Pants UK = elasticated underwear
Pants US = trousers
Rubber UK = eraser you have in your pencil-case at school
Rubber US = condom
Pissed UK = drunk
Pissed US = angry (in UK we say 'pissed off' for this)
But there's more. I have a friend from Chicago and we recently went out here in Singapore. No Chinese dialects to contend with, second language grapplings that me and my Asian friends have.. and yet we had conversations like this:
She: I went to IKEA and I bought this comforter..
Me: What's a comforter?
She: You know, like a padded blanket thing you have for the bed
Me: Oh, you mean a duvet !
She: What's a duvet?
Also (in Chicago at least) you can go tailgating as a student. In the UK this means you're possibly creeping along, illegally following someone's car. To my friend it meant taking vehicles, crates of beer and getting drunk in the car-park before watching a big football / baseball game.
And I also discovered that Americans have biscuits. We all know that they call real biscuits 'cookies'. But biscuits exist too.. and they're not 'biscuits' but basically crumbly, savoury scones, which you have with gravy! I joined her and her friends at a US restaurant, and I tried one. Here it is! (Underneath the bacon)
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