Words & Phrases You Associate with England?
 

What words or phrases pop into your mind when thinking of England? (England, not Scotland nor Wales nor Northern Ireland - just plain ole England!)

Mine -

Quaint
Chips
Tea
Queue
Red Phone Boxes
Roundabouts
Sheep
Pubs
Zebra Stripes
Chinese Take-Outs
High Street
Doubledecker buses
Marks & Spencer
Look Left
QE 2
Greasy cafes like Roys' Rolls on Coronation Street

And yours? (no negatives please)

Mustn't grumble.

Turned out nice again.

Looks like rain (tastes like tea).

Mind the gap

Thank you very much indeed

Knights
Normans
Tudors
Stuarts
Shakespeare
Dickens
Churchill
London
Ox & Cam
York
60's & 70's rock stars
BBC
bangers & mash
kidney pie
sticky toffee pudding
brilliant, droll wit
world’s best writers and historians - hands down
and yes. . . sheep

rain
fog
fish 'n chips
pub
fudge (yummie!)
English breakfast
my dear
Jamie Oliver

...knickers in a twist

Zebra Stripes ???? Zebra crossing, possibly?

Chinese Take-Outs, in England tis Take-Away

...spanner in the works

I really can't wait to see what <b>wankinaround</b> has to contribute to this thread. Honestly, with baited breath here...

Does anyone who's ever been here (except Pal Q trying to wind us up) really think "quaint"?

For a typical visitor, arriving at Heathrow, spending most of the visit in London and possibly taking a day or two in Oxford, Stratford or Bath, it's hard to think of any "quaintness" they encounter anywhere.

Parliament, Buckingham Palace and Bath Abbey are, at least by some American standards, old (though the first two are roughly contemporaneous with their US equivalents) - but they're just standard monuments. Apart from Anne Hathaway's cottage, and possibly a couple of Oxford pubs, it's impossible to think of anything "quaint" on most standard tourist routes.

Of course you can dig a bit of quaintness out in England if you try. But, compared to huge swathes of France or Italy (and even a lot of Germany), "mile upon mile of mid-30s semi detached houses" is a much better description of what people actually see.

So:

- Does "quaint" mean something seriously different in American?
- Is PalQ describing what some people think they're going to find, even though they don't?
- Or is the word there just to get our goats?

You beat me to it - I am English and I loathe the word 'quaint' - and am struggling to think of anyone I know ever using it.

Home.
Family.
Friends.
Pubs.
Hills.
Cliffs.
Yobs )
Yobettes. ) some of the family live in a particularly chavvy
Chavs ) bit of Kent ;)
House prices (yawn)
Suburbs
Expensive

And I do believe quaint means something else to Americans. I would use it as a veiled insult, not as a recommendation.

Sexy

Pork pies
Sausage rolls
Tesco
Asda
Mind your head
M&S
Cask ale
slip road
follow your nose
Pret A Manger
Lager
mushy peas
Yorkshire pudding
"Haddock makes for better fish-n-chips than Cod"

My own list:

- Tandoori
- Cheese & Onion
- Green Belt
- Footpath
- Mild (the beer, the flavour AND what the temperatures - note the plural - are always going to be)
- Sunny intervals, and the other 1,000 technical meteorological terms for "we don't know what it's going to be like either"
- Dual carriageway
- Sorry
- Offside (the rule AND the opposite of nearside)
- GP
- Waiting list
- Council estate (whether the houses are publicly owned or not)
- Bookie
- Each way
- Hedge (the funds, what you with your bet on the 3.30 AND the minitrees lining the road
- Salt & Vinegar (the flavour) AND "Salt & Vinegar?" (the invariable chippy question)
- "Ice and lemon?"

On quaintness:

Can we, to advance the discussion, agree just this once that it's legitimate American dialect to describe many country pubs, or bits of Cotswold villages, as "quaint" even if if it pisses us off?

What I don't get is why - unless he's being provocative - PalQ applies the term to the most uglily urbanised affluent country of all. Especially when he seems to spend his life watching Coronation St reruns and sleeping in SE London semis (another word that should be in the list).

Does he/do Americans seriously believe back to back (another one) terrace (and another) houses, or the Rover's snug (yet another), if it's not been replaced by a saloon bar (that too) are "quaint"?

I used to work in Shoreditch, where my co-workers said:

Aw right? (How are you?)
Winning? (Really aw right?)
Anyfing rahn the caf? (Tea?)
Ta (Thanks)
Cheers (Thanks again)

They were wonderfully kind.

See, even the language is quaint.

"Brilliant!" Even when it isn't.