Gelatin, Jelly and Jam
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (105489)
United States
August 4, 2025 7:33am CST
It is fun, and funny to me, sometimes, because we are all, often times, worlds apart, and so we sometimes call the same things different things—and sometimes it can be confusing even if we mostly know what someone is referring to.
Like say, in the Philippines, someone will call anything between two round buns that is cooked a burger. Take a chicken sandwich, they might call it a chicken burger.
In the United States a burger is typically some sort of ground meat made into a patty, most often beef, and if you tell someone you ate a burger, they will assume you mean a hamburger (which is a beef burger just to make things even more confusing).
There's no ham in a burger, and there's no such thing as a ham burger. There can only be a ham sandwich.
This happened with a recent discussion by a member about jelly, which wasn't about jelly at all (from my American perspective), but about gelatin or Jell-O. So, I asked "What do you call actual jelly then?"
Someone else said, "We call that jam."
But of course, just like we don't call gelatin jelly, we distinguish between jelly and jam too. Jelly is usually high fructose corn syrup blended in a particular way with flavorings while jam is a preserve made with actual fruit.
So, being that we are worlds apart, what are some other things you can think of that you say is this and we say is that? We all generally know what someone is referring to, or at least most of the time we do.
It's when we use the same word for something else is when it becomes confusing. Like the word thong. Here, in the U.S., that's a flip-flop. A thong is a pair of underwear or a bathing suit with a thin strip that goes up your butt crack, so if you come here and ask for thongs, they will not send you to the shoe aisle. And if you ask for jelly and want gelatin, you're going to be sent down the wrong aisle too.
Like I said, it's fun. So what are some things you call one thing that we call another?
8 people like this
8 responses
@Traceyjayne (4361)
• United Kingdom
4 Aug
I was part of the other discussion too . In the Uk both ham and preserves are made with actual fruit.
2 people like this

@Traceyjayne (4361)
• United Kingdom
4 Aug
@porwest ha ha …yes jam not ham. Jelly is different here too.
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@porwest (105489)
• United States
4 Aug
@Traceyjayne And I am assuming in the UK, jelly there would also not be gelatin.
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@porwest (105489)
• United States
4 Aug
You make ham with fruit? lol. Now I am just being facetious since I know darn well you meant jam. Hey, I can't help myself. Here jam and preserves are the same thing, but jelly is different. In other words, jam are preserves and preserves are jam, but neither are jelly. lol. So, I think we're the same on that.
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@LeaPea2417 (38234)
• Toccoa, Georgia
5 Aug
I recently learned another word for eggplant is aubergine. I think the British say aubergine.
2 people like this
@Fleura (32304)
• United Kingdom
4 Aug
I found that while going to a country where you don't speak the language is difficult and confusing, going to a country where you think you speak the same language and then find that you don't mean the same things is even more confusing!
I can give you a list of words that don't mean the same thing in British and American English:
pudding
suspenders
pavement
washing up
biscuits
jelly
biker
car
fanny
bum
f-a-g
I know there are loads more, just can't think of them off the top of my head.
1 person likes this


@LindaOHio (197799)
• United States
5 Aug
The Brits have a lot of things that are different than what we call them. Can't think of a one now. They do like Vegemite. I doubt I would ever try that.
2 people like this
@Ineeddentures (13321)
•
4 Aug
You call a towing caravan a camper
I always thought " camper" meant that you were more " camp" than me
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@porwest (105489)
• United States
4 Aug
Well, we actually have several names for a "camper," but none of them are a "caravan" for us. And just to make things even more confusing, of course, right? We have an RV, which is basically a motorhome, and are also referred to by some as motorhomes, but it's short for "recrational vehicle." Then we have a 5th wheel camper which is towed without a hitch, but rather slips into a king pin much like a semi truck would. Then we have a travel trailer, which is towed via a hitch. All of them are typically campers, but if one wanted to be more specific they would say RV, 5th wheel or travel trailer. Campers are also often referred to as "rigs."
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@Ineeddentures (13321)
•
4 Aug
@porwest
Rigs.
Big installations for drilling oil and gas in the North Sea
2 people like this
@porwest (105489)
• United States
4 Aug
@Ineeddentures Yep. Those are also rigs here. We also call the drivable part of semis rigs as well. And sometimes we might refer to any truck as a rig.
1 person likes this
@allknowing (151693)
• India
5 Aug
I am glad my post inspired you to write this post.
Whatyou call jelly we call it jam. 

1 person likes this

@porwest (105489)
• United States
5 Aug
Needless to say, it was a fun discussion on your end, so I couldn't resist carrying it forward on my own. Like I said to you on your post, we all say similar things that mean different things depending on where we are. Funny how that is, hey? lol
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@Fleura (32304)
• United Kingdom
4 Aug
Jelly is made with fruit and sugar, but strained so that there are no bits (fruit pips, skin etc) in it, unlike jam which is made with the whole fruit. Both are made with actual fruit and sugar and that should be it. Trust me I have just made a batch of blackberry jelly and one of mirabelle jam!
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@Fleura (32304)
• United Kingdom
4 Aug
@porwest Gelatin/ gelatine is basically hydrolysed collagen, it can be used in cooking (as well as in other things) but it isn't really used as a food in its own right as it's just tasteless and rubbery.
You can buy fruit flavoured jelly made with gelatine and sugar which comes in blocks which you dissolve in hot water and then leave to cool and set, typically served at children's parties.
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@porwest (105489)
• United States
4 Aug
What prompted this was another discussion where the person called gelatin jelly, and then of course, further discussion ensued between (at least from my American understanding) what the differences were between jelly, jam, and gelatin. The English language is always interesting in that we can all speak it, but words sometimes have different meanings depending on what country you are in.
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