(Wrong) English etiquette guides for Europeans.

[GaiusHelenMohiam]

I was chatting to a customer yesterday at work. She’s lived in the UK for a few years but has yet to make any meaningful female friendships, works with a load of blokes who she gets on fine with but is looking for real friendship.

Anyway, one of the first things she said to me was ‘you have beautiful eyes’ which was lovely if a bit out of nowhere (and I did wonder if she was chatting me up).

A little bit later we ended up chatting at the bar and she told me about the friends thing and that she was reading a book (in her language) about English etiquette and that apparently the done thing is to find something to compliment your new acquaintance on.

I think this is great, if slightly bonkers advice, and I wish it really was an English thing to do. I always make a point of sincerely complimenting people on a particular dress, shoes, etc but it’s not routine.

I did say to her I’d probably steer clear of commenting on hair, eyes or anything physical, because it can come across a bit intense, and that it’s not particularly a very British thing to do but I think it should be.

I just love the idea that there are books floating around Europe with completely off base ways of behaving more like the locals when you move to the UK.

I’m really curious what else her book tells her but alas I didn’t get a chance to ask before closing time. If she comes back I’ll find out.

All I can think of is Paddington Bear when reading this thread

Well of course he does, whiskey is Irish.

Or American. Although some Bourbons are called whisky.

Canadian distilled spirits are usually whisky, not whiskey.

In other countries tea refers to (quite reasonably) all kinds of tea, so it is a bit baffling that we use it to refer to a very specific and hard to find kind of tea.

In the case of drinks that don't actually contain any tea at all, herbal coffee would make exactly as much sense as herbal tea. I don't know why it is the poor tea plant that constantly has its name taken in vain. Just a fluke of history, perhaps.

@Mikeythecat

Not really linked, but I met à French guy in a bar 15 years ago who (upon hearing my English accent) came up to me a said, "Grrrr. You English people with your fucking Neighbourhood Watch! Fuck your Neighbourhood Watch!"

I'd love to know what happened to him.

So would I! That’s funny (humorous not peculiar).

Thank you for this thread, I’m stuck at home with Covid and it’s really cheered me up.

On the flipside, Germans watch an old British TV sketch called "Dinner for one" every New Year's Eve, so my friend couldn't understand why we weren't familiar with it as it's very famous all over Europe but not really here.

Our Austrian friend was gobsmacked when we said we'd never heard of Dinner for one.

@JojobaFromOctober

In other countries tea refers to (quite reasonably) all kinds of tea, so it is a bit baffling that we use it to refer to a very specific and hard to find kind of tea.

In the case of drinks that don't actually contain any tea at all, herbal coffee would make exactly as much sense as herbal tea. I don't know why it is the poor tea plant that constantly has its name taken in vain. Just a fluke of history, perhaps.

Does any other country than Britain use it to refer to their evening meal though?!

Ohhhh. Imagine an overseas visitor being asked the Cream Tea Conundrum - which goes first, jam or cream?! That would be far too cruel!

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

I lived in Japan for a couple of years and Japanese people (especially women) put British cultural norms of not saying what is meant in the shade. In Japan group harmony is paramount, and nobody says what they mean except in private conversation with good friends/ family.

It's ironic that someone was told up thread that British people don't say what they mean while studying Japanese in Sweden given Japanese cultural norms!

This is true. British and Japanese are quite similar in this respect. Indonesians too.

Does any other country than Britain use it to refer to their evening meal though?!

Probably not! Where I live they call the afternoon snack in schools/nurseries 'coffee time', though, even though they are obviously not giving the children coffee. So there are rough equivalents.

I used to confuse my French students with the use of “petit pois” in English, I’d tell them that was used for imported French peas and English peas were much larger, like a croquet ball size, and we often had a meal that was just two or three of these giant English peas. That was only after I’d assured them it was true that all English people slept in four poster beds of course. I really hope they realised I was joking . . .

Where I live any substantial packed snack including a packed lunch is referred to as bread-time. The question "can I take the left over pasta bake to school for bread-time?" is completely normal

Never heard of Dinner for One. But I've just looked at a clip on youtube and lots of the comments seem to be 'it's traditional for German to watch this at NYE'.

Weird.

Dinner for one is on at least 6 times on various channels over the course of the evening on New year's Eve in Germany.

Is Dinner for one , where the butler pretends to be all the guests and gets progressively squiffy ?

@Wrongkindofovercoat

Is Dinner for one , where the butler pretends to be all the guests and gets progressively squiffy ?

Yes! I can see why they would think it's part of British culture

Always thank the bus driver.
Don’t touch people, even in friendly greeting. This rule applies throughout Southern England, but not so much in Northern England, where jovial touching is acceptable upon greeting.
It is ok to break the ice by having a little moan - doesn’t matter what about. We like to have something to grumble about. A lot of conversation develops around a moan.
Talk about the weather. We do like to talk about the weather.
Talk about animals, compliment people on their pets!! We love animals in general.

Dinner for one is quite funny and yes that's the one. It's rarely ever been shown on British TV though.

Someone earlier on the thread posted that she ordered tea in the US and got iced tea. This is definitely a thing, especially in the South. You have to say "hot tea" to avoid getting iced tea.

@SenecaFallsRedux

Someone earlier on the thread posted that she ordered tea in the US and got iced tea. This is definitely a thing, especially in the South. You have to say "hot tea" to avoid getting iced tea.

And moreover, specify if you want some milk. It'll usually be a bag of insipid liptons on a saucer beside a cup of insufficiently hot water. Possibly the inspiration for the 'liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea' delivered to Arthur Dent by the Nutri-Matic machine.

@HannibalHeyes

Thinking about it, English complements include "not bad", and "I've seen worse".

I sometimes wonder how some nationalities cope with Cornish people calling random strangers "me loverrr".

"Me lover" isn't Cornish! More Devon/Somerset I thought. Like "my babber" - Bristol maybe?

"Me 'ansum", "my bewdy", "pard", "maid", "bird" or "cock" - yes.

@ErrolTheDragon

Yes, chances are high that if you order hot tea in a restaurant in the US, you will get water that has never been near a boiling point. It's a bit odd really because to make decent iced tea you have to steep it in water just off the boil.

@alexdgr8

actually i believe that whisky is scottish.
and whiskey is from everywhere else, including irish, american ...

Well it's whisky in Japan, which is the first place I checked.

Oldest distilleries in Scotland

Officially the three oldest distilleries in Scotland are Glenturret (1775), Bowmore (1779) and Strathisla (1786).

Oldest distillery in Ireland

The Kilbeggan Distillery in County Westmeath is the oldest distillery in the world, dating back to 1757

While Bushmills has a slightly different claim

The Old Bushmills Distillery in Ireland holds the claim of being the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world. The license was signed by King James I in 1608. However, according to legal technicalities, the distillery was founded and recognized in 1784.

And whisky gets its name from a mangled / altered down the years pronunciation of 'uisce' - meaning water.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme
@crustybreaddarling

You are of course quite right. My experience was mostly in Hamburg.

And at Uni one of my house mates was a boy from Kiel who never, ever, ever arrived in time for anything. At all. 😀

He couldn't get his head round everyone saying 'see you later' as a goodbye when no-one has any intention of seeing anybody later

My boss is based in Scotland, I work in the western reaches of London. In the early days when we didn't know each over very well, on leaving he would say 'see you later'

It's a big campus and I assumed he meant he was just going to an other building and would be literally back later.

To show willing, I hung around til really quite late. I don't remember when I twigged. His taxi collected him in plenty of time to catch the 16:30 flight.