7 British things foreigners don’t understand
After five years in England, I could still get confused by a date on a form. I already spoke English before I moved from Canada, but the order of a few numbers was hardwired into my brain. When I filled something in, I had to stop and think about which country I was in.
British banter was another difference I talked about in my 2021 account of life here. I was familiar with that sort of humour from Canada, although I thought it could be more brutal in Britain. For somebody who hadn’t encountered it before, being insulted by a person who liked them could be quite a shock.
The month came first in my head
The date format I was used to was month, day, year. I might say September 9th 2021 or January 8th 2022. If somebody asked when my birthday was, my normal answer would be July 8th. That order came naturally to me when I spoke, and it was the order I was used to writing too.
In the UK, the order I encountered was day, month, year. The birthday became the 8th of July, and an arrangement to meet might be for the 21st of September. I thought that ordering made sense. I could appreciate the format and still have to give it a bit of thought when it was time to use it myself.
I didn’t know the official reason for the difference. My guess was that it reflected how people said dates aloud, but that was only my guess. What I did know was that years of living in the UK hadn’t completely removed my automatic habit. A form in England or Canada could still make me pause and work out the order.
Whenever I brought this up, British commenters reminded me that Americans say the Fourth of July. I conceded that one. In my experience, though, people usually said the month first for other dates, such as July 9th or September 3rd. I was quite prepared to argue about the exception, which probably tells you how much time I’d spent thinking about this tiny difference.
An insult can have two meanings
I thought British people generally had a wonderful sense of humour, with the obvious qualification that this didn’t mean every single person. Banter was a particular part of it that could be jarring to newcomers. People might make fun of you because they liked you. If that wasn’t familiar from home, it could be alarming.
The words alone weren’t always enough to make the meaning clear. An insult could be used because somebody genuinely disliked a person, or the same insult could be used as banter between people who liked each other. That was the confusing part I was describing. The meaning depended on how it was said and what was going on between the people.
I associated that sort of teasing with everyday life here, including the office and the pub. Some of it could sound very rough on the surface. When I talked about it, my point was to consider whether somebody was being mean or using banter. I wasn’t saying that every rude remark must secretly be friendly.
Canadian humour had given me some familiarity with it. British viewers sometimes told me I had a British sense of humour, but I thought of it as Canadian. To me, there was a lot of similarity. I understood the teasing, even though I didn’t think the Canadian version was always quite as brutal.
I could also see why somebody arriving from a country where that teasing wasn’t common might have a different reaction. Sharing a language didn’t necessarily mean sharing the same expectations about a joke. Being made fun of could seem very unfriendly when the person saying it intended the opposite. That was what made banter such a confusing subject to explain.
The date format and the humour were both ordinary parts of life here, but I had different experiences with them. I could recognise banter from Canada while still having to stop over a date on a form after years in England. Living abroad gave me plenty of small differences to talk about, including some that other people barely noticed.
paperhouse55
When you say that the lack of window screens confuses foreigners, you probably mean north Americans. I remember staying with friends in Aiberta when a fly came into the house. I couldn’t believe how heretical everyone became. It flew around for a bit and then went away. What was the big deal?
Eggs. Again it only confuses north Americans because it’s only they who wash eggs prior to sale, washing makes it necessary for them to be refrigerated.
Air conditioning. It mainly confuses north Americans and we don’t need it in Britain. It’s a wasteful use of energy which adds to climate change, leading to a greater requirement for air conditioning. Usually it’s sufficient to just open a window and the fresh air will come in because there are no screens to prevent it.
We don’t use traditional north American fire hydrants because we are not north American. Our fire hydrants are below ground and their position is marked by a yellow sign. Better for them to be below ground to avoid them being damaged by traffic, causing water to gush out and be wasted.
Plenty of stop signs in Britain. Do you need your glasses when driving? And something that confused me in Canada was that some stop signs also said ‘Arret’. Strange because in France the stop signs say only ‘Stop’.
Dates. Again it only confuses north Americans because the rest of the world writes the date in the proper way.
So, in short, you chose seven things that confuse north Americans and not all foreigners. All I can say to that is that north Americans are easily confused! Perhaps you are now wondering whether I am being rude or whether it’s my English sense of humour.