dbd33

I've told this story here before but since it's me best, here we go again. About ten years ago we had occasion to send a young American to the UK for work. I warned him about the odd currency, pounds, shillings and pence and sorted out a ten bob note, some florins, half crowns, farthings and all the rest. We practised, "suppose you offer a guinea for something that costs fifteen and six, what you want for change?". He's a mathemetician and was fascinated, he got good at it even mastering saying "tanner" as an expression. We gave him all the change we could muster to get him started.

He was still on the train from Gatwick when he telephoned. Someone had explained decimalisation. Someone had also taught him a word not commonly used in America.

bats

understandable, the light must be dazzling

Alan2005

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.5.0.174 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/107)

'Look out its the filth' confused the people I work with a while back.

bats

Does all that BB stuff reveal who you are??

jeannie in a bottle

Oh don't get me started ..... I have enough trouble ordering in Tim Hortons. The other day, I was asking for a portion of butter which seemed to leave them quite bemused. Eventually someone translated for me and said "she wants some buDDer". I refuse to say that word

Oink

SMBBSC.

Largo

Why do Brits expect Canadians to understand British idioms? This is, after all, a different country with many different nationalities. I am a former Brit having lived here for 55 yrs.
When I came here in 1957, and explained to my friends that in some villages in England some people went around at night to wake up men who had to work night shift and used clothes props to knock on the windows to waken them and were called 'knockers up', they burst out laughing; the expression 'being knocked up' had an entirely different meaning.
Also,they had expressions that I did not understand.So, I guess it works both ways.

JulieLord

Me and hubby were out in SK last year and my new boss had been taking us around different places over the first 2 weeks for us to get a feel of the place and what places to eat and not eat. One of the days he took us to A & W, we stood in the que 'as you do' waiting to order, my boss did first, then onto me... I ordered what I wanted for me and the Hubby, the guys behind the counter just stopped what they were doing and stared at me as if I had wellies on my head!!! I tried again ... still no movement! This is where my boss stepped in and translated for us All was fine and the guys behind the counter went back to there work knowing they had just served someone from the South Wales Valleys ..

I dread to think what people are gonna make of our expressions ...

christmasoompa

They don't, that's kind of the point of the thread - which expressions us Brits use that confuse Canadians.

umpalumpa

Glad I'm not the only one with the butter problem at Tim Hortons!

PzFus

When I was living in the States it was always water that caused the problem

"Ohh you want warder!"

Back onto idioms, in one training session I referred to a group as

"A herd of elephants"

in French, at which point I got a whole group of 8 people just stop what they were doing and stare at me like I was from outer space. Whilst I know a lot of idioms/jokes don't, I thought this one would just translate straight across. Apparently I should have said

"You have the feet of an elephant" for it to work.

chanceUK

the use of the word "fortnight" got me laughed at. It's all "bi-weekly" here

wiganfem

i have not heard that for years 'bent as a nine bob note' lol no wonder they looked blank, where you originally from? Gotta admit my hubby choked at the same advert, it did so sound like she was gonna say shut the ........ up

PzFus

Red Rose country, but haven't lived there since '88.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who reacted that way to the A+W ad!

ann m

I miss being able to use "take the Mickey" and "knackered".

"Teasing" and "being exhausted" just doesn't quite say it how I need it to be said.

Everyone in my department now knows what I mean when I tell them I am going to the loo. Not that I tell everyone, you understand, but those that need to know, know.