Here is a post sharing my experiences with typical
'British way of speaking'.
The British accent.It makes everything sound very agreeable.There is a
liveliness to the British tongue never quite duplicated. Britishisms in day to day communication are
amusing and funny.
You get a packet of 'crisps 'instead of 'chips'.
You have to
'queue up' for the tube tickets.
'College students' are 'University students'.
'Cheers' as 'thank you' and 'Brilliant!' as 'a mere affirmative response' are the most common word usages. People in my office talk about an idea being
'rubbish' or not 'clever' enough.
You never know what British people mean when they use
certain phrases.
It is a tricky code to
crack.
"Quite good" means "A bit disappointing"
and "That's not bad" implies "That's good!".
If a colleague
starts a conversation with "With the greatest respect", he definitely
thinks you are an idiot. People must be very annoyed if they say "We were
a bit disappointed".
If you think a "by the way" in your chat
window is an indicator to a minor topic coming up, you are completely wrong. "By
the way" essentially says "The primary purpose of this chat is...".
Do not boast yourself as 'courageous' if the boss says " That is a very brave
proposal".
What he/she means is "You are absolutely insane".
Gone are the days when I used to think people are expressing concern that
something is wrong when I was greeted with "You alright?". I now know
that they just mean "How are you?"
So far, so good. Cracking these indirect, seemingly polite
usages of language is a fun task. It all depends on how accurately you match the pairs: 'What
they say', 'What they mean' and 'What we understand'.
