British English

You wouldn't expect two people who are native English speakers, from English-speaking countries, to have a language barrier. And yet, when Elliot and I first got together, it took us ages to properly understand each other.

Every time I said "really?", he said "yes, really" in this weird, semi-sarcastic, semi-confused voice, and it wasn't until later that I realised that this was just my North American way of expressing surprise / disbelief, not me actually questioning the truth behind something.

Me: "Really?!"

Elliot: (silence.)

Anyway, over the weekend, we headed north to Leicester, a town of about 300,000 (although on our first visit there, Elliot told me it had 3 million!!!!! I very swiftly kiboshed this idea) to visit Elliot's brother's family. We passed through all the little towns and cities, which made me think of just how UN-English British English is. For example:

Leicester = "Les-ter". As anyone who's ever made shepherd's pie (or cottage pie, more probably) will know, a whole bunch of letters just seem to disappear when you ask for Worcestershire sauce. Same goes for Leicester, Bicester, and Gloucester... and probably many, many more. The C just seems to disappear, and you're left with Lester, Bister, and Glosster. WTF?

A couple of the other North American vs. British spellings and just plain weird pronunciations that came up on the drive:

• curb vs. kerb
• Warwick = "Warrick"
• Marylebone = "Marl-ee-bone"
• oriented vs. orientated

Even more interestingly, "Asian" here in England refers to South Asians—as in, people from India, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc. If I refer to myself as Asian here, I get confused looks... and on any surveys I've done (and companies do seem hellbent on obtaining demographic info here), I have to check the "Chinese" box. People from other parts of Southeast Asia don't have a tick box. Weird, no?

Source: Office for National Statistics. I'm appalled that these figures, from 2001-2002, are the most recent listed on their site, and am hoping that there are more recent statistics listed somewhere else...