The Queen's English

This month is going to have a theme.  And unless you've read, "Because of Winn-Dixie) you won't understand it when I tell you, "No, the theme is not pink."

Nope, this month the theme is 22.  Any guesses why?

So for this week, since this is a common question I hear, the theme is:

22 English Words/Things You Didn't know about England

1. Proper.  I'm proper hungry.  You're proper ugly.  She's proper tall.

2. Garbage cans don't exist.  They're called rubbish bins.

3. Rubbish bins also don't exist.  At least not publicly.  I rarely see    them on the streets and as a result carry all sorts of odd things in my bag

4.  Rubbish is now a descriptive word.  At home I never had a trash  day, but here, a rubbish day is a completely normal thing to say.

5.  Cheers.  Also means thanks, but not allowed by President   Preston

6.  Ta.  Thanks.  (again.)  or just a general acknowledgement of one's existence.  Hey I like your bag. "Ta"  As brief and to the point as possible.  Just like the British.

7.  Swimsuits are now swimming costumes.  (I picture Halloween every time)

8.  No one even celebrates Halloween.  When I ask if they do, people seem to think I'm accusing them of a pagan ritual or devil worship.

9. Candy = Sweets.

10. Cookies = Biscuits

11.  Chips = Fries

12.  Yogurt = Yoghurt

13.  If it were a race, England's yoghurt would be Usain Bolting it to the finish line and the U.S. would be wandering around somewhere like a backwards child trying to tie their shoes 

14.  Ditto for chocolate but you all knew that already.

15.  "Bless her socks".  (This may be just a Bishop Diamond phrase, not an all around English phrase.)

16.  Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are a novelty here.  The only thing they do with pumpkins is carve them.

17.  College here is high school back home.  (School is for little children.  Imagine how impressed people are when I tell them I'm still in school.)

18.  If you ask people, "So where are you heading today?" They'll respond with "what?" every time.

19.  More than one person has told me they actually admire American accents. 

20.  No one uses dryers. washing is draped on the line (beats me how that works with all the rain) or on the heaters inside the home.

21.  All of the yards have little two foot wooden fences around them.  While aesthetically pleasing to the eye, the purpose is lost on me.  Has many a robber been undone by these tricky obstacles?  "Drat, I was going to break into this house but this confounding wooden fence has undone me!"  Unless the purpose is to make missionaries feel 1.000 times more like a creeper when they have to open the gate to knock the front door, in which case they're succeeding.

22.  They all drive better than you.  Even the ones without licenses.