Explaining the Ordinary

I figured that since I spoke the same language as my host country that there wouldn’t be many difficulties in understanding one another. Silly me. There are seemingly endless oddities from pronunciations of words like tomato, to different definitions of the same word: 

Trifle- something of little value or a delicious British dessert.

There are so many different things that we say differently:

Gas - Petrol

Vacuum - Hoover

Cleats - Boots

Pants - Trousers  (Pants mean underwear)

Dessert - Pudding

Sneakers - Trainers

Elevator - Lift

But I think my favorite thing so far has been my attempt at explaining fahrenheit. At first it was like trying to describe what an itch is:   “Well...it’s uh….itchy.”

“You can think of fahrenheit like this:  If you think of it as a scale from 0-100  with zero being "I'm not going outside because I'll freeze to death" and 100 being "Wow I wasn't planning on melting today but...alright" and 32 is the technical freezing point…

So you can think of it like 0 is cold as hell, 50 is mild and 100 is like burning in hell...so then everything in between you can kinda figure out...like 70 is comfortable, 80 is really nice, 90 is too much, and 100 is death.”

Today’s task:  Try paying attention to the world around you and think of how you would describe it to someone who doesn’t see it the same way as you. You might even learn a thing or two yourself and/or come up with some really great jokes of your own.

What is Britain’s favourite television station?

The English Channel

Thank you thank you, I’m here until June.