What's in a Word 1: Paper Towels.

So this series on the blog will look at the difference between what we call things in Ireland and what they call them here. Shout out to Micah, as it is usually him that explains these things to me.

It's almost the last week of my first term (American's say semester) here. But casting things way back to the very first week or so, we come to dorm cleaning.

So we do dorm cleaning every Tuesday. I clean the toilets and Micah cleans two of the sinks and counter and mirror over them. Well, this particular dorm cleaning I had the kitchen roll in the bathroom and Micah asked me if I could pass him the paper towels.

I don't know if anyone in Ireland calls kitchen roll paper towels, but I've never heard it called paper towels before. I looked at the towel hanging on the hooks outside the bathroom door and wondered if any of them could be classed as paper.

Here's my thought process:
"Why would one need a paper towel, surely it would just fall apart?
Who would even make a towel out of paper? What would the purpose be?
Maybe Micah means like a thin towel, like thin like paper. Now which of these towels looks paper thin? None of them... Okay Micah is looking at me funny, he has a confused face. I probably also have a confused face. I have no idea what he's looking for, I need to just hand him something or tell him I don't know what he's looking for."

I have no idea how we came to the understanding that when he said paper towels he meant the thing I understood to be called kitchen roll, but we got there eventually.

However, that wasn't the only time. A couple of weeks later I needed the kitchen roll and Micah had it. So I asked him for the kitchen roll, but realised it wasn't called that and stopped midway, trying to figure out what it was called but not remembering, again!

American words 1, Wavey 0