I just looked this up in the dictionary and the World English Dictionary gives me:

rough sleeper ( -n.)
a homeless person who sleeps rough

What was CM2DD saying the other day about self-referencing / circular definitions? ;o)

That's interesting Lara. That is circular.^^

adv
30 in a rough manner; roughly
31 ♦ sleep rough to spend the night in the open; be without a home or without shelter
vb
32 tr to make rough; roughen
33 tr; foll by: out, in etc to prepare (a sketch, report, piece of work, etc.) in preliminary form
34 ♦ rough it
Informal to live without the usual comforts or conveniences of life, (See also) → rough out → rough up
(Old English ruh; related to Old Norse ruksa, Middle Dutch ruge, ruwe, German rauh)
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definit...



Ever heard of Google?
http://www.google.de/search?q=to+sleep+rough...

penguin, my point is:

Dictionary: rough sleeper

Dictionary: homeless

Why this BE/AE difference?

Eine Frage, die man wohl nicht wird beantworten können, außer mit: Weil es halt Unterschiede gibt zwischen AE und BE. Weil es halt zwei verschiedene Sprachen sind.

I guess it could be chalked up to that, Jalapeño, but it's a very different take on the same concept. Thus my query. It's all English.

An der Stelle könnt man sich dann auch fragen, warum es an eineigen Orten fleischpflanzerl gibt, ub´nd hier nur Frikadellen.
Oder Schrippen und Brötchen und wie sie alle heißen.
It is the same concept (object even) but a very different take on it.

Es stimmt irgendwie, MsLanna. It's all relative.

Aber "fleishplanzerl" und "frikadellen" sind nicht "rough sleepers" und "the (homeless)".

Die einen isst man und die anderen haben nichts zu essen.

Anyway, point taken. It's how AE vs. BE conveys the same concept. The weird thing is that one uses "sleep" whereas the other uses "home", and that was my point, that is getting lost.

and that was my point, that is getting lost.

Das hast du vorher nicht klar gemacht, es ändert aber nichts an der Antwort.

#5: Weil es halt zwei verschiedene Sprachen sind.

Was that meant seriously? (Or does "Sprache" have a meaning that I'm not familiar with?)

#9

and that was my point, that is getting lost.
Das hast du vorher nicht klar gemacht, es ändert aber nichts an der Antwort.

What do you use in your English vernacular?

@Afro

AE and BE can be very different languages. Personally, I would not be caught dead showing my pants in the streets, but millions of Americans do it every day and think nothing of it. ;)
I also tried pulling the legs of several Americans, having to find out that it was hit and miss if they got my meaning.
Then there is spelling (grey/gray) the use us 'u's (colour/color) and much more.

A bit like German and Schweizerdeutsch, maybe? (Though I don't really understand the latter at all.)

@KinkyAfro: Nein, das war nur vereinfacht. AE und BE sind zwei Varianten derselben Sprache.

Ich wollte nur darauf hinaus, dass es gerade beim Wortschatz so viele Unterschiede gibt, dass man sich nicht wundern sollte, wenn ein Konzept im AE anders heißt als im BE - und dass die Frage nach dem "Warum?" IMHO auch wenig zweckmäßig ist.

Kurz gesagt: "Well, verb me gently with a noun, AE and BE use different terms for the same thing?! Whoda thunk?"

No, see it's all funny and good, and the strangest of combinations occur, but on this one:

"rough sleepers" vs. "(the) homeless". It struck me as a wide divide.

Well, the divide between the different meanings of Dictionary: pants on this and the far side of the pond as pointed out by MsLanna is equally wide, I think.

It's just the way the cookie gets stomped on and completely obliterated ((c) Douglas Adams) ;-)

Yep, In BE homeless people are often referred to as sleeping rough, I'd never noticed rough sleeper as a noun before, but it's evidently quite common:


Definitions of Homelessness
Legally homeless: A household is legally homeless if either there is no accommodation that they are entitled to occupy or they have accommodation but it is not reasonable for them to continue to occupy this accommodation (see Legal Definition of Homelessness section).
Officially recognised as homeless: Those who are both legally homeless and have successfully applied to their local authority to be classified as such in the current year. A household can be legally homeless but not recognised by the state as being homeless because they have not applied to be classified as such.
Statutory homeless: Households that have been found to be eligible for assistance, unintentionally homeless and falling within a priority need group and thus owed a main homelessness duty by a local housing authority.. In 2006-07, 73,360 households were accepted as statutory homeless in England. Local Authorities made 159,330 decisions on homelessness applications.
Hidden homeless: This refers to homeless households, which may or may not have applied to local authorities for homeless status, but are not entitled to any accommodation. Crisis estimates that there are around 400,000 such 'hidden homeless' adults at any point in time.
Homelessness versus rough sleeping
Homelessness is much wider than rough sleeping; for example, whereas official figures estimate that there are around 500 people sleeping rough on any one night, around 120,000 households in England were officially recognised as being homeless under the legal definition in 2006 (see England - Trends over Time).
http://www.crisis.org.uk/policywatch/pages/ab...

http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/homeles...

http://www.thepavement.org.uk/

Note that the term is used to differentiate for temporary homeless persons who may not be recognised by the governement as being homeless (so they don't appear in official statistics?)

Well, there is an AE expression "roughing it" that refers to living or camping in rough conditions, so the divide is not huge.

However, I had never heard the BE phrase "rough sleeper" before.

Truck/lorry, bathroom/loo and hood/bonnet are much larger divides.

Personally, I think fanny and fanny are a much greater divide than anything I've seen here so far. :-)

Try an experimen, dude:
Ask for a rubber in a British and an American class. ;p
I am lucky to have gone to a British art-class exchange during school...

(#19, well don't let your rubber get nicked.^^ (I learned that from KinkyAfro, many moons ago!))

Okay, okay, okay. I get the message. It does somehow boil down to an AE vs. BE thing. I still needed to ask in this particular instance though.

@Nicole, #16, Thanks for posting that. That does actually speak to my OP. It's very interesting.
@svaihingen, #17, Interesting point with "roughing it".

So, thanks all! I'm very happy the input. I'm done.

Would also like to point out that there isn't actually much difference, as BE uses the term "homeless", too; we just have this extra name for people who are not sleeping in shelters for the homeless, but who are actually on the street. Is there no name for that in the US? Can you not talk about people "sleeping rough" in AE?

Nicole's entry made me realize that "homeless" is okay in BE, but it's used differently.

I've never heard "sleeping rough" in AE. It just sounds odd somehow.

AFAIK, we say "homeless" for all cases (on the streets, in a shelter, or when you technically don't have an "official" home). Hope that made sense.

EDIT: Now I have a question. Would you say, I'm going to the mountains on the weekend and I'm going to be sleeping rough?

In other words, does "sleeping rough" mean the same for a homeless person on the streets and someone who sleep outdoors in the mountains?

AFAIK, we say "homeless" for all cases (on the streets, in a shelter, or when you technically don't have an "official" home). Hope that made sense.
We use "homeless" that way too. And in addition to that, we have a name for people who are specifically sleeping without any shelter, on the street. Sounds like there is no noun for that in AE? Do you just say "people who are roughing it" or something?

Would you say, I'm going to the mountains on the weekend and I'm going to be sleeping rough?
Only if you weren't taking a tent, and intended to sleep outdoors without any shelter - not something people do in the UK...

I've never heard of a specific term. Even if on the streets, you are "homeless".

"people who are roughing it / to rough it" means something a little different.
svaihingen was trying to show the sense of "rough", AFAIK, to show why it's not
such a stretch. It would NOT mean homeless in AE.

EDIT: Oops. I'm embarrassed ... Dictionary: rough it)

Does that mean that in BE too?

#24 Yes, though the first translation's a bit off, isn't it?
This US site describes homeless people in shelters and those "living on the streets" http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Ho... - that's another way you could put it in BE, too.

@23 - genau, so kenn ich die Verwendung der zwei Benennungen auch. Rough sleeping ist eine Unterkategorie von Obdachlos.

Ich war ein wenig überrascht, als mir klar wurde, dass "homeless" auch Leute umfasst, die sich z. B. von ihrem Partner getrennt haben und vorübergehend bei Freunden oder Verwandten übernachten. Klar sind die "homeless", aber ich hätte sie doch nie in derselben Kategorie untergebracht wie die Leute, die in Obdachlosenunterkünften oder auf der Straße (rough) schlafen.

Andererseits... wenn jemand, der bei Freunden übernachtet, obdachlos ist, warum dann nicht jemand, der 25 oder 30 ist und noch bei den Eltern wohnt? Oder nach dem Studium wieder zu den Eltern gezogen ist? Der hat auch kein eigenes Heim...

#26 This site kind of answers your comment, finishing:
In summary, the legal definition of homelessness is constructed in broad terms, with the two most important conditions, namely "reasonable to occupy" and "licence to occupy", both being inherently subjective and therefore matters of judgement. But any difference in judgement over interpretation is not the same as a difference of opinion over definition and the legal definition is generally accepted in the homelessness sectorhttp://www.crisis.org.uk/policywatch/pages/le...

"Would you say, I'm going to the mountains on the weekend and I'm going to be sleeping rough?
Only if you weren't taking a tent, and intended to sleep outdoors without any shelter - not something people do in the UK..."

Sorry, but I'd say "sleeping under the stars" or "out in the open". Sleeping rough for me is not a countryside pursuit.

I'm with Nicola though, I've never heard of "rough sleepers" and don't believe anyone not involved with them would use the term. "Sleeping rough" is very common, but for me "homeless person" would be the normal noun.

"Roughing it" appears to be the same in the US and the UK.

What about "hobo" being "strange" and not used in the U.K.?

#28 That's true: was just trying to think of a situation in which you might say you planned to sleep rough for fun, but your phrases are the proper way to say it. Anything that involves bedding and enjoyment can't be described as sleeping rough.

I thought I was getting smarter, and now I'm not so sure.

Is this entry possibly wrong:
Dictionary: rough sleeper

#25, CM2DD, I agree that the first definition of "to rough it" is off.
Dictionary: rough it

Or it may need a marker?

"Rough sleeper" as a noun is quite a specialist term, as Nicole says, and as we've seen it is more specific than "homeless person", which is what "Obdachloser" means. So that entry isn't great, no. Not sure there's a noun for it in German either.

"Platte machen" came to mind, and that's in LEO already:
Dictionary: platte machen


http://www.redensarten-index.de/suche.php?suc...

http://inhalt.monster.de/8618_de-de_p1.asp

related discussion: to rough it - äußerst sparsam mit etw.Dat. ...

That's a new one on me, thanks, penguin.

Like Nicole in #16 and Me (GB) in #28, I'd never noticed "rough sleeper" before, whereas "sleep rough" is a normal part of my vocabulary. If anything, "rough sleeper" might sound like a description of an insomniac. Is that what you were thinking of too, opine?

#34. No, I read it in exactly this context:
Dictionary: rough sleeper

I'll try to drum up the article.

EDIT: Here's the text:
Although rough sleepers are often affected by mental health, alcohol and substance abuse problems, there was no medical or therapeutic help available at such shelters. Since its establishment in 1989, however, SRHT has been transforming these institutions, challenging fixed attitudes towards the homeless and applying the concept of “architecture of ambition”.

In May 2009 SRHT launched Abbey Apartments, designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture to house 113 homeless people in LA. Alongside it stands Rainbow Apartments, designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture and completed in 2006.

Here's the link, but FT's links sometimes don't work:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ade21702-b0a1-11df-...