UK Phrase Confusion

Hello all,
Most of you know that potato chips are called crisps here in England, and that french fries are called chips. But there are many other confusing words and phrases here that most Americans don't know about. I've been compiling a list of words and phrases that mean different things in England than they do in the US. Braudia would like to share them with you.

1. Are you alright?- Here in England 'are you alright?' simply means 'hello'. This was especially confusing for us in the beginning because people kept asking us: Are you alright?, and we kept wondering why we wouldn't be alright. We thought, 'Do we look sick or depressed? Why do people keep asking us if we're alright?' But eventually Braudia learned, though it still kind of throws us off.

2. Us: When I first started working at Social Services, the ladies who worked there would often say: 'Would you do this photocopying for us?' or 'Will you do us a favour?' I would look around the room and wonder who else was 'us' other than the person asking. But then I realised: Us means me. Of course, that's not always the case; sometimes us really means us. And some people don't use 'us' to mean me- they just say me. So you've got to judge the circumstances.

3. Dinner and Tea: This was a real mess. Dinner sometimes means dinner and other times it means lunch, and then tea sometimes means tea and other times it means dinner. I'd hear people say at 12:30pm, "I'm going out for me dinner" and think: 'wow, that's an early dinner,' or hear "This chicken is just left over from last night's tea," and I'd think 'wow, ambitious tea!' But then I realised: different words, same thing. So basically, while in America we say Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, in England, they sometimes call it Breakfast, Dinner, and Tea.

4. Lemonade: oh this is funny. If you want a lemonade in England, you've got to ask for 'Cloudy lemonade' because when you say 'lemonade' you get sprite. So a Pimms and Lemonade is really sprite with Pimms, not actual fresh sqeezed citrus juice.

5. 1st floor and 2nd floor: When you are in a multi-level space, such as a department store, you'll find that there's the basement floor (underground), the ground floor, the First floor above it, the second floor etc. In the States, First floor and ground floor are the same, but in England, first floor is the one above the ground- the first floor up. Needless to say, Braudia got off at the wrong floor several times in those early days.

So now if you travel to England, hopefully knowing these little differences will help you get by just a bit better!

ta-ra!