Thursday, September 15, 2016

British Vocabulary Lesson (Areas Around Town)

When you move to a new city, even in your home country, there are always new areas around town to learn. Add to that the varieties of English language and you've got an even longer and sometimes amusing list.

City Centre - we would call this downtown, but not so in UK. The main hustle and bustle of Bristol is called City Centre (not THE city centre, but City Centre)

There are 3 types of booze establishments and their names are important to distinguish what they are and what they do. Once you know the history, it makes sense, but it's pretty confusing when you first come to town. Of course that confusion might just be made worse by the beer, ale, or cider you've consumed.
  • Pub - We'll start with the pub as it's the most common term. It actually stands for public house, which was a drinking establish tied to a brewery. They sold their own brew and were owned and operated by the brewers themselves. While the ownership might be different today, it's still the case that pubs sell from a specific brewery and occasionally guest breweries.
  • Free House - came a long a bit later and are drinking establishments not tied to a specific brewery so they can sell whatever beer they like. They were "free" from the brewery's influence.
  • Off License - the off license is a licensed establishment to buy alcohol to drink off premise. As opposed to public and free houses where you drink on the premises.
Chemist - a drugstore in the US. Synonymous with Pharmacy. Think Walgreens or RiteAid. Also good to note that you can't buy much in the way of medicines in the grocery stores like in the US so there are lots of Chemists in any given neighbourhood.

Letting Agent - this is a rental/realty office. Instead of renting a place, you let it from a letting agent. Took me a bit to figure this one out!

Surgery - this is the term used to describe a clinic (for people or animals). For example there's a Veterinary Surgery not far from our house. I haven't figured out yet whether all surgeries perform surgery?? ;)

Petrol Station - because it's called petrol or diesel over here, not gas. And I'll tell you, you get this into your vocab habit quickly because it soon sounds really silly to say you have to get gas.

Leisure Centre - this is the gym near our house that I recently joined. I had to throw it in because I think it's great that this place that makes me work, sweat and ache is called a leisure centre!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed your trip around town. Tune in for our next installment where we'll have some fun with common phrases.

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