Being social

Yesterday evening we had Dragon's friends from work, Clay and his girlfriend Laura visiting. We had bought some red wine (BC wine - really nice Mission Hill Shiraz from the neighbouring Okanagan Valley), cupcakes, and I had made some chicken salad. Spent really nice social evening, chatting, watching Iron Chef and playing Carcassonne.

Clay and Laura seemed really nice people - in a very similar situation to ours. They are both originally from US, but had been working in UK until moving to Vancouver couple of months ago, I believe they arrived only couple of weeks before us. And they only live couple of blocks from us in West End - I'm thinking it would be nice to make the Saturday some kind of regular gaming night.

At some point we got to talking about language differences in British and North American English. I've just started learning the differences, and most of them are very subtile and will be understood nonetheless. Most people for example are familiar with the "check/bill" difference - in North America you're supposed to ask for the check as they think "bill" is a note, and in UK you're supposed to ask for the bill as check (or in UK that would be spelled cheque) is the piece of paper indicating payment. But generally if at the end of the meal you ask the waiter for the wrong thing, they'll understand from the context what you're asking.

So in here you say "pickles" instead of gherkins and "take out" or "to go" instead of take away. Then are the ones that say more about cultural differences - for example here you're not supposed to say toilet as that would be too graphical description of what you're about to do, but you should ask for the "restroom" or the "bathroom", although you're not going to rest or there might not be a bath (let alone you wanting to take one). Laura said that the whole time she lived in UK she couldn't bring herself to say that she was going to the toilet - and now I'm trying very hard to stop saying that.

Then there are the differences that make people giggle. Classic one is the British slang word shag which of course means to have sex. In North Amerca it means just chase, for example throwing a baseball between two players is called "shagging the fly". You can imagine how much fun the Brits get out of that one. Another funny one is fanny which in British English means vagina, but in North America it means buttocks - subtile difference but can be quite amusing. The list goes on.

You can't add any more comments, but if you wish you can email the author.