Gosh, there's all sorts of differences between US and British language. I went to Portsmouth, England (not a tiny village, but a decently sized city) from California for a school semester about 25 years ago, some of the linguistic and cultural wtfs that I recall are:
The front of your hairline: Fringe/Bangs.
Fuel for a car: Petrol/Gas.
The rear storage space of a car: Boot/Trunk
Where you go to relieve yourself: Watercloset/Bathroom
School examination time: Sit a paper/Take a test
Tool used to remove accidental pencil marks: Rubber/Eraser (rubber was/is slang for condom... I was not amused on my third day there to be asked by a 9 year old if a) Was I am American? and b) could she borrow my rubber).
Playing cards, the act of discarding a card: .../dropping (No idea what the British term would be. The teenagers I was trying to teach a game to had hysteric fits over my use of the word 'dropping'... it was apparently astonishing profanity)
I was so culture shocked. Dishes were washed with hot water, but without soap; foods like fish and chips were literally wrapped in newspapers taken from a stack of papers for sale - i.e. not sanitary at all (that's what the vinegar is for, apparently). Many two story houses lacked running hot water to any upstairs fixtures. Unchilled, Unpasturized, and non-homogenized milk was delivered by the bottle to stand outside front doors. There was almost no sex education or drug education in the schools, compared to what I'd already had at that age. Drinking was legal for any age, without any concerns about what alcohol did to developing brains.
On the upside, I'd been severely bullied in most of my American schooling, and the culture of the school I was placed into in Britain was almost utterly non-violent, especially physically. The idea of hitting, pushing, spitting, or any other form of assault seemed utterly over the top to most of my classmates, and even the verbal abuses that only a few students ever seemed to use on anyone were much more restrained than the average I'd seen in the US.
... I've seen gaol used by Americans, too. It's generally just used as a fancier word for jail.
Ahh, from what I've seen (and used) when gaol is used here, we're talking about really poorly run prisons. Almost oubliette level of lack of care, cleanliness, and with a high likelihood of prisoners being beaten and stuff. Our fancier word for jail would be penitentiary.