# Sweeping rubbish onto a dustpan - BE vs. AE



## zaffy

Can you tell me what this person is doing? I believe there's going to be a difference between BE na AE.

Is he "sweeping rubbish onto a dustpan" in BE?


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## owlman5

_Rubbish _isn't as widely used in AE as it seems to be in BE. Over here, somebody might well use _dirt, stuff, mess, litter, etc. _rather than _rubbish. _But he is definitely sweeping it into a dustpan.


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## The Newt

owlman5 said:


> [...] But he is definitely sweeping it into a dustpan.


_Into,_ yes.


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## owlman5

The Newt said:


> _Into,_ yes.


I didn't even notice _onto _in zaffy's version. That does sound odd in this part of the world.


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## zaffy

owlman5 said:


> But he is definitely sweeping it into a dustpan.


Interesting that AE doesn't use "dustbin", yet it uses "dustpan". Any idea why?


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## owlman5

zaffy said:


> Any idea why?


_Bin _is another word that people don't use that much over here. I hear _trash bin _occasionally, but I don't hear _dustbin. _To tell you the truth, I don't really associate dust with any sort of bin, dumpster, or can.

 Of course, people frequently sweep dust into dustpans, so the word _dustpan _seems normal to me.


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## Myridon

zaffy said:


> Interesting that AE doesn't use "dustbin", yet it uses "dustpan". Any idea why?


Dustpans are used to collect little bits that are too small to pick up like dust from sweeping the floor.  I wouldn't sweep a cereal box into a dustpan, but I would put a cereal box into a garbage can.


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## zaffy

owlman5 said:


> Over here, somebody might well use _dirt, stuff, mess, litter, etc. _rather



And could we say "He is sweeping trash into a dustpan" (referring to the stuff seen in #1) or do you prefer "litter"?


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## JulianStuart

zaffy said:


> And could we say "He is sweeping trash into a dustbin" or do you prefer "litter"?


Do you mean dustpan, I wonder?


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## zaffy

JulianStuart said:


> Do you mean dustpan, I wonder?


Oh yeah, I meant 'dustpan', edited, thanks.


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## owlman5

zaffy said:


> And could we say "He is sweeping trash into a dustpan" (referring to the stuff seen in #1) or do you prefer "litter"?


I would probably use _litter _rather than _trash _in a reference to that little pile.*

*In the rough language of construction workers, etc. _shit _is a popular all-purpose option that is used to refer to anything that people sweep up or throw away: _Sweep that shit up so we can get out of here early today._


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## zaffy

owlman5 said:


> I would probably use _litter _rather than _trash _in a reference to that little pile


Could a BE speaker share their thoughts as well? Would you call that pile in #1 "litter" or "rubbish"?


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## JulianStuart

zaffy said:


> Could a BE speaker share their thoughts as well? Would you call that pile in #1 "litter" or "rubbish"?


I'd probably just refer to it as "it" or "that pile" (of stuff that has been made by the brush).


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## Tegs

He or she is brushing rubbish into a dustpan.

I also "brush" the floor, I don't "sweep" it.


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## zaffy

Tegs said:


> He or she is brushing rubbish into a dustpan.
> 
> I also "brush" the floor, I don't "sweep" it.


Is that Irish English or British English as well?


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## JulianStuart

I brush the floor with the little brush when it is time to use a dustpan.  I sweep the floor with a broom to create a pile _for_ the dustpan.


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## Tegs

zaffy said:


> Is that Irish English or British English as well?


Irish English.


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## Myridon

JulianStuart said:


> I brush the floor with the little brush when it is time to use a dustpan.  I sweep the floor with a broom to create a pile _for_ the dustpan.


I sweep the dust into the dustpan with the broom.  My broom and dustpan came as a set.  I have a smaller dustpan that came with a brush but I don't use it on the floor.


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## JulianStuart

Myridon said:


> I sweep the dust into the dustpan with the broom.  My broom and dustpan came as a set.  I have a smaller dustpan that came with a brush but I don't use it on the floor.


The OP's dustpan does not have a tall handle like some dustpans, and would be harder to fill with a broom than with a little brush as in the OP picture.  The ones with a tall handle are easier to fill with a broom. This sounds like the set you describe


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## Uncle Jack

In BrE, the picture in post #1 shows a dustpan and brush. I don't think any other term is used, and if you said "dustpan and brush" to anyone in Britain, that is almost certainly the sort of thing that they would imagine. We do have things like in post #19, but I have no idea what they might be called, except that the brush looks like an ordinary broom to me.

The verb I would use for post #1 is almost certainly "sweep", but "brush" is fine, and I think both are widely used. With a broom, "sweep" is definitively the better verb.


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## Myridon

JulianStuart said:


> The OP's dustpan does not have a tall handle like some dustpans


No, my dustpan is the same. It's easier to grab the broom lower down on the handle than to have to deal a third tool. 



You can see the dust pan has no long handle.


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## Rover_KE

Uncle Jack said:


> We do have things like in post #19, but I have no idea what they might be called,



I call them a_ long-handled dustpan and brush_.


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## Roxxxannne

owlman5 said:


> _Rubbish _isn't as widely used in AE as it seems to be in BE. Over here, somebody might well use _dirt, stuff, mess, litter, etc. _rather than _rubbish. _But he is definitely sweeping it into a dustpan.


I sweep it into a pile with a large ordinary household broom with straw bristles, and then I brush it into the dustpan with a whisk broom, shaped like a little regular broom but with no handle to speak of (regular household broom : whisk broom :: leopard : Manx cat).  I call it dust only if it is mostly dust. If it includes human hair, cat hair, kibble, pieces of bark, sand, and/or dirt, I have no word for it except, I guess, stuff, as in "Don't step in that pile of stuff right in front of you ... Right there!  ... Jeez..."


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## zaffy

Uncle Jack said:


> The verb I would use for post #1 is almost certainly "sweep"


And what is he sweeping into the dustpan for you? Rubbish? Litter?


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## Tegs

zaffy said:


> what is he sweeping into the dustpan for you? Rubbish? Litter?


Is the guy doing this in his own home, or is he a cleaner who is doing it on a city street? If it’s his own home, it’s rubbish. If it’s a city street it’s litter. Litter is paper from chocolate bars, empty cans, bottles etc - it isn’t hair, dust, crumbs and bits of cheese you dropped when you were cooking etc.


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## velisarius

About sweeping _onto/into_:

In my younger days, dustpans had a different shape: they were not a simple flat surface with a handle, but more of a receptacle (very useful when there's lot of dust/debris, or when you're outside and it's windy). With that kind of implement, the dust/debris really was swept *into* the pan. 

I still have one of those earlier forms of dustpan, and guard it jealously.


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## zaffy

Tegs said:


> Is the guy doing this in his own home, or is he a cleaner who is doing it on a city street? If it’s his own home, it’s rubbish. If it’s a city street it’s litter. Litter is paper from chocolate bars, empty cans, bottles etc - it isn’t hair, dust, crumbs and bits of cheese you dropped when you were cooking etc.


He was cleaning someone's car and he removed all that stuff from it.


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## Uncle Jack

zaffy said:


> And what is he sweeping into the dustpan for you? Rubbish? Litter?


Dust, most likely, if I had to give it a name. Crumbs. Dog hairs. Sweepings, although sweepings are what ends up in the pan, not what is on the floor. It won't be litter - that's things that you see on the street outside, not small particles you find on the floor at home. It could be rubbish or mess.


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## sinukg

The Newt said:


> _Into,_ yes.


Sorry, I didn't get it. Could you tell me why you corrected "into" as "Into", please?


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## heypresto

The Newt wasn't correcting 'into', but confirming that 'into' was the right preposition. It's capitalised simply because it's the first word of the (very short) sentence.


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## zaffy

Uncle Jack said:


> Dust, most likely, if I had to give it a name


And could you call it 'dirt' like AE?


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## Uncle Jack

zaffy said:


> And could you call it 'dirt' like AE?


Oh, quite likely, if it is dirt. Not everything is dirt, though. Dust isn't dirt. Dog hairs aren't dirt. Crumbs from the table or kitchen worktop aren't dirt, at least, not to start with. Like Roxxxannne in post #23, I tend to use a specific word if a word is required, but I rarely need a word. In general what I sweep is the floor, not dust, dirt, muck or dog hairs. Also, an awful lot can be referred to as "that": Sweep that up, won't you?


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## ewie

Like Mr O's proverbial construction worker [post #11], I'd most likely say the chap in post #1 is _sweeping crap/shit/stuff into a dustpan_. I never talk to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Queen, or the English Pedantry Society about cleaning activities so have no need to moderate or be terribly precise in my language


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## Tegs

zaffy said:


> He was cleaning someone's car and he removed all that stuff from it.



I'd say "all this stuff" or "all this crap" more than "all this rubbish". It's not litter though.


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## zaffy

Uncle Jack said:


> Dust, most likely, if I had to give it a name.



I'm a bit confused why you would call the staff he is sweeping into the dustpan "dust".  Isn't dust a kind of powder that accumulates on things like on the shelf on the left?


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## JulianStuart

zaffy said:


> I'm a bit confused why you would call the staff he is sweeping into the dustpan "dust".  Isn't dust a kind of powder that accumulates on things like on the shelf on the left?
> 
> View attachment 61951


You could use any number of words, or a different set depending on the details of what is being swept.  "Stuff" is quite common, or you could list all the things in the pile etc, depending on how picky specific you were being.


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## Myridon

Because anything that goes in a dustpan is, by definition, dust.  (Just being silly.) 
I hope that isn't typical of what you find when you sweep the floors inside your house.  Quite a bit of that is actually litter - large things someone should have put in the garbage can or that you could have picked up just as easily by hand.  It's the tiny bits that you can't easily scoop up with your hand - literal dust, breadcrumbs, etc - that you really need the dustpan for.


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## zaffy

So "dust" isn't only powder that accumulates on things. It could be breadcrumbs, spilled rice or sugar, right?


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## Uncle Jack

zaffy said:


> I'm a bit confused why you would call the staff he is sweeping into the dustpan "dust".  Isn't dust a kind of powder that accumulates on things like on the shelf on the left?
> 
> View attachment 61951


Who said I did? We don't have a single word for stuff that gets swept into a dustpan, and it is pointless trying to look for one. The person in the second picture is sweeping the floor. That the floor is swept is generally more important than the stuff that is going to get thrown away.


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## DonnyB

zaffy said:


> Could a BE speaker share their thoughts as well? Would you call that pile in #1 "litter" or "rubbish"?


It depends where he's doing it.  If it's inside somebody's house, which it looks like it is, I wouldn't call it "litter".


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## Tegs

zaffy said:


> So "dust" isn't only powder that accumulates on things. It could be breadcrumbs, spilled rice or sugar, right?


No. Dust is the powder that accumulates on things. Crumbs are "crumbs". Spilled rice is "spilled rice" etc. 

I need to dust = I need to get rid of the powder on the shelves.

I need to brush the floor = I need to get rid of whatever stuff is on the floor (crumbs, sugar, dust, hair). We don't have one word to encompass all of that, except "stuff", "crap" and "shit" (stuff being more polite than crap, and crap being more polite than shit).

We don't spend any time at all analysing what is in the dustpan. To someone who has brushed the floor and left all the stuff in a pile next to the brush, you might say: "Can you brush that pile of crap into the dustpan, instead of leaving it there?"


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## JulianStuart

Tegs said:


> No. Dust is the powder that accumulates on things. Crumbs are "crumbs". Spilled rice is "spilled rice" etc.
> 
> I need to dust = I need to get rid of the powder on the shelves.
> 
> I need to brush the floor = I need to get rid of whatever stuff is on the floor (crumbs, sugar, dust, hair). We don't have one word to encompass all of that, except "stuff", "crap" and "shit" (stuff being more polite than crap, and crap being more polite than shit).
> 
> We don't spend any time at all analysing what is in the dustpan. To someone who has brushed the floor and left all the stuff in a pile next to the brush, you might say: "Can you brush that pile of crap into the dustpan, instead of leaving it there?"


Perhaps there is such a word in Polish ?


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## zaffy

Looks like I misread Uncle Jack's post. I understood that he would call the staff the man is sweeping into a dustpan in #1 "dust".


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## zaffy

JulianStuart said:


> Perhaps there is such a word in Polish ?


No, we have one word for your "dust" and one name for your "rubbish/garbage/litter/trash".


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## Wordy McWordface

zaffy said:


> No, we have one word for your "dust" and one name for your "rubbish/garbage/litter/trash".


And as others have said, the stuff (not "staff" !!) which is about to be swept into the dustpan is none of those things. It's just stuff: some dust, plus crumbs and other random detritus from the floor. We put it into the bin/can along with the rubbish/trash, but it isn't rubbish, trash or garbage itself. 

Rubbish/garbage/trash is used refer to larger objects or larger amounts of stuff that we put in an appropriate bin/can. Perhaps when we've emptied out our rubbish from our rubbish bin ( or our trash from our trash can) there might still be some of that mixture of dust, crumbs and so on at the bottom.

As for 'litter', that's something else entirely. Litter is individual objects, such as discarded packaging, which have been deliberately and or irresponsibly  left in a public place: a drink can dropped in the street, for example. A minuscule crumb of bread that falls from a dining table is not litter.

If you don't have a precise word for the stuff being swept into the dustpan, what makes you think that we do?


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## velisarius

"Sweepings" can be used, once the detritus or debris has been swept up.

_I emptied the sweepings from the dustpan.
I swept the sweepings into the dustpan. _

In real life I'd just say that I swept the floor and emptied the dustpan.


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## cidertree

I'd use _dirt: _I sweep the floor because it's dirty.


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## Tegs

Dirt to me is "soil". Look at all the dirt you brought in! = look at all the soil you carried in on the bottom of your shoes.


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## cidertree

Regional differences. 

I plant things in _earth_, or "soil" to avoid confusion.


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## ewie

cidertree said:


> Regional differences.


 Soil to me is _muck_


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## cidertree

Especially if it's been traipsed all over the house.


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## Tegs

cidertree said:


> Regional differences.


Yes, I'm not all that sure I haven't been influenced by American TV and books in thinking dirt = soil


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