See, I agree! LOL
No wonder there’s so many accidents. ROFL
running and ducking
No wish to hi-jack, but I didn’t start this…
Sorry we’ve got it right (obviously)- you’ve lotgot it wrong! Tell you what - lets blame the french!
Quote:-(Gwynne Dyer)
Why the Romans chose to drive on the left remains a mystery. Perhaps it dated back to earlier times when travellers on horseback preferred to keep to the left when encountering strangers, so that their sword-hand was free in case of a problem. (Most people everywhere are right-handed.) But at least as far back as Roman times, it seems clear, wheeled traffic in most of Europe and the Mediterranean world kept to the left.
So why does all of Europe (except the British Isles), all of the Western hemisphere (except some former British possessions in the Caribbean), and all of the Middle East drive on the right? That seems to be Napoleon’s fault.
Why did Napoleon go against the existing custom and impose driving on the right? Precisely because driving on the left was the custom. In the long Dark Age after the fall of the Roman empire, and even in the Middle Ages, there would not have been much need for the drive-left rule, since what little wheeled traffic there was travelled mostly on narrow tracks. But when you met somebody else on those narrow tracks both parties had to veer either left or right, and in that sense the Roman rule seems to have survived: mostly, people swung out to the left.
In early modern Europe, with the volume of road traffic rising steadily, the old Roman custom of driving on the left was the likelier candidate to become the new legal standard — as it did in Britain, in Sweden, and in various other places that Napoleon never reached. But wherever the French emperor’s armies invaded, they imposed a new rule: driving on the right. Why?
Napoleon never said, and subsequent historians have mumbled half-explanations about his need to impose discipline on European road traffic so that his armies could get through. But why did he go against the existing custom, frequently ignored though it undoubtedly was, and impose driving on the right? Probably precisely because driving on the left was the custom.
Napoleon was a product of the French Revolution (however far he was from the ideals of the original revolutionaries), and the whole ethos of the revolution was about the breaking of the old rules and the creation of a new, rational world. The year 1789 became Year One of the new era, and even the months were renamed.
Driving right is no more rational than driving left, but it is more ‘revolutionary.’ That would have appealed to Napoleon — and since his armies went everywhere from Russia to Spain, almost all of mainland Europe ended up driving on the right. (The Swedes finally gave up and switched a couple of decades ago.)
You’re kidding right? Baked beans for breakfast? As a Brit I deny this completly. I wouldn’t eat those foul things as part of ANY meal though…
Yes. What country do you thing the ENGLISH language came from? (Sorry, I just had to take the piss. Don’t take offence!)
Yes. What country do you thing the ENGLISH language came from? (Sorry, I just had to take the piss. Don’t take offence!)
Thanks for the clarification on the gammon thing, Antonius. I’m sure you’re right.
I thought piss meant to be drunk, Gemma?
Another thing I saw in the stores & forgot to mention, a whole product line of personal-care items for men, with the interesting name french connection united kingdom. Spelled out in initials, of course. Gave me pause.
Actually it gave me a massive case of the giggles & I had to buy some for friends.
Piss is one of those wonderful words that can mean many things. There is
“being pissed” which is being drunk.
“being pissed off” which means being annoyed
“taking the piss” which means jokeingly making fun of someone
To be “pissed” means to be drunk. When you’re angry, you’re “pissed off”.
And FCUK bases their entire advertising campaign around their fortuititous acronym. FCUK Fashion. FCUK Cosmetics. Etc. Etc. It gets rather dull after a while.
You know, It took me a depressingly long amount of time to get the “FCUK” thing. I just didn’t see it. shurgs
I remember watching an episode of “That 70’s Show” a year ago or so, and Eric’s ‘mom’ reminds Red of the time he beat up a guy who had grabbed her “fanny”. I was rather shocked, Until someone pointed out to me what an American fanny is.
So in the UK/England…do you all say “scrubber” as well in referring to a bimbo?
To me, a “scrubber” is a very scruffy person.
I think it’s just ‘bimbo’ for a bimbo… perhaps ‘slag’ depending what they got up to, as that’s a rather harsh word. I wouldn’t generally use either, i’m a nice person 
Well my Aussie gf calls her ex-dbf’s gf a scrubber. ROFL
I’ll never forget the general hilarity induced in my American classmates when I somewhat loudly asked “Does anyone have a spare rubber?”
I never heard the end of that one. cue lousy fake Aussie accent “Hey, do you still need a rubber? I’ve got one right here!” repeat 500 times
BTW, The closest term that comes to my mind for scrubber is skank.
“knocking someone up” also means something quite different in the UK than it does in the US
A friend of mine, visiting the UK, had an apartment (aka, a “flat”) in a building with several people who were native to England. A neighbor below her, a young man, offered to show her around the city the day after she moved in. He proceeded to tell her he’d come and “knock her up” the next morning so they could get an early start. Meanwhile, she’s wondering how impregnating her is going to get them started early…
I have a feeling that high school would have been a lot more unpleasant for a former classmate of mine had he gone to school in the UK- his name is Randy Ladd
Two hilarious British/US mistranslations:
• I was in London and a friend told me, “I’ll have my husand come by first thing in the morning and knock you up.” Well, talk about accomodating!
• My British-born 8th-grade algebra teacher said to some late arrival to class: “I know where you were: out in the parking lot with a fag in your mouth!”