As this is my first entry concerning Britspeak though I will go through some common terms that are necessary for getting around in daily life. We will venture through the course of a day and find all the fun words we need to get around. Lets start at the sidewalk.
One of the first things every tourist notices when they arrive in the UK (and doesn’t come as a surprise unless said tourist has lived under a rock) is that the Brits drive on the left side of the road. And the Brits recognize that they are the weirdos in this case because they have written which way to look on the ground, helping out all those people from almost everywhere else in the world that sticks to the right. This was particularly handy when I first moved to London but when I started traveling to the continent I was sorry the signage was no longer there. In fact, I had grown so accustomed to looking to the right that I had to be stopped from crossing the street by friends when we got to Europe. Even though the French, Spanish, German, etc. drive the same direction we Americans do I had mentally switched over and had trouble converting back to looking left. Okay so there is no Brit word here but its language related! Moving on.
While London is a great city for walking it also has a great underground system, most commonly referred to as the tube (ß our first Brit word!). I love the tube. Coming from Los Angeles where the public transportation system is lacking at best, the tube seemed like the greatest invention since the wheel. I took the tube almost every day and knew the lines better than I knew LA. No joke. When I got back home I was on the way to a friend’s house and I couldn’t remember what street came after Balboa. I had lived in LA my entire life and I couldn’t remember the grid of the valley but I could tell you every stop on the Central Line (and the District, Circle, Piccadilly and Bakerloo).
Now lets get off the tube and explore. Say at Mile End? Cool. But you have to use the restroom so lets pop into a pub. We walk into the local Wetherspoons (a popular pub chain) and you ask where the bathroom is. The bartender gives a look that makes you feel like such a tourist (or just a fool) and says, “The toilets are that way mate.” In the US we would never say that we are going to the toilet, we say bathroom, restroom, etc. Toilet to Americans seems rude but it is just what you say in the UK. The term water closet is never really used but you will see signs labeled WC. Fortunately I have always been a strange kid who liked the word loo (also used) so I never had this sort of experience but man, I saw it all the time.
Okay, so while you're in there my pocket vibrates. I pull out mobile and say hello. Catch that did you? I didn’t pull out my cell, rather my mobile. I have no explanation for this one, but it catches on pretty quickly. Crap, it’s our friend, and we are going to be late for dinner. No time for wandering on so we head back to the tube. Uh oh, there isn’t enough money on my Oyster card (my tube pass) so we have to get in the queue to add more money. The British do not line up or stand in line, they queue. In fact, they will give you a bizarre look if ask where the line starts; rather you ask where the queue is. I top up (the phrase used for adding money) and we run to catch our line.
We take the Jubilee (another tube line) to St. John’s Wood and head to our friend’s residence. She doesn’t in an apartment, but in a flat. And she is on the first floor, which in the UK means the second floor to us Americans. Our first floor would be their ground floor. So in order to get the first floor we need to take a lift (normally we could take the stairs the one measly flight but we’re tired and I need to introduce that word). The lift would be the elevator, both words make sense for the action so I have no witty remark on it, in fact its one of my favorites. I also really like flat, especially in the sense that I can refer to the people I live with as flatmates and it sounds okay. Apartmentmate is just hard to say.
Our friend opens the door and says, “Hi! You all right?” Your first inclination might be to say, “Of course I’m alright. I’m fine. Why would you ask such a silly question?” However, you don’t say this because you remember that you learned that this is just an odd British way of saying, “How are you?” Yeah, that’s a really strange one that still catches me off guard.
We go in for dinner and as it time for me to do the same in real life I will leave you there for another day of exploration. Cheers! (Which can mean both goodbye and thank you so it works perfectly here!)
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