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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really a sponsor

i just want to let you know that i have

launched my new website it is

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know how i came up with that domain

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using

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pronounce it and also pronounce a word

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you can have lots of fun making me

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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

really proud of it

you can also find the pdf which contains

the transcript

of this lesson with important vocabulary

this is a great listening practice i’ve

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so click on the link or just go to

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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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