British Vocabulary Lesson (Common Phrases)

Today's vocabulary lesson is all about the common day to day phrases Bristolians use that I've come to notice. I figure I'd better get them down now before they become so second nature that I don't recognise them as different anymore.

Hiya - common greeting and typically followed by "ya alright?". Very casual and friendly with a nice lilt to it. I know this is one I will surely adopt so listen for it when I visit home.

No problem at all - used all the time in a kind of annoying way. Here's an example:
"Hiya. I'd like to make a service appoint for my car."
"No problem at all. What seems to be the problem?"
"The clutch is making a squeaking noise."
"Okay, no problem at all, let me get your registration please." (that's my car license number by the way)
"xxxxxxx"
"Great. No problem at all. When would you like to come in?"
And it goes on like that. The phrase is used so often it gets annoying.

Tag questions - If you're an English teacher, you know what I'm talking about. If not, it's when you add a question to reinforce your statement at the end of your statement. Did you get that? Let me provide a few examples.
"Well, she just needs to apologise then, doesn't she?
"This lunch is lovely, isn't it?"
"We've got to catch the bus, haven't we?"
"I've got a splitting headache, haven't I?"

By-eee - how to say goodbye when on a phone call. I actually noticed this in Abu Dhabi and it's even more common here. The goodbye takes a little while longer too. Let me illustrate:
"Okay, well I'll talk to you tomorrow then, won't I?"
"Yep, no problem at all. By-eee."
"Okay, then Bye, Bye."
"Bye, Bye, By-eee."

All sorted - One of my favourites and one of the first I learned from Abu Dhabi. In the US, we would say something like, organised, fixed up, arranged but they're all so clunky once you start using sorted. Let me show you:
I've got everything figured out for the trip .... becomes .... I've got it all sorted.
Is everything organised for your first day of work? .... becomes .... Have you got everything sorted?
See? It's just so much more efficient - give it a try, I guarantee you're phrases will be sorted in no time!

And that's today's lesson. By-eee!

Sunday Road Trip: Cheddar Gorge & Caves

A week ago Sunday's excursion took us to Somerset and the Cheddar Gorge & Caves. It's a busy tourist spot but beautiful with lots to see and do. And yes, this is cheddar as in cheese. The Cheddar family settled here and invented cheddar cheese. A bit different than the US variety (it's white and tastes a bit stronger than American cheddar). Enjoy your trip . . .

The cave tour was an audio tour so you could go at your own pace, which was nice.

There were some really pretty pools - you might have to enlarge to see the details of this one.

Our tickets included an open air bus tour of the gorge - only a 15 min ride, but nice to see from this vantage point.

Some of the sheep living in the gorge

The town was pretty too - very touristy with a junk (aka souvenir) shop every 2 feet, but still very pretty.

When is a Gallon, not a Gallon?

Guest post by Brian Stoll

As many of you already now by Renee's earlier post, we purchased a used Volvo V40 D4 shortly after arriving in Bristol. Given the smaller roads, we wanted something a bit more maneuverable and peppy than what we had in the UAE. I had originally started looking at the sportier VW Golf GTD and Golf R, but then stumbled across the Volvo V40 which was a nice cross between pep and refinement ... and as a bonus had an amazing mpg rating - 67.3 mpg city, and 78.5 mpg highway.

I must admit being a bit amazed by the mpg rating of a car with 190 horsepower. Being a bit nostalgic, I was comparing this to our 1994 (3 cylinder) Geo Metro that, for it's time, was one of the most fuel efficient cars available at a rated 46 mpg city, and 49 mpg highway. This however was a result of the lightweight (some would say tinfoil like) body, and the paltry 52 hp that it produced.

As I was doing some additional car research, I noticed something strange with the fuel consumption numbers for the same cars between the US and the UK. The UK mpg numbers were significantly higher than the same car in the US even though the horsepower and other specs were the same? How could that be? I was sure that the UK has similar emissions standards, and so would have expected similar mpg ratings. Do the Brits all buy magical gas from Hogwarts?

Turns out magic had nothing to do with it, but the answer was quite surprising. While both the US and the UK use a gallon for liquid measure, these are based on different measurements. The imperial (UK) gallon is equivalent to 4.54609 liters. Whereas the US (liquid) gallon, 3.785411784liters, is 20% less!

For some of you history geeks out there, you might know that the US gallon is based on the old English wine gallon (also know as Queen Anne's gallon), that came into effect in 1707 (1706 Act 5 Anne c27). Britian abandoned the wine gallon in 1826 when it adopted imperial measure. This was obviously after the US had separated from Britian - hence the different in gallon measurements.

After having lived here in the UK for a couple of months, I've developed an alternative theory for the change in size. Brits love a good pint. I'm convinced that some crafty Brit back in 1826, after bemoaning how quickly a pint went down, had the brilliant idea of increasing the size by 20% ... hence the imperial gallon was born.

Cheers.