20 Weird things ONLY British people do
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hello everyone and welcome back to
english with lucy today i’m going to
talk to you about
20 british quirks
lovely word meaning peculiar aspects
in someone’s behavior or character
essentially i’m going to talk to you
about some weird things
that british people tend to do huge
generalizations are going to be made
here i would love
for you to let me know in the comments
section where you are from
and if you relate to any of these or if
it is the exact
opposite where you are from before we
get started i would like to thank
the sponsor of today’s video myself
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using
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ah
or you could get a rhythm going with cha
cha cha
cha okay i’m going to stop but i’m
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of this lesson with important vocabulary
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okay now i’ve uh launched my website to
all of you
let’s get started with the 20 weird
things
that british people tend to do okay so
the first one is that we put
carpet in our bathrooms
not everyone does this but i am
currently living in a house that has a
carpeted bathroom and i will let you
know that yes we have had
an overflow situation with that toilet
and in a carpeted bathroom it wasn’t
pretty
so this is quite an old-fashioned thing
to do we don’t tend to do this
anymore but if you go to a house that
hasn’t been renovated
or updated in a long while or you go to
the home of somebody who is very
traditional then yes you might find
carpet in your bathroom
we’ve got it here it wasn’t my choice
but it’s here
my grandparents have got carpeted
bathrooms as well
number two is way
okay and this is something that we shout
in a
very very specific situation
which is this when somebody smashes a
glass
in a pub the whole pub
should shout way
sorry i had to re-record that that was
so loud
now i worked as a waitress for three
years
i dropped a fair few glasses we had to
carry these drinks on tiny round trays
that you had to balance
i couldn’t do that so i’ve had my fair
share of ways
in my lifetime now
my mother’s best friend forgot
where she was once and she did the rahay
in portugal a restaurant in portugal
some poor poor waiter dropped
a load of glasses they smashed
everywhere and there was just
my mum’s best friend there on her own
shouting way
okay the next one is number three
which is excitement over fireworks on
bonfire night so on the 5th of november
all around the uk we have bonfires we
let off
fireworks and we do this because it’s
the anniversary the 5th of november
of a failed attempt to blow up to
explode
uh the houses of parliament on this
event we burn
guys and these are dummy men
used to represent the man who was going
to
blow up the houses of parliament he was
called guy fawkes so sometimes we call
it guy fawkes night as well
now on this night or on the evening
surrounding this night depending when it
falls if it falls on a monday then you
might have it on the saturday before for
example
people who have no experience or
business dealing with explosives get
incredibly excited they go to firework
shops
they do them in their garden and it’s
just really dangerous
my dad always really enjoyed setting up
the fireworks and
setting them off in a neighbor’s garden
and my mother was always
absolutely petrified she was so scared
he was going to get hurt and rightly so
and one day they played this terrible
prank on my mother and all of the other
worried wives they let off a load of
fireworks
and then they came screaming covered
with soot with black ashes all over
their face
as if they had had the explosion in
their face and the women went crazy
and they were not best pleased to find
out it was all a joke
number four we think
that a cup of tea will cure or help at
least
any bad situation and a lot of us
genuinely believe this
when something bad happens our first
response is
okay i’ll put the kettle on if
somebody’s told you some devastating
news and you don’t know what to say you
can just say
that’s awful do you want a cup of tea
number five
is the phrase oh go on then okay
said like this oh go on then this
is something that we say when we are
offered something
that we know we shouldn’t have for
example
a very unhealthy food or maybe a
cigarette
or a drink of alcohol when somebody
offers you something
naughty or considered to be naughty go
on then
go on then i wonder if you have a
similar phrase in your own language i
would love to hear it because i think
that’s just
such a key phrase in our vocabulary
number six
colin the caterpillar cake need i say
more
yes i need to say more so that my
viewers understand
any british person watching this will
understand
colin the caterpillar cake they will
probably feel excitement
running through their veins okay a colin
the caterpillar cake
is a long chocolate roll
i think that’s what you call it it’s a
roll of cake covered in chocolate
with the face of a caterpillar on the
end and if it was your birthday at
school your mum
would buy you a colin the caterpillar
cake it was very easy to slice in lots
of
slices for all of the children and if it
was your birthday
you got to eat the face i remember my
first colin the caterpillar cake
i remember being served the face of this
cake and i remember it being disgusting
but i ate it anyway because it was my
birthday and because i’d earned it and
i’d spent the whole year watching
everyone else eat their caterpillar
faces
these are typically sold in marks and
spencers
a shop here food shop here quite a posh
food shop here
as far as i’m aware and if you ever go
to a british person’s birthday party
i i really think you should bring one it
will make them so
excited probably number seven
something else we find ridiculously
exciting way more exciting than it
should be j2os
i don’t know if you have these in other
countries but they are
a non-alcoholic juice drink
not juice juice drink okay that means
it’s not 100
the most famous flavor is orange and
passion fruit
but the thing is they came in glass
bottles that were the same size
as beer bottles so when you’re a child
and you’re at a party an adult party
you could feel like an adult with a
similar beer bottle
very exciting i remember taking it a
step too far
when i was younger and taking my parents
beer bottles that were green stellar
artwork always
and refilling them with apple juice and
carrying that round with me and
completely confused when my parents were
so angry with me and saying no lucy
don’t do that don’t do that
we also had another drink called slur
which was alcohol-free um
like a sweet grape juice fizzy as well
and i felt like
such an adult when i had a glass of
schler at christmas
do you have any drinks that you used to
have as a child
that made you feel grown up i bet there
are
number eight is the phrase to pop
okay sounds a bit random
but we use pop in many phrasal verbs
um and it’s a very warm way of asking
somebody
to come or go somewhere do you want me
to pop over
do you want me to come over it implies a
short amount of time
why don’t we pop down the road for a
coffee why don’t we just quickly go down
the road for a coffee i remember one of
my spanish students in london
they were au pairing for a british
family and they were so confused
by the word pop because you can pop
around pop up pop down
pop over just treat it as come and go
number nine british people like to base
the entire country’s economic state
on the price inflation of a frog
shaped chocolate bar called afredo
yes you heard that correctly we base our
economics
on a frog shaped chocolate bar
called a freddy when we were young
freddos were known to be the most
affordable
chocolate bar they were a little frog
and they were typically i think 10p
when i was young i remember being given
a pound to spend and sweets at a party
i could have one big packet of sweets or
i could have ten
freddos the logical answer is to go for
all of the freddos
however every time i see the price of a
freddo rise
i am outraged and the rest of the nation
is too
i’m gonna search now current price of
freddos
25 p
25 p so what
okay just going to have to pause there i
got so angry
about the price inflation of freddos
then i broke my microphone
and the next three videos
have terrible audio damn you freddos
that means i could have bought 10 and
now i can only buy four that is
outrageous
okay number 10 pigs in blankets
we get so excited about this particular
food
called a pig in blanket it is a little
cocktail sausage
wrapped in bacon and typically we only
have them at christmas
but there’s no reason for this we could
have them every sunday
but if you go to a pub and your sunday
roast comes
with a pig in blanket or some pigs in
blankets
it’s the best roast ever we absolutely
love them
but we only have them at christmas why
is that number 11
one of our most popular tv shows is a tv
show
of people watching tv shows
it’s called gogglebox i imagine this
concept has arrived in other countries
now
they basically film families watching
the tv highlights
and then they compile their witty
remarks and then we watch them
it’s a very good program it’s very um
meta
number 12 dog poo in facebook groups
okay in the uk and i imagine in lots of
places in the world we have
facebook groups for our local community
so i’m in quite a few of the
surrounding villages and towns and there
is a new
phenomenon and it is the people that are
getting so
frustrated with people not picking up
their dog poo
especially if it’s on someone’s property
or on their front lawn
people are taking to taking pictures
of the dog poo and posting it in these
community groups
i don’t know about you but i normally
check my phone for the first time in the
morning when i’m about to take my first
bite of breakfast normally porridge and
to have porridge
approaching my mouth opening my phone
and seeing a
massive dog poo is just not ideal so now
people are rebelling
against the dog poo posters and there is
just oh there’s
huge civil unrest online at the moment
those who want to shame the dog poo
leavers
and those who want to shame the dog poop
posters
is very complex um i hate dog poo
it’s absolutely horrendous but i also
don’t want to see it all over my
facebook timeline i’ve seen enough we
know it’s a problem
number 13 drinking in rounds okay
when we go on a night out with a group
of friends we drink in rounds which
means if there are five of us
instead of everyone buying their
individual drinks
one person will buy five drinks then the
next person will buy five drinks
i’m sure many of you are aware of this
concept i’m sure it has a different name
where you’re from
but the very british thing to do is to
shout
who’s round is it when you know exactly
whose round it is and you just
are trying to make them actually buy
their round because there are a lot of
people who will participate in rounds
wait till last and hope that they won’t
actually have to buy that round
thus escaping with a lot of free drinks
and a very full wallet and it’s
very annoying now we can be considered
quite
passive aggressive so instead of saying
it’s your round
go and buy your round just shouting
whose round is it
is a much easier way to avoid
confrontation
however my fiancee he said at university
there was one guy who was so
bad at buying or paying for his fair
share of drinks
but they actually grabbed him marched
him to an atm
a bank took his card out and forced him
to take out
the money some people are just what we
would call here
tight if somebody’s tight they don’t
like spending a lot of money
number 14 is we can’t always be bothered
to use an umbrella it rains
so often that unless it is absolutely
pummeling it down i don’t mind getting a
bit wet
i remember when i was in spain the
minute the first drop
hit anyone’s hair they would um
whip out their umbrella everyone had it
everyone knew the weather i just never
knew how people kept
track of whether it was going to rain
that day or not but it was more of a
rare occasion there
and it’s very very common here so i i
did used to walk into my classrooms
soaking wet sometimes just you know
normal
number 15 we don’t put fridges in the
eggs
wrong number 15 we don’t always put our
eggs in the fridge
i don’t know if this is weird for you i
remember going abroad and seeing
fridges in the eggs fridges in the eggs
i remember going abroad and seeing
eggs in the fridges i remember some
fridges arriving with egg holders i
thought that was so weird
no i like a nice room temperature egg
oh yes why does that sound like an
innuendo
16 this one goes without saying we are
obsessed with the weather
even if it’s so boring you know oh it’s
slightly gray and windy today we will
tell you that it’s a bit gray and windy
isn’t it
it does change so much that it is quite
you know entertaining we’ve got
sometimes we don’t have that much in our
lives to talk about so
the weather is just a really good one to
go for
number 17 scone or scone
okay this is the conundrum and actually
there’s a part two to this conundrum as
well
there is a baked good which i call
a scone but other people call it a scone
and there’s a big
fight a big divide in the uk about
whether it is a scone
or a scone i don’t want to get involved
in that i’m not going to say
scone is wrong but i do profess
it it’s gone damn it the other part
of this conundrum is the order in which
you put
toppings typically we serve scones
or scones with jam and clotted cream
they are
absolutely to die for if you come to the
uk
make sure you have an afternoon tea with
scones or scones
now i always put clotted cream first
then jam but some people will swear
you have to put the jam first then
the clotted cream i’m not gonna tell you
which is right
you’re just gonna have to try it out for
yourself but i think logistically
cream first then jam number 18
we are terrible at ending conversations
honestly this is the most annoying thing
ever
there is a huge culprit of this and it
is my fiance will
typically when we want to end a
conversation we will say
right and and kind of i need to be
heading off or
i must get a move on or i need to get
going but for some reason some people
really struggle with this
um and when you have two people that
struggle with ending conversations
coming together well you could just go
on for eternity it’s really really
troubling
right did you hear that yes
come and say hello admit to your problem
this is will don’t worry about space
you know your problem you you’re almost
ending conversation it was ending
conversations yeah it’s uh it’s a tricky
one
it’s fine if you’re talking to someone
who can end the conversation
but it’s when you are with another
person that also
finds ending conversations difficult
well it’s nice to get out isn’t
it it’s not a tough year for everyone
move to it all right i’m almost done
cool
number 19 we really overused the word
sorry um this was further solidified in
my mind last night we watched bridget
jones
and there was the scene where mark darcy
or colin firth and
hugh grant were fighting and they were
knocking over things on people’s tables
in a restaurant and they were still
apologizing we just can’t help it i i
find myself apologizing for apologizing
too much
number 20. the final weird thing that
british people do
is consume a lot of pre-made sandwiches
it’s a bit of a random one but there is
something very exciting about
going on a short car journey and
stopping off
for lunch and lunch will be a pre-made
sandwich
in a box you can get them from petrol
stations or you can get them from
supermarkets i know tesco does something
called a meal deal
where for a certain amount of money you
get a sandwich
a snack and a drink and people
absolutely love it and they
try to get the most value from that meal
deal
they say you can tell a lot about a
person
from what they choose for their meal
deal but you know i’ve traveled to a
couple of countries and i’ve
never seen the sheer amount of
options for pre-made sandwiches that we
have
in the uk it’s crazy every flavor every
filling
so creative as well prawn is my favorite
prawn mayonnaise
absolutely love it the christmas range
is in full swing at the moment
we have turkey and stuffing sandwiches
awesome i saw a duck larage sandwich the
other day
i wouldn’t say it’s something i
recommend
actually if you want to have a british
experience when you come over to the uk
go to a petrol station buy a sandwich
then
you will feel like a brit right
on that note that’s the end of today’s
lesson
i have got the full transcript of this
video with important vocabulary
on my new website englishwithlucy.co.uk
i’ll link it down below
don’t forget to check out the
interactive phonemic chart
very very excited about that i can’t
wait for you to make me sound
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i will see you soon for another lesson
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