Travel to a few English speaking foreign countries and you’ll be amazed at how flexible the language is. Every so often you may come to an embarrassing, yet amusing, misunderstanding. Please, let me illustrate.
The mother country of our language, England, which means “land of angels” because of the propensity of her citizens toward light complexion, blonde hair and blue eyes, is also the setting for the most confusion. In England you queue up or stand in a queue when we say line up or stand in line. This is something we do in polite society in many cultures of the world, but certainly not all. In Rome you might be elbowed in the ribs by a nun trying to get on the bus where first come, first served is not the tradition. Chips are French fries, a lift is an elevator, and suspenders hold up your socks, not your pants which they call trousers because pants are more commonly used to mean underpants. Braces hold up their trousers instead of straightening teeth. The garden may just be grass because they use the term to describe their yard. In England you go to the chemist when we go to the pharmacy, you change a baby’s nappy instead of a diaper and you hoover the carpet instead of vacuum.
If someone asks you where the “loo” is they are looking for a bathroom. The term WC or water closet might also be used for the place where the toilet is because often English homes have a separate room or space (from the bathroom) for this most private convenience. This term probably evolved when the privy (outhouse) moved indoors. An English car has a windscreen instead of a windshield, a boot instead of a trunk and a soft top (often referred to as a cabriolet) instead of a convertible.
You soon learn that a few other terms may or may not be what you think. If someone asks you for a fag in England they are not making unwanted advances – they want a cigarette. A person who is pissed in England is drunk not angry. You would never name an English child Randy which means “horny” and you would never use the term fanny pack, because fanny means another part of the female anatomy. An interesting corollary to our middle finger salute in England is a 2 finger obscene gesture. Apparently this evolved from the times when English archers were particularly effective against the French. When captured the French would cut off the 2 fingers needed to pull back the bow string so holding up these 2 fingers became a sort of “up yours” i.e. “I still have them” gesture.
I found it interesting that in Portuguese a chave inglesa or English key is a crescent wrench which the English would call a shifting spanner. In South Africa one might attend an indaba, like we might a powwow. Canadian English is often said to use British spelling and American pronunciation. The only terms that ever seemed different to me were chesterfield instead of a davenport or sofa and screech in the province of Newfoundland which means rum. New Zealanders are often referred to as “kiwis” after an indigenous bird, while we think of the fruit which was originally called a Chinese gooseberry when it was first brought to the US by missionaries. The only colorful term I remember from my Australian friends was “rootin’ in a ute” which my wife remembers from a program she heard on Public Radio and recommends I not translate. I can tell you that a ute is a pickup. This is definitely getting confusing.
The moral of the story is: mind your manners, watch what you say and be aggressive when boarding a bus in Rome.