Queuing, et al.
After inductions, sorting out enrolment, checking books at the library, shopping, and using cash machines, I think I have moved from novice to intermediate, because I have stood in a lot of queues in the last two weeks.
I always show my commitment to the line and wait patiently. I give a wide space between myself and the person using the cash machine. I sigh quietly, give long glares, and shift my weight angrily when someone queue jumps (I certainly don’t say anything to them). If there is any queue confusion, I look to the other person involved and gesture kindly toward the till (and they do the same to me until one of us reluctantly approaches the counter) and if it’s me, I feel slightly guilty at the misunderstanding.
Which brings me to the word “till.” I can’t think of an American equivalent, and I’ve heard it so often here that I wonder how we can survive without an alternative. I guess we say “checkout” but I really only think of checkouts in grocery stores. What do we say in clothing stores? “The cashier?”
Of course I have noticed many small differences between the UK and the US, but as I am not the first American to realize that jumpers and sweaters are the same thing, I won’t list them all.
I did find “pudding” intriguing. At first, I just thought that the Brits just really liked pudding, but when I went to get mine at a recent Church function, it wasn’t pudding at all. It was pie. I had to ask, and for some reason pudding has become a blanket term for dessert. In fact, it’s most likely not pudding at all (at least not by my definition).
But sometimes pudding can refer to something far more sinister than a pie. Blood pudding for example, which is actually made with blood, is decisively not a palate cleanser. Yorkshire pudding, on the other hand is not sinister (can be a bit gross depending on what it’s fried in), nor a dessert. It is just some friend dough, a lot like a popover, served with classic Sunday roast.
It gets confusing!
British blog readers please set me straight if I’ve gotten something wrong.
I always show my commitment to the line and wait patiently. I give a wide space between myself and the person using the cash machine. I sigh quietly, give long glares, and shift my weight angrily when someone queue jumps (I certainly don’t say anything to them). If there is any queue confusion, I look to the other person involved and gesture kindly toward the till (and they do the same to me until one of us reluctantly approaches the counter) and if it’s me, I feel slightly guilty at the misunderstanding.
Which brings me to the word “till.” I can’t think of an American equivalent, and I’ve heard it so often here that I wonder how we can survive without an alternative. I guess we say “checkout” but I really only think of checkouts in grocery stores. What do we say in clothing stores? “The cashier?”
Of course I have noticed many small differences between the UK and the US, but as I am not the first American to realize that jumpers and sweaters are the same thing, I won’t list them all.
I did find “pudding” intriguing. At first, I just thought that the Brits just really liked pudding, but when I went to get mine at a recent Church function, it wasn’t pudding at all. It was pie. I had to ask, and for some reason pudding has become a blanket term for dessert. In fact, it’s most likely not pudding at all (at least not by my definition).
But sometimes pudding can refer to something far more sinister than a pie. Blood pudding for example, which is actually made with blood, is decisively not a palate cleanser. Yorkshire pudding, on the other hand is not sinister (can be a bit gross depending on what it’s fried in), nor a dessert. It is just some friend dough, a lot like a popover, served with classic Sunday roast.
It gets confusing!
British blog readers please set me straight if I’ve gotten something wrong.
Comments
Oh and you checked /out/ books or returned them (but that's probably a bit early for the term).
Puddings are good. Dessert is pretentious - used by the middle classes to pretend to be posh. The lowers and the uppers have puddings. A pie is a sub-class of pudding, and we usually use an article with the word, not saying just "pie", but "Would you like a slice of the pie?"
Hope you're having fun over here!