Sometime in the late ’60’s, there was a cartoon in PUNCH showing two dustmen standing on a bridge. A huge refuse truck is passing by below them. The truck has a company name stenciled on its side, along with the word “London.” The older dustman says to the younger, “Aye lad, ‘London’! That’s where the REAL rubbish is!”
I very much enjoy NOOBs: have you considered, given the very large number of British ex-pats living in the USA, that some proportion of your examples actually originate from Brits living and working stateside, and not from US-born folks? Just thinking aloud y’all…
The use of “rubbish” to mean trash in Philadelphia is not a Britishism. It’s what southeast Pennsylvanians have traditionally called trash. Having grown up there, I found it difficult, once I’d left the area, to shift from referring to rubbish as trash.
I’m originally from Pittsburgh, PA and that is what my family always called the trash. Most of them have since relocated to Florida, but they still call it rubbish 🙂
Exactly. I was born and raised in the Philadelphia area, and we had garbage, which was the organic stuff, and rubbish, which was everything else. What I call a “trash can” today we called the “rubbish bin” then.
As a Brit new to your brilliant site the thing that instantly confused me about this was the date thing – again. one month holiday 10th of August (10/8)to the 10th of September(10/9) Ostentatious or what (as in “we can give bigger holidays than anyone else”) (is that snarky of me?)
notoneoffbritishisms.com 
Sometime in the late ’60’s, there was a cartoon in PUNCH showing two dustmen standing on a bridge. A huge refuse truck is passing by below them. The truck has a company name stenciled on its side, along with the word “London.” The older dustman says to the younger, “Aye lad, ‘London’! That’s where the REAL rubbish is!”
I chuckled to read “The City of Philadelphia will be closed 10/08 for Columbus Day”. What a load of rubbish…
I very much enjoy NOOBs: have you considered, given the very large number of British ex-pats living in the USA, that some proportion of your examples actually originate from Brits living and working stateside, and not from US-born folks? Just thinking aloud y’all…
The use of “rubbish” to mean trash in Philadelphia is not a Britishism. It’s what southeast Pennsylvanians have traditionally called trash. Having grown up there, I found it difficult, once I’d left the area, to shift from referring to rubbish as trash.
I’m originally from Pittsburgh, PA and that is what my family always called the trash. Most of them have since relocated to Florida, but they still call it rubbish 🙂
Exactly. I was born and raised in the Philadelphia area, and we had garbage, which was the organic stuff, and rubbish, which was everything else. What I call a “trash can” today we called the “rubbish bin” then.
As a Brit new to your brilliant site the thing that instantly confused me about this was the date thing – again. one month holiday 10th of August (10/8)to the 10th of September(10/9) Ostentatious or what (as in “we can give bigger holidays than anyone else”) (is that snarky of me?)