Do you call the quarter pounder the "forth pounder"?

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FunTricky903@reddit

Where did you hear that?

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

I didn't really hear it anywhere, I just wondered since you guys use "fourth" instead of "quarter" to refer to the fraction iirc so I wasn't sure if it was different based on that. Which is a stupid assumption I see now lol but it was genuinely stuck on my mind

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MrLongWalk@reddit

We don’t use fourth instead of quarter, we use it as well as quarter

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

oh I see interesting, I thought it was instead of

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MrLongWalk@reddit

I used to work with a lot of Aussies, most of what you guys think about us isn’t really accurate.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

out of curiosity, do you have any other examples?

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MrLongWalk@reddit

the prevalence of fast food
the unavailability of produce
how rare libraries are
the importance of religion in day to day life
beer culture
gun culture
party culture

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

Half of these I didn't even realise were stereotypes 😭 I've never thought of the US as having a big beer culture or an important place of religion in day to day life

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MrLongWalk@reddit

These are just examples, I’ve got years of stuff Aussies have anticipated wrong. My favorite was an Aussie who was sure that people wouldn’t have heard of New Zealand and got very frustrated when everyone had.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

how many aussies do you work with?? i thought they were a very small part of the us population

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MrLongWalk@reddit

Australian tourists and exchange students are WAY more common than you lot realize

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

interesting, I only know a few people who've been to the US. I probably won't go in the future just because (no offense) it seems not very interesting as a destination compared to much of europe+asia but I guess there are more people than I realised that travel there.

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MrLongWalk@reddit

Yeah it’s common enough

I will say it’s odd though, I lived in Europe for a bit and a lot of Aussies were eager to tell you they had no plans to visit the US. Other nationalities had no plans to visit but didn’t feel the need to tell me.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

that is kinda weird actually. Like in what context? Like I have nothing against going to the US, I just meant that I'm surprised so many people do as I personally at least have little interest in it.

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MrLongWalk@reddit

Once they know you’re American they’ll find a way to work it into conversation. I lived with a guy from Brisbane who thought I was Canadian, when he found out I was American he told me later that day how he really didn’t want to visit the the US, as though it was something I was dying to know. This was not the only time this sort of thing happened by any means. It seems really important to Aussies to let Americans know these things.

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Cheap_Coffee@reddit

Australians are frequent users of r/askanamerican, too. That's where a lot of these come from. Just scroll though subreddit history.

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FunTricky903@reddit

We use “quarter” to refer to the fraction as well. Who told you we didn’t?

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loosesocksup@reddit

"a fourth" not "fourth".

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Cheap_Coffee@reddit

*fourth, not forth

No.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

yeah I had spellcheck issues, i wrote fourth then it corrected it to forth and I just thought "fuck am I actually wrong??" and just used the "corrected" version lol

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The_Menu_Guy@reddit

No

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EngineVarious5244@reddit

Can you explain how you got this idea in your head? Do they not say "fourth" sometimes for quarter in other varieties of English? Like, what, OP? Why would we say that?

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

I don't think I've heard "fourth" before used at least here as an alternative for "quarter", afaik using "fourth" for the fraction is an American thing, so I thought maybe it'd be carried across for maccas too lol

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MrLongWalk@reddit

As an Aussie your understanding of Americans does not reflect reality

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

I've never actually been to the US so my understanding of it is quite minimal lol

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MrLongWalk@reddit

I’ll give you credit for admitting it, most of the Aussies I had to work with considered themselves experts when filling in the gaps like this.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

out of curiosity, what were you most surprised by when you moved to the US? like what challenged your expectations

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MrLongWalk@reddit

I’m an American, born and raised outside Boston. My clients were always surprised by how “normal” and “boring” life was here, everything from waiting in line for a coffee to waking the dog in the park, it was far more banal than they expected. Foreigners, Aussies especially, tend to treat the US as a sort of surrealist setting, it doesn’t occur to them that life just sort of works here the same way it does anywhere else.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

oh I thought you said you were from australia before when you said "as an aussie" sorry maybe I misunderstood. But yea i see what you mean

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MrLongWalk@reddit

I’m saying that because you are an Aussie it doesn’t reflect reality

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loweexclamationpoint@reddit

We don't say maccas either.

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

yes i know you call it micky ds or something, but maccas is common form here for it and I figure you'd probably get what I mean

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AnnaPhor@reddit

Right. "One-fourth" is an American idiom. Other varieties use one-quarter exclusively.

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4MuddyPaws@reddit

Maybe OP just thought that we use fourth and quarter interchangeably, which we do sometimes, just not in this situation.

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hugothebear@reddit

The fourth pounder sounds like it would be the fourth full pound burger I’m eating

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loweexclamationpoint@reddit

Hunnert n thirteen n a half grammer, por favor

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SkepticAtLarge@reddit

I call it the “twenty-five hundredths pounder” or the “four ouncer”.

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loweexclamationpoint@reddit

Point two five pounder. As in three point two beer.

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dangleicious13@reddit

Nope

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tomcat_tweaker@reddit

No. But sometimes we'll say, "I'll have the two eighths pounder" or, "A two hundred and 50 thousandths pounder, please".

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BatGlittering7781@reddit

I'll have two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large soda.

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phydaux4242@reddit

No, no one does

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protossaccount@reddit

The 4th would indicate that it’s the fourth in a series, not the 1/4th of an object. So no.

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4MuddyPaws@reddit

Not always. I've seen people say "one fourth" of something.

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Average_Potato42@reddit

Stay away from those people.

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Western-Willow-9496@reddit

If the were true, would it be the same for third of a pound?

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Grand_Raccoon0923@reddit

Royale with Cheese

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huazzy@reddit

As someone who lives/works in Europe, confirming this is actually used in European McDonalds and it's not a Pulp Fiction thing.

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Irritable_Curmudgeon@reddit

No, and i highly doubt any American ever has

Also, fyi, i know they're homophones, but the correct spelling in your question would be "fourth pounder"

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Comfortable-Owl5294@reddit (OP)

i typed fourth first and my autocorrect changed it to forth for some reason 😭

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LadybuggingLB@reddit

And it couldn’t be “the fourth pounder” it would have to be “a fourth of a pounder”

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No-Lettuce-5783@reddit

No. Because a quarter pounder is a quarter of a pound of meat in the burger. You could also order a double quarter pounder which has two quarter pounds of meat equalling a half pound of meat. Now this is before the meat is cooked, mind you. But that's what we call it: a quarter pounder or a double quarter pounder. Just, don't forget the fries.

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