MsElui

My colleagues are forever asking what xx means when I drop another Brit term in the conversation so I know I'm using them. Even today my colleague asked me what to nick meant, when I said can i nick some cream from my cup of tea in a restaurant.

SultanOfSwing

My wife works with a bloke who is a complete Anglophile. Every so often I get an email asking what a certain phrase means, or did I ever use that term.

Quite funny since the guy has never set foot in the UK but it's nice to see.

who ate my jaffacakes

to my utter shock said "yer man" yesterday while referring casually to some random guy; my husband didn't seem to notice


yes i did

Speedwell

ha

redglade

You take cream in your tea? I think you've gone native.

tinaflorida

I don't use that many Britishisms anymore but now and then I'll unintentionally drop one into a conversation, at which point my American husband will give me a blank look and I'll be reminded that we did grow up on different continents. We've been married for bloody ages so sometimes I forget.

When everyone was reading the Harry Potter books I often got calls and emails asking about some UK expression or other from the books. I even had to give someone a lengthy explanation of the UK education system one day. Just about put myself to sleep...lol.

kimilseung

I found the HP book edits to be quite perplexing about what they did and did not edit.
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/potter.html

Pulaski

Nutek

You beat me to it.

RICH

Put your pants on, yer nicked.

Pulaski

I've tried several times to explain to my MIL that "cream tea" is a light mid-afternoon meal featuring "tea" and (scones with jam and clotted) "cream", but she thinks I am being difficult/argumentative, and will have none of it...... and neither will I (of her foul concoction of tea ruined by the addition of cream. )

Speedwell

It helps tremendously if your tea is good tea in the first place. It is impossible to understand how cream ruins tea when it remedies the sour bitterness that is bad tea. It is only possible to understand why slick greasiness is not the right way to drink tea (Unless you're Tibetan and put yak butter and salt in your tea, in which case cream is still the wrong thing to use) when you have tea that tastes good without milk, and better with it.

Pulaski

And therein lies the problem, .... that, and the cultural difference between one country that likes its tea hot with a splash of milk, and another that mostly takes its tea sickly sweet and full of ice.

Pulaski

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Speedwell

Properly primed with eight cups of Punjana a day, I went to lunch with colleagues yesterday, ordered iced tea (not sweetened, just the tea) and took a swig. It felt like being punched in the face with a sour football filled with ice. See, we are trainable.