Taboo subjects in Brit Culture that most Americans don't grasp?

[beardyProf]

I shall now remove my tongue from my cheek, my don't the colonials get pedantic....
I'm over sixty, so apparently we Brits called our football soccer till about 50 years ago, well I've followed FOOTBALL for as long as I can remember, I never heard our football called Soccer till I moved to Australia. One of my Grandparents was Football mad all his life, not once did he ever refer to footie as soccer.
Also 'officially' Rugby Union and League might have had the football tagged on the title, but our public have never called it such, in a conversation it would either be Rugger/Rugby(Union) or League.
I'm guessing that you Colonists got it from the Aussies. Down under, they've got Australian Rules Football and Rugby, both Union and League all three are called Footie and Association is called Soccer. Where Aussies got it from I haven't a clue.

No I remember Association Football being called soccer when I was in my pre teens so more than 50 years ago. OED supports this.

 

[robinrocket111]

No I remember Association Football being called soccer when I was in my pre teens so more than 50 years ago. OED supports this.

I'm just wondering if it was used Regionly, my pre-teens was in NE London Romford. I was even a Ball boy for Romfords old team. I never heard it around there.

 

[LJONESY]

A kid I went to school with was watching the school ice hockey team practice and without thinking stuck his tongue out to lick the ice on the metal barrier he was leaning against.

Despite trying to heat the metal bar and various other ideas, in the end they just had to pull him away from it. The layer of tongue was left on the bar until the spring thaw as a warning to the rest of the school!

 

[Stonker]

but the upside was that the cold didn't seem seep into every bone the way that damp cold does

Amen to that.

My two Norwegian winters were the warmest the place had experienced in years, with average daily temperatures around -10c, sometimes rising to -5c, with an occasional downturn to a more normal -20c.

All our kit, all our drills were designed around very dry, very cold.

At -10c and up, it's neither. It's a constant battle against getting pissed wet through, and going down with frost bite or hypothermia, and the snow is like wet sugar, so you don't glide effortlessly from A to Z on your skis, you put on your snowshoes, and stomp your way along the designated route.

Clear skies, zero wind, -38c was heavenly by comparison.

 

[sunny james]

Rather more accurately. What kind of barbarian puts milk in tea?

Unless it's Indian Chai but then that's a different drink altogether.

 

[sunny james]

Surely good socks is the aim, with plastic bags when i was a kid.

And don't call me Shirly

I trekked up to Annapurna Basecamp in baseball boots with placky bag liners. Knee deep snow. Perfik.

 

[beardyProf]

I'm just wondering if it was used Regionally, my pre-teens was in NE London Romford. I was even a Ball boy for Romfords old team. I never heard it around there.

The Oxford English Dictionary has quotes from some of our national papers so in those days that would make it London - tick.

 

[bob_the_bomb]

I'm just wondering if it was used Regionly, my pre-teens was in NE London Romford. I was even a Ball boy for Romfords old team. I never heard it around there.

Romford. Luxury! I lived at the other end of the Romford Road...

 

[adouglasmhor]

I'm just wondering if it was used Regionly, my pre-teens was in NE London Romford. I was even a Ball boy for Romfords old team. I never heard it around there.

I think it was called soccer by poshoes and posho walts, same as rugger.

 

[Stonker]

I think it was called soccer by poshoes and posho walts, same as rugger.

So in Wizard it would've been 'soccer', and if it was the Bash Street Kids, it woulda been 'footie'

What did Roy Of The Rovers call it?

 

[adouglasmhor]

So in Wizard it would've been 'soccer', and if it was the Bash Street Kids, it woulda been 'footie'

What did Roy Of The Rovers call it?

Posh Walt!!

 

[javaguzzisti]

Unless it's Indian Chai but then that's a different drink altogether.

Surely that is condensed milk.

 

[Stonker]

Posh Walt!!

That's the re-booted 1980s Roy of the Rovers. I had in mind the Stanley Matthews/Bobby Charlton/Nobby Stiles* vintage.
--------

* Here's Nobby, in all his manly splendour:

 

[old_bloke]

Turning things arrse about face, when meeting a Septic for the first time it is always polite to say something like, "Oh you're American then. Which tribe?"

Back on topic I commend to my reader the 'Advice for Foreigners' by Gerard Hoffnung from the early '50s, (it's on YouTube - go look it up) with gems such as, "When entering a railway carriage always shake hands with every occupant", "Try out the famous echo in the reading room of the British Museum", "Ignore all road signs saying 'Keep left' or 'Keep right'. They are merely political slogans", and suchlike.

OZ

Prefer the ISIHAC VERSION .

When in the British museum, try to bounce the Rosetta stone, you won't believe how high it will go.

 

[LeoRoverman]

Posh Walt!!

Take that

 

[Goatman]

Non-football related but swerving dangerously back on topic.

Calling people you have never met ' Mate'...

occasionally I used to hear crustier even older folk say things like

' Mate? I'm not your mate...when you've bought me a pint you can call me mate..till then it's MISTER Smith'

Some Brits believe Americans love being called 'Mate'

Some Americans believe that if they address you as 'Mate' they will be your BFF instantly...it ain't necessarily so.

I hear 'Bud' a lot more than I used to

 

[JNM]

Non-football related but swerving dangerously back on topic.

Calling people you have never met ' Mate'...

occasionally I used to hear crustier even older folk say things like

' Mate? I'm not your mate...when you've bought me a pint you can call me mate..till then it's MISTER Smith'

Some Brits believe Americans love being called 'Mate'

Some Americans believe that if they address you as 'Mate' they will be your BFF instantly...it ain't necessarily so.

I hear 'Bud' a lot more than I used to

Where you from? Everyone calls each other mate/love (if woman) round here

 

[endure]

Where you from? Everyone calls each other mate/love (if woman) round here

Everybody calls each other 'duck' round here.

 

[JNM]

Everybody calls each other 'duck' round here.

Sounds like Sheffield or Nottingham

 

[endure]

Sounds like Sheffield or Nottingham

Derby - shares its own version of English with Nottingham. Thee/thou/misen etc...