Carry-out
- Take-out food, as if you'd really want to take British food with you
anywhere.
Chicory -
Endive (See: "Endive.")
Chips - French
fries (why we seem so keen on attributing this food to the French is beyond
me. The French themselves call this snack "fried potatoes." Well, actually
they technically call it "fried apples," which gets me a bit worried about
the French as well.) You will often find
your "chips" accompanied by batter-fried "fish," in which case the most
prudent move might be to run away screaming. (See: "Fish 'n' Chips")
Clotted Cream
- Although it sounds positively disgusting, like some freak cross between
a medical ailment of the arteries and milk that has been sitting out long
enough to produce its own new lifeforms, this is actually an excellent
topping to smear upon your scones. (See "Scones.")
Courgettes
- Another term borrow from across the Channel, "courgettes" are zucchini.
I have nothing funny to say about zucchini, as they are rather a passive
vegetable.
Cream Tea
- Tea, crumpets, jam & clotted cream. Some argue that it is served with
scones instead of crumpets. Just one of the myriad versions of that quintessentially
British of phenomena: the Tea. (NOTE: I have now officially used up all
my Big Words. We will be relying on simple sentences and small words
for the remainder of this dictionary.)
Crisps - Potato
chips. There, that was easy.
Cuppa - Very
simply, a cup of tea (it's logical thinking like this that allowed the
British to found their great Empire, in between cups of tea, that is).
Digestives
- (See: "Biscuits")
Elevenses
- Only with a British accent can you make this word come out sounding
semi-dignified and not like the attempt of a six-year-old to tell time.
This is a mid-morning tea, as opposed to your morning tea, your your afternoon tea, your after-dinner tea, and your I-can't-sleep-and-it's-the-middle-of-the-night-so-I-might-as-well-get-up-and-have-some-tea
tea. And let's not forget about drinking some Earl Grey at breakfast,
dinner, and supper. The English have higher levels of insomnia and spend
more time, per capita, going to the bathroom than the people of any other
industrialized nation in the world.
Endive - Chicory
(See: "Chicory." Confusing, isn't it?)
Faggot -
Meat ball (made with oatmeal). This North England specialty has made for
more than one interesting exchange between Americans and Brits at restaurants,
as in:
American: "I'm not sure what to eat tonight."
British waiter: "Perhaps you'd enjoy a faggot?"
Note that "fag", which in American is an abbreviation of faggot, in British
means a cigarette butt. Or, for even more entertaining linguistic crossed
wires, a "fag" can (in British) mean a younger boy at a British public
school (which , just to confuse things further, Americans call a private
school) who has to play servant to an older boy, though this meaning
and practice has pretty much fallen out of use.
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