As
expected in spending time within a different country – whether you are there
for a day, a month, or a year – from the second you arrive you run into so many
small, and usually insignificant, yet distinguishing features that make you go,
“What? Really? ….they do/say/think/eat THAT??!!”
Here’s
a little bit of what I’ve come up with:
- The phrase “top-up” can be used for pretty much ANYTHING. It really just means something along the lines of “add to” but in conversation it’s a universal.
- The letters Z and J are NOT Zee and Jay – they are Zed and Jai – a ZEEEbra, is instead a ZEBruh. Weird.
- Swipe credit cards are sooooo 90s. Everyone has “chip and pin” style credit cards. It is basically the same thing as debit – you stick your card in a machine and type your 4-digit pin. Luckily you can still use the outdated American swipe – but I must admit, their system makes so much more sense
- Ice is just…not used. (hardly) Ever. You have heard my complaints about the lack of iced coffee…
- Eggs are not refrigerated. Eeech.
- Weight is measured in “stone” – I think it’s something along the lines of 12 or 13 pounds. This isn’t THAT bizarre as different forms of measurement are used everywhere (metric system, too) BUT, while stone measures people, babies are still measured by pound. Hmmmmm.
- Cider is everywhere!!! America needs to hop on this bandwagon – I know there’s cider available but it’s still not the same. I would pay big bucks for some THISTLY CROSS GINGER CIDER in the US.
- Liquor is everywhere. I realize that it’s kind of weird that alcohol in Rhode Island can only be sold in liquor stores, but I think that they would even sell it in daycares here…
- Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties are delicious. There, I said it. I LOVE HAGGIS! ...black pudding on the other hand is never going to happen.
- You don’t tip in restaurants, or for taxis…or anything, really. So uncomfortable in the perspective of the service industry – but that’s just “how it is” here.
- Instead of saying “For Rent” properties have signs above them that read “TO LET” …So basically, upon first glance, it looks like it says “TOILET” everywhere you look. TOILET.
- Building upon the last number, it doesn’t help that all restrooms are referred to as simply, toilets.
- The first floor is not the floor you walk into in a building. That is the ground floor. The first floor is in fact, the second (from American perspective).
- Cadbury candy. MMMMMMMMM. Another lovely piece of the UK I often write about.
- In addition to Cadbury candy, and cider – I’m REALLY going to miss great pie. Really, I could just die happy if MUMS GREAT COMFORT FOOD moved into my kitchen and made me food for the rest of my life.
- Tea houses are so much different than coffee houses. Clarinda’s cream tea <3
- When buying food in a shop, you are not asked if it is “for here, or to go” instead they ask if it is “for sit in, or takeaway.” They charge more for sit in which is so smart economically.
- Bedding doesn’t go far beyond bottom sheets and duvets. Lucky for me, I don’t really use a top sheet as it is but others I know were not pleased.
- This is an obvious one, but worth mentioning still. The drinking age is 18. This makes for a totally different college atmosphere – especially when comparing my freshmen year to all of the crazy kids around me. There were RAs in the building that I lived in, and I’m still not really sure what their purpose was… Fortunately I am now 21, so I won’t have to back track when I get home. I also know a few unfortunate people who unfortunately got stuck in that dilemma too.
- It is very hard to wash your face with separate hot and cold faucets. Especially when there is no hot water control whatsoever and one splash results in melted skin…..(kidding, kind of). It will nice to not have to choose between ice or lava.
- The 24 hour clock isn’t so hard to get used to, but understanding Celsius versus Fahrenheit and attempting to convert it in your head is absolutely futile.
- For spelling – switch your Zs for Ss and throw a bunch of Us or Es in wherever.
- The punctuation known as a “period” is called a “full stop.” That one really threw me. Remember having to read out loud in elementary school, including the punctuation – how weird would have that sounded!
- Public school is private and state school is public. A little hard to grasp, but it does make sense – their state (our public) school is paid for by the state, and their public (our private) is paid for by the public.
- The national soda of Scotland is IRN BRU. It’s illegal in the US and tastes like refuses to be bought by Coca Cola! It is bright orange and tastes kind of like bubblegum. It also has more caffeine than I think Red Bull. I think it tastes gross but everyone here loves it! Oh, and it was developed to cure hangovers –seriously. I never tried to see if it actually works though.
- The other, and most predominant national drink of Scotland is of course WHISKY. It is NOT spelled “whiskey,” it is W-H-I-S-K-Y. Scottish whisky, in most places outside of Scotland is often called Scotch (although it doesn’t have to be). But, you cannot name something Scotch if it was not made in Scotland!
- Pants = underwear, trousers = American pants; petro = gasoline; hoovering = vacuuming; fringe = bangs; revising = studying
- If you want to be taken seriously as an American Do NOT say the word “aluminum” or “garage” in front of any British person ever. Just don’t.
These last few, in my opinion, are the best of the best!
- Pretty much everything was invented in Scotland. Seriously, you would’ve never known for a country so small. For example: the steam engine, telephone, television, penicillin, radar, insulin, bicycle, refrigerator, flush toilet, adhesive stamps, standard time, ATM/cash machine, eBooks, picture postcards, oil refinery, decimal point use, logarithms, Gregorian telescope, criminal fingerprinting, MRI, ultrasound, first cloning of a mammal (dolly!), golf, microwave, chloroform and general anesthesia, hypodermic needles, hypnotism, typhoid fever vaccine, lawnmower, latent heat, and color photography…
- A lot of pretty standard terms were also coined here. Here are a few:
A. BLACK MAIL: “Mail” is the Old English (and Scottish) word for rent or tax payment. Tenant farmers would pay their rent in silver coins, known as white money. In the 1500s, Highland freebooters began demanding that Lowland farmers pay them an additional fee for protection from other clans – or else. The coerced rent – Sir Walter Scott called it “a sort of protection money” in 1814 – became known as black money, or black rent. That is, blackmail.
B. GRAVEYARD SHIFT: When the Scots started running out of places to bury people they would dig up coffins after so many years and reuse the graves. In reopening these coffins about 1 in 25 were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they tied a string on the decease's wrist and led it through the coffin lid and up through the ground and tied it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night and listen for the bell. It also refers to the practice of sitting there overnight to guard against the grave robbers digging up the bodies!
C. SHITFACED: Back in the days before santitation and plumbing, people would throw their…you know, waste…out the window and onto the street at a designated time. Well, if you were too drunk walking home and didn’t realize what time it was, you sometimes ran into a small problem…
- ABOVE ALL, IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT ANY AMERICAN SHOULD GET OUT OF THIS BLOG POST, IT IS THIS: Everyone, and I mean everyone, native to the North American continent is under the complete incorrect impression regarding the pronunciation of Edinburgh. I honestly do not understand how this has happened. Why is it not made known, until laughed at and criticized by Scottish people that the capital city of Scotland is not “ED-IN-BOR-O”?? Edinburgh, in reality, should be pronounced “ED-IN-BUR-AAH"
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