Dear British friends,
Someone left a message on the listener voicemail line recently with an aside that said a biscuit in British English is both a cookie and a cracker.
I've always thought a British biscuit is the same as an American cookie (and nothing more).
I've checked some dictionaries, but I still don't feel sure.
Please help: What is the meaning of "biscuit" in British English?
@grammargirl
LOL
I'm not even voting because this question is way more complicated than it seems and spawned an entire podcast about the differences between UK & US English. (Later eps include Canadians & Kiwis.)
https://www.theincomparable.com/pants/1/
Panelists bicker over biccies in our inaugural episode. Both America and the UK have biscuits and cookies, but they aren’t the same thing. Except sometimes they are. Sometimes it’s even settled legally and taxed accordingly! Thanks to the literally incomparable Chris Breen for the show’s theme music.
@grammargirl
And by episode 25 we had to circle back to biscuits to differentiate between US biscuits and scones. English, man.
A buttermilk biscuit is one of humanity’s greatest inventions. But it is somehow different from an English or Scottish (or New Zealand) scone, whether you pronounce it skown or skon. In this episode, we tear biscuits apart, peer inside sausages, and swim in gravy.
@glennf
Please do so!
@glennf @HollyGoDarkly @grammargirl The grand irony is that neither a British biscuit* nor an American biscuit† is twice-cooked…
* I wouldn’t think soft cookie when I think of American cookies, incidentally. I think I’d usually think of chocolate chips, even though there’s no good reason for that, but it can be hard. Like, a ginger biscuit wouldn’t be a cookie in my head. Has to be round, flat, probably with [chocolate 😄] chips
† Which is, we established, a scone…
Mignon Fogarty
Erika Ensign
Glenn Fleishman
Brett Elliff
Christopher Phin