yeah. "Costumes" or a masquerade party to Americans.
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I told the sweet little British lady who was babysitting me that I didn't want a biscuit.
But you DID. You just didn't know it.
As a child, I found it much easier to handle things like scones, lorries, and crumpets--because they weren't words I already knew--than words I knew, like jumper or biscuit, which were Clearly Wrong.
Of course, now I'm just as likely to say "arse" as "ass", and "bollocks" is one of my favorite curses. So I'm apparently now residing somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic ocean...
But you DID. You just didn't know it.
I know! I was also a little freaked out when I heard the family talking in the morning and the babysitter's son asked if he should go knock me up.
I don't know how (well through my parents probably), but I ended using a few vaguely British phrases as a kid that caused what seemed like an unnecessary amount of confusion at the time.
I still remember asking for chips at a McDonalds and the girl behind the counter thinking I meant potato chips. That happened a lot. I learned to say fries. But hey, fish and chips is VERY POPULAR around here and I don't know why people can't figure it out.
I also remember getting teased for saying half-past four, instead of four-thirty.
Yeah I freaked people out by saying things like "half past four" and "a quarter till 3" in college. Did not know they were not standard language until I got laughed at a few times.
I say half past and quarter to! It feels odd when Brits say "half four" I never know if that's 3:30 or 4:30.
Half past and quarter to are Britishisms?
I use them frequently. I also tend to use "quarter of" as often as I do "quarter to."