Avoid Being Misunderstood Overseas

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 467
Comment this article

While cheap travel options, such cheap airplane tickets, cheap vacation packages, and discount travel packages, are great reasons to take trips abroad, you need to remember that not all English words are understood to have the same meaning even when you are visiting another English speaking country.

The following are English words that you should think twice about before using abroad, according to Smarter Travel:

• If you tell someone in Britain that you have to go shopping for pants, that person will think that you will be shopping for “underwear.” The British refer to pants as “trousers.”

• Most English speaking countries outside the U.S. call “fanny packs” “bum bags” because “fanny” is slang for a part of the female anatomy. The last thing you want to do is to tell someone to stop being lazy and get off their fanny!

• Americans sometimes get “pissed off” when they are angry, but Brits and Irish who are “pissed” are very intoxicated. To complicate things further, in Britain and Ireland “taking the piss” means “to make fun of” not “to get drunk.”

• You ...
... do not want to refer to your “bangs” in England where a forehead covering haircut is called a “fringe.” Outside America “bangs” is commonly used as the somewhat vulgar slang that it is interchangeable with in America.

• “Knob” in America refers to a doorknob or level. Knob in Australia and the UK is an insult or slang for a part of the male anatomy. Calling someone a “knob head” in those countries is a major insult.

• Americans sometimes “root around” looking for a lost object. Australians and New Zealanders use the same term when referring to having sex.

• In the U.K. “pull” is commonly used as slang for successfully picking up someone while out on the town. “Going on the pull” means someone is going out with the intention of getting some action.

• Some Americans refer to their child or pet as “little bugger.” In Canada and Australia, as well as most other English speaking countries, “bugger” is commonly used as an expletive similar to the “f” word.
www.cheapfares.com