English people around - Part II

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'.