US/UK Adjectivenoun Revelations

I’ve always been bemused (is that the word?) by the difference in pronunciation between the US and UK of terms like “apple sauce” and “ice cream”. In the UK, they are pronounced with equal emphasis on the first and second words. “Apple Sauce”, “Ice Cream”. In the US, the emphasis is on the first word, “APPLE sauce”, “ICE cream”, implying that the first word defines the type of sauce or cream we are talking about. Which I suppose is true. “PEANUT butter”. In fact you could almost remove the space between the words.

“Applesauce” (I think it’s actually spelled like this here). “Icecream”. “Peanutbutter”.

I’ve just noticed a new one, but it’s slightly different. In the UK it is said that popular things “sell like hot cakes”, implying a load of cakes (of any type)  have just come out of the oven, and every buys one while they’re hot and delicious. That’s how I understand it, anyway. However, in the US it is pronounced and written “sell like hotcakes”, which implies that hotcakes are a specific type of cake. A quick google image search tells me that it is a another word for pancakes – and the American style of pancakes too, not the thin crepe-type UK ones.

Conclusions? I don’t know. I just noticed it, is all.

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Categorized as UK-USA