I think idioms and cultural references are fine - the rest of the world has worked out what US baseball and football cliches likely mean, people can decode most references with context.

But there are some interesting issues with UK <> US english, things like 'quite' which works in different ways in each locale. I was also very surprised to discover the difference in what we consider a frown - which makes a lot more sense of the US 'turn that frown upside down'. Interestingly my uncle who'd lived in the US ~20 years had never uncovered that difference till I asked him about it.

So it's good to know differences - especially when you want communication to be clear.

▲ drcongo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

What's the "quite" difference?

▲ Deebster 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Roughly:

British "quite" means somewhat.

American "quite" means very.

A Brit saying a suggestion is "quite good" is actually saying it's not good enough, whereas a US listener will think they've been told the opposite.

▲ drcongo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Good lord. I just three finger tapped on the word quite to see what the macOS dictionary says - "to the utmost or most absolute extent or degree; absolutely; completely", although it does offer a second definition "to a certain or fairly significant extent or degree; fairly: it's quite warm outside".

For context, I'm British though I have spent a fair amount of time in the states over the years and somehow never picked up this difference.

	▲	phpnode 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is interesting because I assume it has suffered the same linguistic degradation as the word "fine" which in some cases means "of the highest quality" but mostly means "meh". I suspect it comes down to the dialect and social rank of the person saying the sentence. Compare how you would perceive: `"You did a fine job"` or `"It is quite impossible"` depending on who was saying it.