To provide assistance to all the benighted foreigners visiting Britain for the Olympics, BBC News Magazine solicited helpful bits of advice and information from their audience. Here are a few of the responses, explaining some of the odd and illogical quirks of Britons:
Avoiding terms of address
British speakers of English try to avoid addressing each other by any sort of title. While speakers of French politely address strangers as “monsieur” or “madame”, the British are tongue-tied at the point of interaction, hoping that simple proximity will indicate to whom they are talking. These days, it’s considered condescending to use “sir” or “madam”, unless the speaker is in a clearly-defined “service” role. To fill this gap, the locals have developed various colloquial circumlocutions. In London, for example, “guv[nor]”, “mate” and “squire” are employed by males (according to complex rules) to address unknown males, with “darling” or “love” (rather questionably) filling the gap for males speaking to females. Further north, “petal” is a possible variant on “love”, while in western Scotland “pal” is used to address unknown males. In south Hampshire, the guv/pal equivalent is the linguistically intriguing “moosh”. What the British never, ever do is follow the American tradition and address those driving taxis as “driver”, those serving at table as “waiter” or those working the hotel switchboard as “operator”. To our ears, this is the height of condescension, verging on rudeness, and will ensure that the cab stops on the wrong side of the road, drinks orders are unfilled and the call is misrouted. Y’all remember that now.
Nick Stevenson, London
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Saying sorry
Visitors should be wary of the word sorry — it has endless nuances. For instance, if I inadvertently step on your toe we should both immediately say sorry. I’m sorry for having stepped on your toe — you say sorry to imply it was your fault really, or at least no one is quite sure, so both should say sorry. It also means no hard feelings. But when I say “sorry to bother you, but…” I’m not really apologising, just prefacing a request for some trivial favour, or bit of information. Such as: “Sorry to bother you, but do you have the time?” However, if you hear “sorry?” as a question you’re most likely being asked to repeat something not quite heard or understood. But don’t get carried away with your new knowledge. If someone pronounces sorry a “so-ree” with a strong emphasis on both syllables then that is bad news. They are not sorry at all, just being sarcastic. Maybe someone has mildly offended them — perhaps by accusing them of the unforgivable sin of queue-jumping. Their “so-ree” then means “shut it mate”. But occasionally, very occasionally, sorry really does mean sorry. If someone says: “I’m so sorry to hear your mother has died” they probably are sorry. Not always, but probably.
Mike Pollak, Birmingham
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The War
The War — always meaning World War II — is as alive in the collective British consciousness as if it only ended five years ago. A melange of manic cheerfulness, stiff upper lips, atrocious food, doodlebugs, and muddling through. Equally evocative are the sounds of the time — big band dance numbers, and the warbling note of the air raid siren — and ladies’ fashions — severe, economically cut, but with a certain dour style, and neat, off-the-shoulder hairdos, topped (in my mother’s case) with a jaunty WAAF forage cap. It is an awful example of how propaganda can take hold and become history. History is laid down by the survivors – the images we all remember so well were composed with a good deal of thought by the powers that be — the Ministry of Information and the BBC — with a definite end in mind; to endure, to tough it out, to hang on until things got better. Something very similar was attempted during the Cold War, but met with far less success — the Cold War was nasty but theoretical, whereas WWII was nasty but actually happened. As a Baby Boomer, I just remember the post-war atmosphere — grey, tatty, somewhat regimented. We ate baked cod, mashed potatoes and boiled carrots off plates that did not match.
Luce Gilmore, Cambridge
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