In
American English, one of the meanings of the verb to call
is to make a phone call. And the verb to kid means
to joke. Do these verbs have the same meaning in British English
and are they widely used?
Roger
Woodham replies:
call
Yes, call is very frequently used in British English, as
an alternative to ring or phone, meaning to make
a phone call:
I decided to call / ring / phone him at home as he's
always in meetings at the office.
Your wife called while you were in the meeting. Can
you ring her back?
If you need more information, you can call this number.
Do you also know the informal expression used in British English
to give sb a bell, meaning to phone?
I'll give youa bell next week and we'll make
the final arrangements then.
call - phone or visit?
When it is used without an object, call can also mean visit
as well as phone. Note that if the context does not make
the meaning clear, this may lead to confusion:
By the way, Jenny called while you were at the hairdresser's.
~ Do you mean she rang or she popped in?
Note that if we want to use call with an object, meaning
to visit, we normally say to call on sb:
I called on my sister on my way home from work. She
was pleased to see me.
I called my sister on my way home from work from my
mobile phone.
call = name / shout / etc
Note that call is also frequently used with these meanings:
If it's a boy, they're going to call him Cedric Alexander
Roderick or Car for short.
This area is sometimes called the garden suburb
because there's so much greenery around.
Did you call me? ~ I called you three times.
~ Sorry, I didn't hear you because the hair dryer was on.
If I call your name, please come to the front of the
queue.
He called me into his office because he wanted a private
chat.
This train calls ( = stops) at all stations to London
Victoria.
kid
(verb)
Kid is widely used as a verb in British English meaning
to joke if you want to suggest that what has been said may
not be appropriate or true:
I'm going to call her and tell her she should marry Ben.
~ Are you kidding? Ben's the last person she should marry!
I'm going to buy her a ring with diamonds and emeralds. ~
You're kidding me! Where are you going to get the money
from?
He says he's going to make a million before he's forty! ~
Who is he kidding? He is kidding himself if he thinks that.
kid (noun)
Note that kid and kids are also widely used as nouns
to refer informally to children, sons and daughters:
We're going to take the kids to see Lion King at the
theatre in London.
He's just a kid. He doesn't understand the difference
between right and wrong.
A group of kids were stealing the apples from the
orchard and selling them on the street corner.
They don't have any kids so there's always plenty
of money for holidays.
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