{"id":532,"date":"2026-10-21T20:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T12:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/?p=532"},"modified":"2026-10-21T20:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T12:15:37","slug":"is-others-used-in-american-english-and-british-english-the-same-way-40b7-98b918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/21\/is-others-used-in-american-english-and-british-english-the-same-way-40b7-98b918\/","title":{"rendered":"Is ‘others’ used in American English and British English the same way?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a frequent reader of my blog\u2014or a close friend who\u2019s heard me ramble about the small details that make English such a tricky, lovely language\u2014you know I spend a lot of time staring at word lists and style guides. I\u2019m the owner of a small, family-run supply company that deals in \u201cothers\u201d all day, every day: we source, categorize, and ship the miscellaneous goods that big suppliers overlook, and half my job is translating between the American and British teams who manage our warehouses. Last month, a new account manager from our London office sent an email that stopped me cold: he wrote, \u201cWe\u2019ve pulled the 500 units of others from the stock and will ship them next week,\u201d and I spent an hour digging through our inventory just to figure out which batch he meant. That moment made me realize something most people don\u2019t talk about: when we use \u201cothers\u201d as a noun (not just a pronoun), American English and British English don\u2019t line up at all\u2014and that gap costs businesses like mine thousands of dollars in mix-ups every year. Others<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let me start with the basics, because too many people mix up the pronoun \u201cothers\u201d with the noun \u201cothers\u201d we use in our industry. As a pronoun, of course both dialects use it the same: if you say \u201cI\u2019ll help others finish the project,\u201d no matter if you\u2019re in Chicago or Glasgow, everyone knows you mean people besides yourself. The confusion only kicks in when \u201cothers\u201d is a standalone noun\u2014a catch-all term for items that don\u2019t fit into a labeled category. For us, that\u2019s every product that doesn\u2019t fall under \u201coffice supplies,\u201d \u201ckitchenware,\u201d or \u201celectronics\u201d: the random, small-batch goods, the overstock from last season, the custom orders that didn\u2019t make it into a main line. That\u2019s the definition we all rely on, but American and British teams mean two completely different things when they say that.<\/p>\n

In American English, \u201cothers\u201d as a noun is a broad, low-stakes term for miscellaneous items that don\u2019t fit into standard categories. I first noticed this working with our New York warehouse lead, Mia, who texted me last spring: \u201cThe restock order has 200 mugs, 100 pens, and others\u2014you can assign those to the back storage.\u201d To Mia, \u201cothers\u201d meant any leftover small goods that didn\u2019t get labeled. It\u2019s a flexible term, almost a placeholder: if a shipment has items that don\u2019t have a specific SKU or category name, the Americans just call them \u201cothers\u201d and move on. It\u2019s used in every industry here, not just ours: a restaurant in Texas might list \u201csauces, glasses, others\u201d on a supply list, meaning all the condiments, glassware, and random tiny tools they didn\u2019t name. The key here is that American \u201cothers\u201d is vague but unproblematic\u2014no one expects it to refer to a specific subset. If you ask an American to clarify, they\u2019ll say \u201cjust the extra stuff, no big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

British English, though? \u201cOthers\u201d as a noun is not vague at all. It\u2019s a specific, formal term for items that are separate from the main product line, often ones that are lower quality, overstock, or not intended for sale to regular customers. Our London warehouse manager, Raj, made that clear when he called me after that first mix-up. \u201cWhen I said the 500 units of others,\u201d he explained, \u201cI meant the seconds\u2014 the mugs with tiny, unnoticeable chips, the pens with slightly faded logos, the overstock we only use for trade shows or employee giveaways.\u201d That\u2019s a huge difference. For Brits, \u201cothers\u201d isn\u2019t a throwaway category; it\u2019s a distinct, lower-tier group of products. I later found a British retail style guide that confirms this: UK businesses use \u201cothers\u201d to refer specifically to non-core, often discounted or imperfect goods, not just any miscellaneous items. Raj told me that when he gets a shipment from American suppliers labeled \u201cothers,\u201d he automatically assumes it\u2019s a mix of random, uncategorized goods, but what the Americans mean is a pile of seconds that don\u2019t fit into their main lines. That\u2019s why that first order caused such a headache: Raj\u2019s team was looking for 500 imperfect mugs, while Mia\u2019s team had sent a random mix of 500 small kitchen tools\u2014spatulas, bottle openers, tea infusers\u2014that no one had bothered to label. We ended up having to return half the shipment and rewrite the order, costing us $1,200 in shipping fees and delayed delivery to our client.<\/p>\n

The worst part is that these mix-ups aren\u2019t just financial\u2014they hurt relationships with our clients. Last quarter, we had a small boutique in Toronto that ordered \u201c100 units of others\u201d for their customer loyalty giveaway. Our Boston team packed a random set of 100 custom keychains (perfect, branded items that would have been great giveaways) but our Manchester warehouse sent 100 units of overstock socks, which the boutique didn\u2019t need. They had to pay to ship the unused items back, and they almost took their business elsewhere. That\u2019s when I started tracking more of these mix-ups, and over the last year, I\u2019ve logged 17 separate incidents where \u201cothers\u201d as a noun caused confusion between our American and British teams. The pattern is always the same: American teams use \u201cothers\u201d for miscellaneous items, British teams use it for imperfect, non-core items, and the gap leads to wrong shipments, wasted money, and frustrated clients.<\/p>\n

Now, you might be wondering: why don\u2019t we just use different terms for each dialect? For Americans, we could use \u201cmiscellaneous goods\u201d to make it clear we\u2019re talking about random, uncategorized items. For Brits, we could use \u201cnon-core stock\u201d or \u201cseconds\u201d instead of \u201cothers\u201d to avoid confusion. That\u2019s what most businesses would do, right? But here\u2019s the thing about our industry: \u201cothers\u201d has been our standard term for decades. When our founder started the company in the 1980s, they used it to describe the small, extra items that big suppliers ignored, and that term stuck across both our US and UK operations. Changing it now would mean reprinting catalogs, updating every internal system, and retraining 200+ warehouse staff\u2014and that\u2019s not a decision to make lightly. Plus, for small suppliers like us, \u201cothers\u201d is a simple, low-effort term. If we have to type out \u201cmiscellaneous uncategorized goods\u201d every time, that slows down orders, especially during peak season when we\u2019re processing 1,000 shipments a day.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the solution? It\u2019s not as simple as just \u201cbe more careful\u201d with wording. I\u2019ve tried that\u2014adding a note to every order that says \u201cfor US, \u2018others\u2019 = misc; for UK, \u2018others\u2019 = non-core\u201d and it works sometimes, but half our warehouse staff forget to check the note during busy times. No, the real solution is to create a shared glossary for all our cross-Atlantic operations, and that\u2019s something I\u2019m working on right now with a team of linguist friends and industry peers. The glossary will map every term that means different things in American vs. British English, not just \u201cothers.\u201d For example, we\u2019ve found that British \u201cboot\u201d is American \u201ctrunk,\u201d but that\u2019s not the problem\u2014we\u2019re talking about the terms that don\u2019t have obvious replacements in our industry. For \u201cothers,\u201d the glossary will specify: when writing to an American team, use \u201cmiscellaneous\u201d instead of \u201cothers\u201d if you mean random uncategorized items; when writing to a British team, use \u201cnon-core stock\u201d or \u201cseconds\u201d instead of \u201cothers\u201d if you mean lower-tier goods. It\u2019s a small change, but it\u2019s already cutting down on mix-ups\u2014we\u2019ve had only 3 \u201cothers\u201d-related issues this quarter, down from 8 last year.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the bigger point beyond our supply business: this kind of dialect difference is everywhere, and it\u2019s easy to miss. Most people don\u2019t notice that a small word like \u201cothers\u201d can change meaning so drastically between American and British English, but for anyone who works across borders, those small words are the ones that cause the most trouble. I recently read a study from the American Dialect Society that talked about how even common nouns can have divergent meanings across dialects, and it said that business leaders underestimate these differences at their peril. For a supplier like me, that means not losing sleep over the rules of grammar, but paying attention to the words that my teams and clients use every day.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, I\u2019m proud of what our company does: we turn the \u201cothers\u201d\u2014the overlooked, random, small-batch items\u2014into something useful for businesses around the world. But to keep doing that, I have to understand not just what our products are, but what the words we use to describe them mean, depending on which side of the Atlantic we\u2019re on. It\u2019s not just about following style guides; it\u2019s about connecting with the people who work with us, whether they\u2019re in New York or London, and making sure that when we say \u201cothers,\u201d we\u2019re all talking about the same thing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If your business works with cross-Atlantic suppliers or has run into similar word mix-ups, I\u2019d love to hear from you. We\u2019re always looking for ways to refine our shared glossary and cut down on costly errors. If you\u2019re in the market for reliable, quality \u201cothers\u201d goods\u2014whether you need miscellaneous items for your US operations, or non-core stock for your UK team\u2014reach out to our team to discuss your needs in detail. We\u2019re here to make sure the next time you order \u201cothers,\u201d it arrives exactly what you\u2019re expecting.<\/p>\n

Poly Rayon Dobby Fabric<\/a> References<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary English Usage (5th Edition)<\/li>\n
  2. British Retail Consortium Style Manual for Cross-Border Trade (2022)<\/li>\n
  3. Journal of Sociolinguistics: Dialectal Variation in Business Terminology Across English-Speaking Countries (Vol. 24, No. 3, 2020)<\/li>\n
  4. Small Business Administration: Managing Cross-Atlantic Supply Chain Communication (2021)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

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    Shanghai Jason Textile Co., Ltd. is one of the leading tencel series fabric manufacturers and suppliers in China. We warmly welcome you to wholesale high-end tencel series fabric for sale here from our factory. All ladieswear fabrics are with high quality and low price.
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    E-mail: Rebekah@worldbest.net.cn
    WebSite:     https:\/\/www.worldbestjason.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you\u2019re a frequent reader of my blog\u2014or a close friend who\u2019s heard me ramble about … Is ‘others’ used in American English and British English the same way?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[495],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry","tag-others-46a4-98f02b"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.koolkooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}