Fun British Facts

I've learned more about the Brits over the past few weeks, thought I'd share:

-There is no Thanksgiving in Britain. Makes sense I guess but it got me thinking: why is there Thanksgiving in Canada? Is it also to pay tribute to all that the Europeans stole from the natives? I can't remember. I was asked a lot and I gave very vague, wobbly answers but really I have no clue. Anyone?

-Women are expected to wear suits to interviews. Isn't that odd?? I met with a recruitment agent last week that asked if I owned a suit. I admitted no, cause I'm not a 45 year old business executive. But apparently, in Britain, every professional female should own a suit and is expected to wear it to interviews. Who knew?! I've worn fabulous dresses to the two interviews I've been to here so far and it seemed fine. I bought a suit last week anyways. From H&M. It was the least fun shopping trip I'd had in a while.

-There don't appear to be any Avenues in London. Only Streets and Roads and Lanes. I noticed this a while back. I think there might be a couple Broadways and there are tons of Squares, but no Avenues.

-'Slag' is a British term used to refer to what Canadians call 'sluts'. The worst of the 'slags' are referred to as 'slaggy slags'. Isn't that such a gross word?! I hated it on sound, it immediately filled me with distaste. It will not become a part of my vocabulary. **

-Brits really do all cigarettes 'fags'. I knew this already, as I'm sure you did too, but it's still quite jarring to hear that word used in everyday speech. Especially because 'fag' is not a word in my vocabulary. Last night my aunt was talking and was like 'I was having a fag in the garden' and thought 'what the?!' but then remembered.

-The little West Indian shop down the road from me is owned by an African. I thought this was hilarious. Good for him! It's a good shop too, they even sell roti shells.

-Brits automatically put milk in their tea. Even in restaurants, they just put milk in your tea automatically without asking. This has resulted in me having to send tea back several times and in dozens of cups of tea having to be poured out and remade. It's not just that I don't like milk, it just doesn't agree with me so if I'm going to have some, it'll be in cheese or ice cream, something worth it.

-I've found that Brits have weird pronunciation. Not just cause of their accents, but they do not say things how they're spelled. I think it's quite ironic since they're supposed to 'speak the most proper English' and supposedly we in North America have butchered the language, but at least we pronounce all syllables. Here, Leicester is pronounced 'Lester', Chiswick is pronounced 'Chisik', everything ending in 'shire' like 'Oxfordshire, Derbyshire, Notthinghamshire, Gloucestershire' atually ends in 'sure' so it's pronounced 'Oxfordsure, Derbysure, Nottinghamsure, Gloucestersure'.

-They have La Senza here. I actually thought that was really strange but apparently it's all over Europe.

-You can buy 2 bottles of Smirnoff vodka for £5.50...I didn't, but I'm just saying it's possible. If you're an alcoholic then London is the place for you!

-'Long' is used by Brits to refer to what we call 'tight' girls at home. You know what I mean. I don't really get why they call it being 'long' here. A opposed to 'short'??? At least when we say 'tight' at home, it makes sense as opposed to 'loose'. **

** I would like to take a moment to note that neither of these terms were used in reference to me...