Queen's English as a Second Language

I have been keeping a list of words that Brits use that are different than what I am familiar with. They include:

Parade--a street of shops, as in "Marylebone has a nice parade."

Engaged--occupied, as in "This toilet is currently engaged."

Full Stop--period, as in "my blog site is smith and chips full stop blogspot full stop com" or "I don't like to lose. Full stop."

Pants--underwear, as in "always wear a clean pair of pants" (and don't say that you left something in your other pants)

Trousers--pants, as in "these wool trousers aren't lined"

Waistcoat--vest, as in "Shouldn't Warren buy this awesome jacket and waistcoat?" (he didn't)

Vest--sleeveless undershirt, as in "we don't sell vests here, we are a suit store"

Aubergine--eggplant, as in "We had aubergine and courgette for dinner"

Courgette--zucchini (see above)

Franked Mail--mail where a machine prints the postage without a stamp, see photo

Anti-Social Behaviour--harassing or aggressive behavior, as in "Anti-social behaviour will result in an £80 fine."

Something else I think is interesting is the crosswalks. I was surprised to find that London is not a very pedestrian friendly place, as I had expected. It really encourages jaywalking because there aren't very many crosswalks and if you find one it takes forever for the light to change. I filmed one type of crosswalk called a zebra (pronounced zehbra) crossing by Londoners. Hopefully the video comes through. When the lights are blinking it means that the pedestrian has the right-of-way. But it can be really hard to tell when they are flashing on a bright day.

Another strange phenomenon is the types of American tv shows they play here. I made a list when we were in our temporary housing and had tv. I will say that not all the American shows they play here are outdated but I am still surprised at what I've seen so far.

Melissa and Joey
Fear Factor
Murder She Wrote
Heidi
Frasier
Three Men and a Baby
MASH

And speaking of tv...Downton Abbey started back here Sunday! The first episode  was an hour and a half!