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Patrick: "I still remember that we once took the tube from Green Park to Picadilly." :)
My first solo trip into London when I was living in Oxfordshire back in the 70's I actually took the tube from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square! Another rookie mistake -- not asking for the bill after finishing your meal. They won't bring it unless you ask for it. I've had friends get really upset because "they know we're finished, where is the d**n check", whereas the waiter was probably thinking "They've been finished for 30 minutes, when are they going to ask for the fr****ng bill" |
Going to London and catching a cold and having to buy the absolutely WORST-tasting cold medicine on the planet!
The cold was preferable to the "remedy." |
Ah, but you don't know that it's doing you any good unless it tastes awful (seriously - this is a well-established British cultural convention).
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- that an old building doesn't mean anything under 100 years old
- Bathrooms are only found in homes and hotels,elsewhere its loo, ladies/gents or toilet. - you can't turn right or left when the traffic lights are red - quarter past/quarter to means the hour plus 15 or 45 - a fortnight is 2 weeks - that there are English,Welsh, Scottish and Irish people in England - Everything in the shops is advertised in kilos/litres but everyone actually uses pounds and pints. - Napkins are serviettes, the bill is the check and its 999 for emergency not 911. |
1. Planning ANYTHING your first day after an overseas trip is just asking for trouble. Plan for nothing and anything you can do is extra fun.
2. In cities other than London (especially small towns) don't expect to get food after 8pm. Everything is closed or only serving drinks. 3. There is a real fun guide to UK pub culture here (especially read the part about tipping!): http://www.fancyapint.com/ 4. In two lane roads, if you feel you are going too slow, pull slightly over to the left... the people behind you will go around, no problem. Also, there are frequent 'stopovers' for cars to pass on really narrow roads. 5. Getting a hotel or B&B with breakfast included will save you LOTS of money, especially in London. 6. Mind the gap! 7. Don't be Chevy Chase... slow down and actually ENJOY the sights you spent so much time, effort, research, and money to come see... 8. Go early to the Tower of London and other sites that have big crowd reputations. |
<i>"Bathrooms are only found in homes and hotels,elsewhere its loo, ladies/gents or toilet.</i>
And in pubs and restaurants, the loo is almost never on the same floor. You have to go up or down stairs to get to it. |
Napkins are only serviettes to the lower middle classes. The same is true of toilet. It's amusing that to a Briton the word toilet is only used by people who want to be rafeened. I've heard that in the US the term is considered crude.
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Kayb95 - the toilets are often on different floors in a pub because the pub was probably built before indoor toilets were common - and CERTAINLY before the pub needed a 'ladies', so they've had to carve the loos out of the basement!
theo is on the nose about toilets - after all, why on earth would you call it a bathroom? You're not seriously going to try and have a bath in there, are you?! |
That what Americans call "Scotch tape" is known as "Sello tape" in the UK, even in Scotland. My sister had quite a time trying to buy "Scotch tape" in Edinburgh and couldn't figure out why they'd never heard of it, finally decided to settle for the offered "sello" tape and realized it was the same thing. "Scotch" tape is an American brand name.
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Now I'm confused, billy goat. What exactly are the class implications of using the word "toilet"? I seem to hear it everywhere in Britain.
It's true that the word is considered crude in the U.S. I always cringe a little when I'm in the UK and hear myself asking where the toilet is. A Canadian friend who spends a lot of time in Britain says she feels the same way (in her part of Canada, at least, it's "the washroom"). |
Actually Daisy, Scotch tape is a well known brand in the UK, so can't think why your sister had so much trouble. Sello Tape is just a different brand - although the name "sello tape" has become a standard term for sticky tape.
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<i>"I've heard that in the US the term is considered crude."</i>
It <i>is</i> a bit difficult for us to ask for the toilet. Here in the US, the toilet is the actual apparatus - not the room in which it is contained. I generally ask for the ladies room when in Britain. The term bathroom probably came about because most of our toilets are in the same room as the bath. UK toilets are also a lot different than ours. Different bowl shape entirely - probably more water efficient than ours. :) |
There are certain words which are used by the Mrs Buckets of this world, people who have risen from the working class and think that they need to use "refined" expressions. Toilet is one of them. You're safer asking for the ladies or gents. Lounge is another used for sitting room. Serviette sounds more "refined" than napkin. Such people say "pardon" when they don't hear what you have said and they don't go to work, they go to business.
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We were in a pub in London a few years ago and I asked the barmaid for a napkin. She gave me this kind of shocked look and I thought "Oh, gawd! They must call it something else." After a few seconds, she said "Oh, a serviette." She handed me a napkin and I slinked back to my table, not knowing what "napkin" meant in English (diaper, sanitary pad????) I'm still not clear on it, so I never ask for a napkin in England. :)
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Ah, here the apparatus is called the lavatory which of course is also used for the room.
In the UK, a bathroom is a room with a bath in it. In some older houses, it won't actually have a lavatory in it. Of course, all the words are euphemisms. Toilet started life as a lady's dressing table, lavatory means a place where you wash. Perhaps we should start saying water closet. I remember when railway platforms had rooms with signs "Ladies waiting room". It actually did have seats in it, but there was also a loo. The Victorians were obviously as coy as modern Americans. |
<i>"The Victorians were obviously as coy as modern Americans."</i>
Where do you think all our sensibilities came from? We're often called the prudes of the world. :) |
It's taken you all a whole day to get to the "toilet" thing?
For the benefit of cuttlefisah, billy goat et al, let's get this straight. The most frequently used term in England (the Scots have their own programmes) is "toilet" (and, BTW, "serviette") . In the mid-1950s, a flat broke toff, Nancy Mitford, invented a fantasy about all these upwardly-mobile Lower Orders using "refined" terms. According to this nonsense, there were a clutch of words fellow-toffs would never use: toilet, serviette, note paper, lounge, mantelpiece and, believe it or not, mirror. The problem with all this was that even she knew it was a load of codswallop, and we now know from her letters that she was bemused this invention of hers was believed. It has, of course, now been accepted by the dimwitted as some kind of Holy Writ: only oiks, it's claimed, talk about mirrors (apparently you're supposed to say "looking glass"). Hogwash. We relieve ourslves in toilets, wipe our lips with serviettes (or, in the case of the Mitford family not at all, since the family banned them), put stiffies* on mantelpieces and stare at ourselves in the mirror. Mitford was joking. *Surely you know what that is? A proper invitation: engraved, not printed, on stiff board. |
OK.. lets but the whole napkin/serviette issue to bed now once and for all!
Serviette = paper Napkin = linen the working classes (such as they exist in that perjorative term) like to use serviette all the time as they believe, being a "foreign" word it sounds classier. Try asking for a serviette in a decent restaurant and you'll get an odd look! Dr D. |
Glad you explained. I was a little curious about "stiffies." :)
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Couldn't put one on a mantlepiece if I tried. I suppose, if you lean it just correctly... |
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