The ENGLISH Language

Today I was looking at Twitter as is my wont and someone had tweeted "My Mom's side is all from Dublin, Ireland, all my cousins live there"  and it suddenly made me see red a little.

You see it made me remember all the times that some idiot, in order not to confuse bigger idiots with a total lack of geography skills and an arrogance of language and geography had to write the country after the city.

Paris, France; London, England; Dublin, Ireland; Berlin, Germany etc.

FFS, don't they realise that the only people who DON'T know which country these cities are in are Americans? For the rest of the world, putting the country down is irrelevant UNLESS you are referring to somewhere insignificant for example Paris, Texas and then, and only then, you will make the distinction for clarity.

This arrogance is also displayed in other ways like the fact that despite the Computer and the Internet being British inventions, all software asking us if we want to use "American English" which apart from being oxymoronic is also a joke because Americans also spell most English words wrongly if they can manage it: E.g., Colour, Mum, Programme etc., or just use the right word in the wrong meaning.

When I hear two American senior ladies discussing the fact that they once "rubbed fannies with Princess Margaret", they are not talking about high class porn, it's because they do not understand that a "Fanny" is actually a Vagina and not an Arse.  I have to say "Arse" because to an American a "Bum" is not an arse or even a fanny, it is a down and out.  A cigarette is not a "fag", they use that word for homosexual so "to bum a fag" is not to cadge a cigarette, it is to go all Elton John or George Michael to an American.  A  "Fanny Pack" to British ears is interpreted that the Cubs have been over-run with girls rather than an essential aid to an American who cannot get into his pockets.

"Knocking someone up" is not as we Brits lovingly know it, a wake up call from a friend but is instead making a lady pregnant - indeed, I have often "knocked up" an American lady friend but so far never caused her to give birth.

"Buns" are rather nice dough concoctions with raisins and sugar, sometimes covered with icing sugar making them "Sticky Buns", these are acceptable to eat and not as Americans would believe, something you sit on or can be arrested for creating in public.

Sticky Buns UK Style

When a Brit gets "Pissed" this means he has gone down to the pub and over imbibed on alcohol, therefore under no circumstances should someone be driving whilst "pissed" or even trying to walk anywhere. It seems that Americans can be pissed almost any and everywhere. Oh and when we "have pissed all over you" we can do it figuratively or literally but it is not pleasant either way and certainly not physically as this means "urinated".

Going back to "Arses", that is what we SHIT out of, hence even more confusion about American Fannies, and so "my shit" is something that we tend to do in a toilet, we tend to flush it, we do not keep it together and we certainly do not want to mess with our own, let alone "mess with someone else's shit"!!.

Oh, and it is "Arse", not "Ass", an "Ass" is either a smaller version of a horse used for haulage or an idiot as in "Don't be an ass mate!".  Therefore getting your "ass" in gear is daft because horses don't have gears, but we do understand to "get our arses in gear!" even though your bum doesn't have gears either.

Confused yet?  So are we, we have to read your crap!

"Cornish Pasties" are a really nice type of meat pie made in Cornwall, England (Just in case there's another bloody Cornwall in Pennsylvania FFS!) and not something that covers the nipples of a pole dancer in Newquay!

Sticky Buns US style

"Spunk", in the UK, is what is spurted out at the point of orgasm by a penis (See sticky buns and fags) and so it is NOT acceptable for a male manager to ask a female employee if she is "full of spunk this morning?".

A penis is not a "pecker", so when we tell you to remain cheerful and say "keep your pecker up!", we do not mean you need to mainline Viagra. Also, the only "peckerheads" we have heard of it Woody and his mates. (Oh and a "Woody", unless you really mean a cartoon bird, is an erection in the UK.).

Belgium

We have chips which you call "French Fries" unless you are being particularly xenophobic and then you call them "Freedom Fries" and wonder why we all piss ourselves laughing (See Pissed).  The problem is we also have French Fries as well as chips and to a Brit, French Fries are something that McDonalds tries and fails to make as well as the "Belgians" make them (Oh for American readers, Belgium is a country in Europe adjacent to France).  Whilst on that subject, Europeans do not all speak English except with differing accents, all those funny lines on the maps that you use to differentiate American states, Europeans use to differentiate different countries.  Explain that to Dubbya sometime as he does need to know that Austria is a real place in Europe and Australia is the big island in the Pacific that also abuts the Indian or Southern Ocean.

Americans use "Randy" as a first name without embarrassment, they also have Scooby Do's mate called "Shaggy".  In the UK, if you are "Randy" that means you are horny and probably, if male, sporting a "Stiffy" or a "woody" and you want to "Shag" someone.  This is not a reference to using some poor sea bird, akin to a cormorant in some unspeakable act, it refers to "fucking" someone which I think is a term we have no disagreement upon?

Girls playing Rounders

Oh and finally, "Baseball", before your ancestors pissed off to find yourselves in the New World, we played a game on the village green, normally by children called "Rounders", this involves someone throwing a ball at the "Batter" who attempts to hit the ball with his/her clublike "Bat" and if he/she does she runs around the "Bases" of which there are 3 set out in a diamond pattern with "Home" being the final point of the diamond. IF you can run around the whole diamond before being touched with the ball by a fielder or having a "base" in front of you touched with the ball by a fielder, then you get "a run" if not, you are "out".  Indeed a lot of countries children play "rounders" or a variant. Americans apparently call this Baseball, make a lot of fuss about it and even play each other in the grandiose "World Series" which they play against themselves and Canadians!!

Two Allies divided by a common tongue?  No way!