Hahaha! Well I grew up with one of these. As probably most Americans did. A stovetop whistling kettle.

It makes a piercing sound so that you run back and pull it off the burner. If you fail to, it can boil dry. Not good. Ruins the metal. But you can get a rolling boil going and keep it going, just popping the lid so it stops whistling.

I think the difference is Americans don't have tea culture. We have coffee culture which for many years also took place on the stovetop in the form of a percolator. Later the coffee pot was outsourced from the stove to a standalone coffee maker. Similar to a standalone electric kettle. Americans love the plastic coffee maker. UK requires an electric kettle. That's my cultural guesstimation anyway.

Where I finally found it was a store for US military families that had gotten used to the devices and creature comforts of overseas postings. German chocolate. British electric kettles. That kind of thing. =D