This Olympics, know your English

This Olympics, know your English

London: The lorry driver taking kit to the football pitch was so knackered he pulled into the lay-by near the petrol station for a quick kip. Huh?
For American readers, that translates as: The truck driver delivering uniforms to the soccer field was so tired he pulled into the rest area near the gas station for a nap.
As George Bernard Shaw once observed, England and America are two countries divided by a common language. That trans-Atlantic linguistic divide will be magnified by Olympic proportions this summer when an estimated 2,50,000 Americans come to town for the London Games.
Yes, the Internet, television, movies, global travel and business have blurred language differences, and many people in the US and UK are familiar with those bizarre figures of speech from both sides of the pond. Yet important differences remain, prompting this rough guide to just a few of the potential colloquial conundrums that await baffled American visitors to the old country.
Those are “chips” that go with your burger, instead of fries. You’d like some potato chips? Those are “crisps.” A soft drink or soda? That would be a “fizzy drink.” A soft drink can refer to any non-alcoholic beverage. If you want the hard stuff, go to the “off-license” rather than a liquor store.
If the waiter asks if you’d like “pudding,” he’s referring to dessert in general, not necessarily the soft treat that Bill Cosby once pitched in TV ads. By the way, if you see “black pudding” or “blood pudding” on the menu — well, that’s not dessert at all. It’s sausage.
Let’s talk “sport.” That’s singular in Britain, not like sports in the US. Those “blokes” (guys) hawking 100-meter final tickets? They’re not scalpers, they’re “ticket touts.” Incidentally, if you can’t get any tickets, you can always watch on “telly” where the commercials are called “adverts.”
You’ll definitely do a lot of “queuing” (waiting in line), especially at Olympic venues for security checks. Whatever you do, don’t “jump the queue.”
Going to watch the finish of the marathon or cycling road race? Yes, the venue is the “Mall.” No, that’s not a shopping center. It’s that iconic boulevard leading from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. And, it’s pronounced the “mal.” Players wear “shirts,” not jerseys, and “boots,” not cleats, and their uniform is called their “kit.”
The best way to travel around the city during the Olympics will be by the “Underground,” the rail network commonly known as the “Tube.” It’s not the “subway” — that’s a pedestrian underpass.
Tube trains have “carriages,” not cars. When you get on or off the Tube, don’t forget to “mind the gap” between the platform and the train.
London’s roads are full of maddening traffic “roundabouts,” not circles or rotaries. The hood and the trunk? No, no. That’s the “bonnet” and the “boot.” The windshield is the “windscreen,” side-view mirrors are “wing mirrors,” the stick shift is the “gear stick.”
The lexicon for clothing can be a minefield. Be careful when you talk about “pants.” In Britain, that refers to underwear. Trousers is the more appropriate term. (Pants can also be an adjective, meaning bad or lousy, as in “That film was pants.”) Suspenders don’t hold up trousers; “braces” do. In British English, “suspenders” are what Americans call a garter belt.
Yes, if there’s one phrase worth remembering, it’s this: Bring a brolly.