British Slang

Yes, that's it exactly! Difficult to try and explain that mannerism. There is almost a national tendency for politeness with opinions so as to not to offend anyone, even with mundane things like saying how good a restaurant was or not.

 

Yes, I don't know why we as a nation feel the need to agree on pointless opinions such as how good a meal was, but for some reason it's awkward to admit to enjoying it if someone else didn't or vice versa.

Actually, I used 'quite' about 2 hours ago without thinking and immediately thought of this thread. There was an amount of cake left that could either be one very large, or 2 very small pieces. I said:
"It's not a that much, I mean it's not really a very big piece, it's quite big"

Also here's a fun phrase... I asked my American mother (who has lived here in England for over 20 years now though) if she could think of any phrases said here and not in the states. I didn't realise this one is not common in American apparently(?)

"Bob's your uncle" which sort of means.. well, I know exactly what it means but it's hard to explain! It's sort of like "and there you go"

eg. "To make this cake you just mix all the ingredients, put it in the oven, and bob's your uncle"

I would say it's not said especially often, but it's definitely well known (that is, everyone would understand it), and it is current and not old fashioned. It's a VERY familiar phrase, though not especially used constantly or anything, if that makes sense. No one would find it odd if it was used in daily conversation.

Wikipedia reckons, "Typically, someone says it to conclude a set of simple instructions" which sounds about right to me... but it can be used in a few other ways... it sort of means 'everything is all right'

Also, "take the mick" / "take the mickey" is extremely common. It means the same as "take the piss". In other words "to make fun of"

"Stop taking the mick/mickey/piss" = "stop making fun of me". You can also say "take the mick[ey] out of me"

By the way, mickey comes from cockney rhyming slang. Take the mickey is the rhyming slang for "take the piss" (mickey bliss - piss).

Both take the mick and take the piss are extremely common terms.

...

Oh! here's another one from cockney rhyming slang! Its origin is very much not really known and the word is "berk".

You can say "you silly berk" or whatever and it's kind of like saying "you idiot". This one is a bit more old fashioned. Most people would consider it not at all offensive... but of course a lot of people don't realise its origin.

Berk from Berkeley hunt (which is a fox hound pack in the west of England). I'm sure it doesn't take much imagination to think up a very rude word that rhymes with 'hunt' and then you know what 'berk' is the cockney rhyming slang for!

 

They probably wouldn't have much slang from the "streets" but they will have their own Cambridge slang and for Eton college too [the college publishes their own list].
On a debatable point... Some one upper class from London going to university [for fun and not the education] is probably as likely to choose St Andrews or Edinburgh in Scotland and maybe York or Durham in the north of England and Oxford [even Exeter and Bath] in the South...

 

I found some other useful resources for you.

We do use 'pharmacy' as well but not 'drugstore'. Also, we don't talk about 'malls' - they're 'shopping centres'.

 

Furthering on from the earlier comments on education, note that Hogwarts is a Secondary School and a College. O.w.L.s take the place of GCSEs (the old name being O-levels) and N.E.W.T.s being A-levels.

 

Most of the slang and ways of speaking mentioned here is also very heavily used in parts of Australia. It is in my circle, anyway. Half eight makes perfect sense to me!

Though I've been to the US twice, before reading this, I honestly didn't realise just how different language was in America. I'm thinking: 'They don't say that in the US?' I know when I went there, especially rural America, they were both confused and amused by me.

I think the problem with people who write about characters from different countries to their own is that they rely on stereotypical slang or old slang that really isn't used as often as it's made out to be. Because of this, it sounds unnatural or comical. There are ways to introduce the language subtly so that it isn't so stark, but noticeable enough so the reader understands where they are from. People don't use slang every second, either. You should be wary of websites that list slang. I can tell you that most of the 'Australian slang' I've seen online or in dictionaries is stuff I've never heard of, never said, and may be either old-fashioned or from a different part of Australia.

Definitely watch British TV. Besides being educational, British TV is good fun and entertaining. Shouldn't be a chore

If you are quite concerned, give your manuscript to someone from there and see what he/she thinks of it. For example, I saw something written by a friend the other day. She was writing about an English character and he said 'candy'. It was so out of place it was easy to notice. Your reader can circle it. Another example that bothers me is a so-called Australian using the term 'shrimp'. Here we call them prawns.

What's unforgivable is 'fanny' used incorrectly. Hehehe.

I'd be interested to see a thread on Scottish slang for different areas there!

 

While we're at it, note that the Weasley twins did complete Hogwarts - NEWTS are entirely optional, just needed for a lot of jobs. Since they have enough money to start up WWW, thanks to Harry's tri-wizard winnings, they don't really need NEWTS. I see this confusion coming up a lot in the form of 'Hagrid got his wand snapped because he was expelled and therefore didn't complete Hogwarts - why did the twins get to keep theirs despite leaving prior to finishing Hogwarts. The sixth and seventh years are completely optional.

The answer is that the twins did complete what they needed to, they just became entrepreneurs straight out of school. Also, they left of their own free will. Hagrid was EXPELLED prior to completing Hogwarts.

 

Check out David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, particularly the chapter, "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish." Ignore the movie, it's terrible. The book is amazing. And it's hard to imagine anything could be more British than Cavendish's story.

 

What's a pound key ('press the pound key') anyway?

This is a pound symbol: £

 

[On a phone keypad] they mean the "#". I'd call it a hash-tag but I have heard it called the pound-key.
The only other pound I can think of is "lb" when talking about weight.

 

Yep, on a phone keypad... the only time I heard it was on holiday in America, relatives got a call from an automated system ... and I was thinking 'What the feck is a pound key?' I was familiar with the 'lb' and 'oz' for weights though.

 

Also, this might help:



As you can see, we call your 'French Fries' chips. If you want the American version of chips from a Briton, ask if he has a pack of crisps. Altough, if you ask for French Fries, you might wind up with crisps since we have a brand of crisps called French Fries. Just because life wasn't confusing enough.

The First floor in the American sense is the 'Ground Floor' in British English. (Basically, we count by the flights of stairs you need to climb to reach it, I don't know what you're doing.)

And private and public and state school gets so horribly confusing that when discussing school with British and American English users present, it's probably best to just skip the terminology altogether and describe whether you paid or not and whatnot.

 

I've heard people say both. I think it's one of those things that's less cultural and more just generally varied.

 

I say both, but I'd probably write "different from"...

 

That example seems perfectly fine to me. Use of 'mate' is very common indeed, usually though I hear it used most often as part of set phrases such as 'cheers, mate' or 'you alright, mate?' Though, in a weird way, you're more likely to refer to someone as 'mate' if you don't know them very well, or literally just met them. You could thank a postman or a shopkeeper by going 'cheers, mate'. It basically acts as a general fill-in for someone's name.

This is just what I notice anyway.