War Crimes Tribunal of the Network Stars (Old Lunch), Monday, November 25, 2019 3:46 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

unforch, I don't remember schoolkids in the 80s and 90s taking this into consideration

No, they sure didn't.

every once in a while someone references a wildly racist/sexist/homophobic thing from my childhood and I think, wow, we really did say that, huh?

my "abouts" were lightly canadian for a week or so after my montreal trip this year

There's sort of a continuum with how that diphthong gets raised in RoC ime, less "oo" and more "oh" as you go from east to west in broad terms, I think. (People in the Prairies would comment on mine.) Montreal's seem possibly the least raised to me, though.

xpost Not only that, but I occasionally think about how carefree childhood refrains of 'joy to the world, the teacher's dead' or 'on top of the schoolhouse all covered with blood' would probably get a kid expelled nowadays.

it wasn't really a "shockingly old" thing in that I don't think it'd be a thing people would learn unless they knew someone from Saskatchewan, but in that province people refer to a hooded sweatshirt as a "bunny hug"

Ha, yeah. Idk if the Mackenzie brothers used that particular one but a lot of things from the Great White North sketches never made sense to me until I lived in Regina.

I will be a little sad if kids are no longer singing "glory, glory, how peculiar! The teacher hit me with a ruler..." anymore.