Most of us Brits are used to the unique quirks that makeup daily life in our country, such as enjoying a good cuppa or going to the chippy for dinner.
But have you ever stopped to think about what people from other countries think of us?
Some Americans have revealed on the popular forum Reddit how they became puzzled over everyday British practices that they believed were “posh”, but are in fact just normal here.
They unearthed the true meaning of tea time and discovered “living on an estate” isn’t a sign of wealth. They also realised just how energetic horse racing can be, leaving some folks amazed, reports the Mirror.
One post read: “To give you an example, the whole tea drinking thing. Say the words ‘tea time’ and a lot of us Americans imagine some Victorian club full of moustachioed gentlemen being waited on by servants, or a bunch of ladies in frilly dresses and giant hats in a well-kept English garden on a fancy Victorian estate.”
“We get that from the movies. Most of us won’t think of some regular guy drinking tea out of a metal thermos in his work van, and are only vaguely aware that tea is universal around shapes. So that’s just one example. What else is there? “.
Numerous comments flooded in on the post with many people admitting they thought living on an estate meant residing in a majestic country house. One American was especially shocked to learn that not all British houses are set on quaint cobblestone lanes illuminated by Victorian-style street lights.
One person commented: “Living on an estate. To an American it conjures up an image of a country house surrounded by countryside, with groundsmen and household staff. To a Brit, it is a grey council house, surrounded by other council houses filled with k**bheads.”
“British people understand there’s two different estate types,” noted another.
Someone else said: “An American friend of mine told me that she’d genuinely thought until she moved to the UK that most places still looked like cobblestone village streets with Victorian street lamps and wooden window frames warmly illuminated below thatched roofs.”
“She genuinely thought when she first landed at Gatwick that the plane had to land somewhere else in America due to all the concrete and block-shaped buildings stretching out into the horizon.
“She expected nights out to be extravagant and classy affairs with crystal glasses, spacious ballrooms, and so on, only to walk into a dingy nightclub and almost immediately have a shoe get stuck to the floor and slide off of her foot.”
Another activity which baffled people was horse racing. They commented: “Horse racing is not particularly expensive for most tickets, some folks get absolutely sloshed and rowdy.”
One thing that is always attached to being posh in Britain – by many who aren’t from here or live here – is teatime and scones or crumpets.
One user joked: “Crumpets – ‘tea and crumpets’ sounds posh but usually I’m eating crumpets as a hangover-cure breakfast haha.”
“Teatime is when we eat in the evening,” said another.
One Brit said: “Used to do that as a kid in the 90s. Sunday evenings, tea cakes and crumpets toasted on the open fire, sardines on toast and cheese and banana sandwiches. Working class family. We did it because my mum grew up an orphan in a house without electricity and it’s how she made her meals. It’s not a posh thing at all.”
