you say yogurt, i say yog-hurt

The other day, a girl I met (who was born in the former Soviet Union, had spent from the age of ten in the Netherlands and was now studying at Cambridge) asked me (quite seriously) how I was finding the process of assimilating into this new English culture. I replied that as far as culture change goes we’d selected an easy option – to the extent that I wondered if it really counted as experiencing a different culture at all. But we’ve been here a year and maybe things that once seemed strange now seem normal. As John Travolta says in Pulp Fiction, it’s the little differences, so here’s a list of them before I forget.


Language
When something is bad (as in rubbish) its ‘pants’. Underpants are also pants (while our pants are known as trousers). Someone who is really into a hobby (like train spotting) or knows a lot about something is an ‘anorak’. Calling someone a Muppet doesn’t mean they are cute (and possibly furry) – it’s an insult meaning they’re thick.

The word ‘bespoke’ (made to your specifications) is used a lot and is also really popular as a concept. The word ‘do’ is inserted into sentences that would make perfect sense without it.

Example:
If you are interested in our bespoke trousers please do get in touch. Our passion for tailoring is quite unsurpassed and we are proud to admit we are all anoraks in this regard. Frankly our competitors are pants and anyone who tells you otherwise is a complete muppet.

‘Hiya!’ is a standard greeting. ‘Bless’ is used (often by secretaries) as a response to someone (usually a man or a child) doing something sweet or admirable (example: ‘My husband always makes me a cup of tea in the evening’ – ‘Oooh, bless’. Variation: ‘Oh, bless ‘im’).

Unfortunately no one ever says 'righty-o old chap’ and the police are rarely heard to exclaim ‘allo, allo, what’s goin’ on ‘ere then?’ – which is a shame really.


Food
The most readily available snacks are sandwiches (‘sarnies’), which are pre-packaged and sold everywhere (supermarkets, chemists, coffee shops). There are hundreds of varieties, but the prawn fillings scare me the most.

Fruit and vegetables at the supermarket are often individually wrapped in plastic – two zucchini on a tray all wrapped in plastic is common.

Coffee chains (Starbucks, Costa, Café Nero, Eat, Pret, Benjis, etc.) are everywhere, as are chain restaurants (Giraffe, Nando’s, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Carluccio’s, Pizza Express, etc). Pizza Hut restaurants still exist.

Regular people (not just old men hanging around Spencer Street Station types) go to ‘cafs’ or ‘greasy spoons’ that look unchanged since 1954 and serve cooked English breakfasts that look the same.

There’s a wide selection of supermarkets to suit every social demographic. From the upmarket Waitrose, to the middle of the road Sainsburys (promoted by Jamie Oliver) to the downmarket Iceland (one of my favourite tv commercials sees C-list celebrity mum [the former girl group member who is the ex-wife of the guy who went out with Delta Goodrum if you must know) flick through a recipe book exasperated at the idea of cooking a roast – who’s got the time for this she thinks when Iceland sells a roast you can put in the oven straight from frozen – and for only £7!)


Society at large
At work you can’t just make yourself a cup of tea… you firstly have to check if your fellow team members would also like a cup of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, soup or cold beverage. This is something I discovered after being ‘the PA who never once offered her boss a drink’ (not that he ever mentioned it – which I put down to British reserve).

Long queues are common. English people love to stand in orderly queues, but what they love even more is when someone tries to push in so that they can tell them off and explain the queue to them and indignantly let them know that they were there first.

It seems that England is more liberal than Australia, yet also more politically correct. Politically correct in that it’s the country that labelled Enid Blyton racist and sexist, proposed banning the nursery rhyme ‘baa baa black sheep’, and suspended the London mayor for a month for comments comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard (which is definitely not a good thing to say but seems an over reaction). On the other hand same-sex marriage is allowed, there’s way more swearing and nudity in the media (page 3 girl, anyone?), more leniency towards crime and you don’t have to wear a bike helmet or vote. But then again you can be stopped by police on the street for wearing a hooded sweatshirt, so it’s hard to generalise in this regard.