Over the time that I have been here I have slowly developed (and I mean slower than a snail slow) a running list of common british phrases that are substitutions for american phrases or else common british sayings that I had no clue about previously.
On my first day at Keele I told one of the Student Ambassadors about my flight times and lengths and time change and general lack of sleep and he responded with "Wow, you must be knackered." I responded with complete confusion because I swear on my life it sounded like he said naked, but he didn't. It is just there way of saying exhausted, spent, delirious or what have you.
There are a few words that are specific to my educational experience here. In America we just refer to everything as class but they have lecture or in some cases if it is a smaller discussion then it is referred to as seminar. Mainly though I hear "I have to go to lecture" Then there is the fact that today in my Math lecture the professor said "I am going to do a revision on the Chain Rule" and I was like "whu, huh" and then I figured it out. Revision is british professor for review....duh!
Next is my struggle with on campus problems. They refer to any sports that are done on campus as clubs. What I think of as clubs they refer to as societies, which I think is so British. Then there are the doors, almost all of the doors on campus are automatic only they aren't American automatic, you have to push the handicapped button, it is so weird to me because I feel like at home pushing the button when you can just as easily open the door yourself is lazy but here it is required. Then there are keyboards, they have different shortcuts above the numbers than ours. Plus the paper is A4 which means its longer than the paper I am used to. When you order food instead of saying "to-go" it is called take away. Hopefully someday I'll have the British thing down.
Also, it seems like running late is pretty common place. It would drive my dad crazy. Cheers.
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