As I was a clerical worker for the first few years I lived here, I found a few unexpected differences, such as......
- sizes of paper - not in inches due to nearly everything being metric
- punctuation - different names such as period is a full stop and parentheses are called brackets and brackets are called square brackets
- full stops (periods) and commas are used much less often, for instance this would be correct - Dr A J Smith
- the letter 'h' if often pronounced 'haitch', 'z' is 'zed', and in Scotland 'j' is often 'jiy'
- date formats took a lot of getting used to - date/m/year - hearing someone say the 21st of the 11th used to short circuit my American brain!
Shopping....
Most shops don't stay open late. There are no baggers in grocery stores and remembering that I needed to do my own bagging took getting used to. One thing I found to be a pleasant surprise is that the tax on goods is already added, so if you buy something with a price tag of £9.99, it is exactly £9.99.
Food....
Some foods have different names. Besides French fries being called chips, and potato chips being called crisps, eggplant is called aubergine and zucchini is called courgette.
I love fish and chips and milky tea and curries, so I don't complain. I used to miss good Mexican food but am now used to not having any. I still wish I could order some good southern sweet iced tea when in a restaurant.
I thought Americans were bad with junk food until I saw food combinations like lasagna with chips, macaroni cheese and chips, chip butties (a sandwich made with chips on white buttered bread)...
Driving....
Of course, you change to driving on the left side (which doesn't take long). Roundabouts took me
quite a while to get used to but once figured out I saw how much more efficiently traffic flows with them. Road signs and laws are much different to the US. There is approximately a 50% failure rate of road tests here.
New accents, new words, new spellings....
There are more accents than one could possibly imagine. Lowland Scots have a language/dialect (depending on your source) called Lallans which is used often where I live. I never knew English could be so colourful!
Misc....
Most shops don't stay open late. There are no baggers in grocery stores and remembering that I needed to do my own bagging took getting used to. One thing I found to be a pleasant surprise is that the tax on goods is already added, so if you buy something with a price tag of £9.99, it is exactly £9.99.
Food....
Some foods have different names. Besides French fries being called chips, and potato chips being called crisps, eggplant is called aubergine and zucchini is called courgette.
I love fish and chips and milky tea and curries, so I don't complain. I used to miss good Mexican food but am now used to not having any. I still wish I could order some good southern sweet iced tea when in a restaurant.
I thought Americans were bad with junk food until I saw food combinations like lasagna with chips, macaroni cheese and chips, chip butties (a sandwich made with chips on white buttered bread)...
Driving....
Of course, you change to driving on the left side (which doesn't take long). Roundabouts took me
quite a while to get used to but once figured out I saw how much more efficiently traffic flows with them. Road signs and laws are much different to the US. There is approximately a 50% failure rate of road tests here.New accents, new words, new spellings....
There are more accents than one could possibly imagine. Lowland Scots have a language/dialect (depending on your source) called Lallans which is used often where I live. I never knew English could be so colourful!
Misc....
- no ice in my drinks?? Got used to that after a while
- metric system - celsius instead of fahrenheit - food weights in grams or liters
- post codes instead of numerical zip codes
- phone numbers with varying number of numbers and so many area codes
- electricity - 220 instead of 110
- no screens on windows
- no built in closets
- no electrical outlets allowed in bathrooms
- Referring to my behind as my fanny (means female bits)
- Asking someone if they wanted a 'ride' (does not generally involve a car)
- Using the term pants when meaning trousers (pants are underwear)
- Pronouncing towns and words in a totally undecipherable way
- lovely - used often
- nice - when referring to food
- go for messages - going shopping
- twenty - instead of twunnie
- garij - garage
- boot - trunk
- nae bother, hen - no problem (you're welcome) to a woman
- knackered - very tired
- mingin' - stinks!
- loo - toilet - for bathroom (restroom is not understood at all)
- polis - police
- yobs - neds - unruly, troublemaking kids
