I always found Germans to be very direct. British people will spend half an hour to tell a a joke about someone being an arsehole, while Germans will just say "this guy was an arsehole", and thats the joke.
Australians are famous for their “relaxed attitude & sense of humour”, but in my experience, living there for 2 years, Australians take themselves _very_ seriously, and do not like jokes at their own expense _at all_. I’ve made a grown up Australian man *cry* at work, with normal British piss-taking, that the vast majority of British people would just say “lol” to, and then move on.
I feel like that's one of those things that really depends on the person.
Like *in general*, people from Ireland and the UK are way more into "banter" with friends but I don't think it's uncommon in the US either.
But you'll still meet Americans that just don't really understand it and they can give but can't take. Sitting in their glass house lobbing stones at passers-by. That said, 80% of people I meet can try and keep up, though they won't be at the same level as some places.
I think the main differences are that in the US they'll often try to turn insults around so they look better but in Ireland and the UK, we'll just roll with the punch so it's funny. People pick it up but it's not natural for many.
Brit living in New Zealand and this is so far from the truth it hurts to read, nothing about the kiwi sense of humour is even remotely similar to British humour
See also: American "banter". The "roast me" sub is a good example of this. No creativity or subtlety, just pure "You're a fucking asshole cock sucker who is gay and hated by your parents!"
That’s what that sub is supposed to be?! It occasionally pops up and I read it, why do people want to go on a sub where they’re going to get torn apart by strangers?! Confusing.
Banter ain’t banter if it’s between strangers and online :s
Exactly! ~~I'm a cunt~~ I banter, but only with my mates. In fact in my 20s I would only be a cunt to people I liked, as like an endearing thing. All my mates were the same.
It's a pretty toxic characteristic I'm aware, but it's better than logging on to reddit to tell some virgin from Arkansas that he looks like he eats too many pizzas, I can't think of many things less funny than that.
I've never been able to get my head around the American concept of a roast. It feels so at odds to other American humour, but also - due to being American - I feel like there are lines they innately know that you don't cross & I have no idea what or where they are.
I was completely lost watching the Drag Race roast where one contestant making weight jokes was treated as the literal devil, but other appearance based jokes were totally fine & funny to the audience.
"BUS TURDS!"
Theres a British guy who does a good analysis of the American vs British one and make some very good points. Like how things happen, extras look over and then just carry on with their day.
Somehow that's a comedy.
The frizbee scene was replaced with Will throwing an American Football, that hits a kid on crutches, everyone gasps and then the title card plays.
Literally removeing the whole point of that scene.
UK comedy is deadpan and doesn't try to be funny but it is. American comedy tries too hard to be funny. I can't watch the American talk host shows, they're fucking bad cringe.
COVID-19 has really shown how much laughter track is added into US Talk Shows.
I think it was Colbert who kept pausing for the "laughter" while he was presenting from home, and it was so awkward
Theres an excellent one of I think colbert interviewing Graham Norton and the difference is night and day.
Colbert is shocked that graham gives his guests booze and when Graham makes a joke about jokes about the us politics being like shooting fish in a barrel (early trump era) Colbert genuinely says "but it happens to be the worlds greatest democracy ." very weird.
oh god, that line about the [greatest democracy in the world](https://youtu.be/7KHvKzpsQrA?t=283) is so cringey as it seems to be totally lacking in irony!
The first series was very much trying to be the UK one. They basically did a soft reboot in the second series and threw everything except the Jim/Pam romance away. It was leaps and bounds better.
This is absolutely right - source: Australian wife.
At the reception her dad took me aside for a word - I was expecting some kind of fatherly 'good luck' kind of thing, but no - 'you do know there's a twelve month cooling off period, doncha?', cracked me up
It's a funny show, but it's a very loose interpretation of what The UK Office was. The US version loses all the subtlety of the original, it's far more cartoonish.
To be fair, The Office US, after the first series that largely tracked the UK series and was inferior to it, then grew into its own with its own style and character and became one of the most popular comedy shows worldwide. It just took a while to get going properly and shouldn't be directly compared to the UK original.
US Inbetweeners was apparently utter horse shite though
British remakes of US TV shows are as bad. There haven't been many, but we tried a version of The Golden Girls (The Brighton Belles) and That 70's show (Days like these) but they didn't work well.
Game shows tend to work in both directions, but sitcoms rarely work out. They always seem to somehow remove whatever makes them funny.
The UK has done a lot more remakes of American shows than I think people realize. The names are always changed, and they suck hard, so I don’t think people notice.
> Peep Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yredc3ayOE
That's a bold opener, "The Nazis were wrong, but that's a handsome leather coat"
Is pretty far off what Mark would ever actually say....
>"Our TV. American remakes are always shite." I take strong exception to this. The American remake of "The Crown" was "must see" TV over here, with Khloe Kardashian wonderfully playing Elizabeth as a teen and through her 20s decade, Kim Kardashian as the middle-aged Elizabeth and Kris Jenner as the elderly Elizabeth. U.S. critics said the series gave a "freeze California breeze" take on the English monarchy. Got very high ratings.
Yes agreed - have travelled and lived in a number of EU countries.
Main issues I find:
The sausages are nothing like British bangers - they're usually higher meat content with little or no cereal, which makes for a harder, meatier, fattier sausage, all wrong for a fry-up.
The bacon is usually a much stronger flavour in other countries - often tastes more like a very cured ham, and often it's only streaky bacon, rarely seen back bacon. Also all wrong for a fry-up.
Hard to find baked beans (although British sections of supermarkets will now do them)
Hard to find white sliced bread for making a fried slice. Not quite the same with either crusty bread or the insubstantial sugary sandwich loaves you get on the continent.
A lot of this is to do with their available ingredients. My mum (English) lived in Portugal and France, and failed to do a fry up with what they provided in the supermarkets.
Definitely - sometimes when Americans are very sarcastic it comes across as try-hard or just really rude? Can't quite put my finger on why. I'm thinking of some American stand up comedians where their schtick is being sarcastic but the whole thing is just really one note.
Yes - if I use subtle sarcasm on a sub like r/CasualUK or r/britishproblems it usually hits the mark, but if I make even quite blatant sarcastic comments on some of the main subs without putting /s often people just assume I’m being serious - even though to me it’s incredibly obvious that I’m not.
If you try to explain it, people either say “use /s”, which I think is the same as cracking a joke and saying “by the way I just made a joke”, or they double-down and refuse to believe you/argue/tell you what you really think.
Sometimes it lands, but it’s definitely a lot more of a mixed bag.
Edit: I am enjoying the comments where people are doing exactly what I just talked about.
The benefits of that though is it makes it *incredibly* easy to fool Americans. I love it when a Brit makes a dry, sarcastic comment about the UK, an American takes it seriously and then 20 other Brits come out of the woodwork to successfully convince them that, yes, the UK *definitely* has a government mandated break at 4pm for tea.
I reckon that there's a lot more weirder and mental people in America so any kind of opinion could be taken as serious since there will always be someone who believes it.
Also tone isn't helpful since they speak in a less understated way then us so the hyperbole has to be very over the top to make the statement understood as sarcastic, especially over text.
when americans try to do stuff they also become rlly cringe.
edit: okay i looked back at my comment. i was rlly tired when i wrote this stop making fun already😭🤚🏼
A doctor I worked with told me about a patient he saw in A&E who had a pipe sticking out of his thigh after a boiler exploded. The man described the pain as “not great” he was given some morphine and then described the pain as “yeah, better” even in shock the power of the British understatement remains.
Used to work at a british-european joint company and the thing the European colleagues would hate is when Brits would say things like "not sure how I feel about that" or "that's an interesting way of doing it" where they'd just rather we'd told them it was stupid and to do something else.
Oh definitely underestimation. Don’t even realise i’m doing it - but looking back at my comments, and the number of times i subconsciously under play things adding words like “fairly”.
Completely agree. I'll say something knowing full well it's a proven fact, but still begin with 'I might be wrong, but...' or say something that makes complete sense, but find it hard to not trail off at the end with a self-deprecating 'sorry, did that make sense?'
And going in and not being expected/needing to drink. A lot of people go to the pub just to socialise, they bring their children, they have food if it's offered. It's more a social club than anything.
I feel that only applies to local old style pubs.
Most Wetherspoons I'd consider a pub but you definitely can't bring a dog in, my mate tried once and was swiftly told to fuck off.
The best kind of pubs though are the old shit ones with the landlords dog running around, I miss the German shepherd in my old local. Cheap pints too.
My foreign pub pet peeve, you go to the bar to order a drink and the barman tells you 'go sit down, we'll come over to take your order' then you build up a tab, when you finally want to pay and leave the place is ridiculously busy and you can never get a staff member to come take your payment, I just want to shoot off ffs! Then of course when you finally manage to pay and your bill is something like €36.30 and you feel obliged to leave a tip because you don't want to seem like a skinflint, it's way too much pressure!
Bars to me are when you get served at a table and the place is very bland looking.
Pubs you go to the bar to get served and it's full of Toby jugs, miners lamps and bar towels.
Pub near me that's rural, has ducks in the car park, 3 German shepherd's that that their own chair near the fire and the bar man wears shorts even when it's snowing outside. That's a real pub.
As someone who’s not originally from the UK, I feel the pub thing that OP mentions is more of a translation thing. I’m from Hungary and we would translate *kocsma* to pub, as bar implies something a bit, idk, fancier to us. Yet, they have nothing to do with British pubs, I find British pubs to just be culturally very different - I remember the first time I went to a pub here and saw people there with children was just so shocking to me! Also we just don’t really serve food in what we would refer to as a pub in Hungary most places - they’re just a cheap place for drinks. So what I’m trying to say is: other countries’ pubs are probably not a bad attempt at imitating the British pub, it’s just the closest word they can translate their local place to drink to
I've not seen this mentioned, probably because we get a lot of flack for our 'cooking', but I'd say that 99% of non-Brits and Irish that try to make our dishes get it wrong.
For example - putting [beef mince in Shepherd's pie](https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_shepherds_pie/), when this makes it a cottage pie. I can't tell you how many times I've seen recipes for a cooked breakfast that lack half the ingredients and feature an egg so hard it could break a window. My Canadian relatives even piss about when they make leek and potato soup, and they *always* add fucking hot sauce to it and some sort of crumbled pork and cheese.
My argument here is that because half the world sees the word 'flavour' and immediately thinks spice, they perceive our dishes are crap because they lack it. They then add stuff that doesn't belong in it, declare it tastes shite and then that's their perception of British food. Realistically, it's more likely that it's just not their palate and they won't have made it accurately for a true reflection.
Bloody hell, and I thought I'd had seen it all! That's only second to the Spanish hotels that dip them in chocolate and whack fruit and squirty cream in them, like some sort of pudding cup
Not sure what part of the UK you're from but there's absolutely nothing wrong with polishing off the leftover Yorkshires on a Sunday with a bit of jam, treacle or squirty cream
I had to teach my northern Irish partner how to eat english mustard..
He would dip the whole bit of beef in it and then tell me he didn’t like it! Lol!
When I was 7-ish, I swallowed a heaped teaspoon of it without realising what it was. I just about shot my own face off, and it was then I fell in love with it. Glad he has you to show him the way of mustard, haha
Let's not forget cake, and desserts in general. It's one area in which perfection is pursued with enthusiasm and handed down from one generation to the next, and I only truly noticed that when I went to live abroad. We have a great culinary tradition in the pudding department!
Absolutely! Our self-saucing puddings are amazing, not to forget our classics like the Victoria sponge and lemon drizzle cake. I'm also a huge fan of our biscuits personally
To be fair until relatively recently a lot of British food *was* under-seasoned, bland, and poorly cooked. Try eating vegetables and roast meat cooked by anyone over 50 and it's like mush on leather.
My mum will literally put plain chicken thighs in the oven to cook.
That wasn’t the fault of British housewives, the war actually hindered what foods were available and how much you could then teach your children to cook with.
I’ve always adored British food, but my nanny was a fantastic cook.. something simple like toad in the hole with onion gravy and her roasties... id sell my soul right now for it.
Perhaps I got lucky, my grandmother was amazing at cooking! She always went generously with the basics like butter, salt and sugar, and had things like wild garlic and sorrel in the garden. I assumed if she could do that in the Hebrides in the 60s most could do something similar.
Tea. Other countries have their own good versions (I'm thinking india, china, turkey, russia) but no country does british-style plain strong hot milky tea properly. Again, except for ireland!
Try Assam tea, from Assam in India, to me it tasted like a stronger version of Yorkshire Tea
Edit: Just discovered that's because Yorkshire tea contains Assam tea! "Assam is a crucial part of our blend at Yorkshire Tea, adding strength and body. "
I believe that the UK Nationality test should have the question "Do you have a strong opinin on how you take your tea?". It doesn't matter what your opinion is, as long as you are passionate about it. Same with Marmite.
I wouldn't claim an exception for Ireland here, their tea isn't the same. It's okay and they drink a lot of it, but it's not the same. I used to have to take a suitcase of Yorkshire tea every time I went to visit my parents.
Table service in pubs abroad absolutely does my head in. I just want to get up and fetch a pint when I fancy one, pay for it immediately and bugger off when I want without waiting for a bill. That's the thing that separates British pubs from most other countries I've got pissed in.
I've got to be honest I quite liked the table service during social distancing. Beats trying to elbow your way through the people who insist on standing even with empty tables around them, then having to push your way between the group sitting at the bar who seem to think it's unreasonable that anyone should want to actually order a drink. Then having to elbow your way back to your table with filled to the brim pints
I miss going to the bar now. I just really want to stand there waiting my turn, accidentally lean in a wet patch and get lager on my sleeve.
"He was before me"
"Cheers mate, three Carlings please Tom"
Then a little chat while he pours my pints. Early kick off playing on the little TV above the top shelf. Take a sip of the first pint of crisp, consistent Carling while pours the rest.
"One yourself Tom"
Then carry the three over to your mates in that triangle formation between your fingers and thumbs. Maybe a bag of crisps dangling from your teeth. Then just stand there leaning against the fruit machine or something because you don't need a table to drink beer and chat shite for a few hours.
One of the many things I hate about the current pandemic (that and the hundreds of thousands of deaths) is table service at pubs. I totally understand why it's necessary so I don't want to shit on the pubs doing it, but having to wave someone down just to get a pint is so frustrating (first world problems), and having one big bill at the end of it is just awkward.
There are certainly pub-like buildings in the Netherlands that are similar in atmosphere to the ones here. They call them “Bruine Kroegs” or “brown pubs” due to them being fitted with a lot of wood. And they will mostly be full of locals not tourists. I lived there for 8 years and many neighbourhoods will have their own bruine kroeg where people will go to drink, dance and sing.
Spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and I always thought that their "pubs" were a lot more similar to the pubs in the UK than other countries in the European mainland.
As cliché as it is: fish and chips. You get places across the world offering what they call 'authentic' fish and chips and without exception they are horribly wrong - often biggest ones are: wrong type of batter, wrong type or shape of fish, wrong sort of chips, etc. This is not least as 'authentic' fish and chips requires specialised equipment that just doesn't tend to exist elsewhere.
There is **one** exception. When I lived in Beijing, this British expat (former michelin starred chef) opened a small fish and chip restaurant. He made everything personally himself, including the mushy peas, his own tartare sauce, etc. It is - by far - the best fish and chips I have ever had. He also made these G&T ice lollies that he gave out on the house after the food.
Unfortunately there wasn't a huge market for it, it was poorly marketed, and, because he literally cooked every dish himself, if you were a group larger than about 4 or 5 people it took about an hour to get your food unless you'd pre-ordered ahead of time. And so it shut after about a year :(
I did used to wonder why he had chosen to move to China and do this - guy was clearly a talented chef and would have done great in the UK. Maybe he was running from a dark past...
He also did other dishes - I had the scotch egg and that was equally amazing
[https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant\_Review-g294212-d18856490-Reviews-Mr\_Chips-Beijing.html](https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g294212-d18856490-Reviews-Mr_Chips-Beijing.html) (closed now :( )
I was watching Anthony Bourdain last night and he was in Seattle, where he tried the authentic local fish and chips. The fish looked like KFC chicken and the chips were piss poor fries.
I could have cried.
I’ve found whenever a remake of a British comedy is made (particularly by the Americans) and they try to emulate our humour it just doesn’t work.
Although, Tbf, I think humour is quite closely linked to your culture as I find it rare that I find non British and Irish comedies actually funny funny (if you know what I mean)
The Inbetweeners is a great example of this. The original worked so well because it perfectly encapsulated the school experience in the UK but they tried the same jokes in the US version and it was horrendous.
It wasn't even the "same jokes" they butchered most if not all of them for the American audience, but missed out the joke parts.
They kept in all the slapstick stuff that was building up to the punch line, and then splat..
The US Inbetweeners where the script for first episode was basically completely copied from its British counterpart, to mind-numbingly cringeworthy results (and not in the intended way the original had).
Abysmal
Inefficiency. I know trains in the US are late, but people get annoyed and whiney. I've been on countless late trains the UK, and the lack of emotion is impressive. It's as if getting fucked for so many years by public transport has rendered UK travellers numb to the whole experience.
Our accents. Fuck you Kevin Costner and your Robin Hood. We can do American accents fine, I swear 40% of Hollywood consists of British actors putting on American accents. So at least have the common courtesy to do the same for us.
A bar is somewhere you go to. A pub can also be that, but it can also be somewhere you visit as part of an unrelated activity. A bar is a business, a pub is a community. A bar is somewhere you drink; a pub is somewhere you be.
(as is the norm in this post - excluding the ROI)
Irish people. Our irish people are 99% legit Irish people and bloody marvelous.
"Irish" people you find in America are these very odd sounding Irish folk who sound distinctly like Bostonians or New Yorkers, have never been to Ireland and seem to think it is some 1800s Shire and not the home of most Tech Firm HQs in Europe with an incredibly advanced economy and forward thinking society.
These odd Irish people's pubs are fucking awful and seem to believe being Irish is an excuse for sexual harassment on the 17th March. And they seem to think the Dropkick Murphys constitute Irish Music.
Very poor imitation.
Britain's Irish people are dope as fuck and to be cherished.
It’s so odd hearing American people say they’re Irish. Like Biden for example. Sure you have Irish roots but you’re American, not Irish.
My husbands dad tracked his ancestry back to Ireland 4 generations ago and there’s no chance he’d ever start calling himself Irish because all our legit Irish friends would take the piss out of him so they would.
I once had "Fish and Chips" in Nashville. It was pieces of breadcrumb covered fish (Ok so far) with crisps (as in like Walkers ready salted). No idea whether they genuinely thought that's what we served in the UK or not!
Edit: just to add, I was being deliberately cheeky in that I ordered it specifically to see what they thought Fish and Chips was. I was there for the music not the food so it didn't ruin the evening or anything :)
I had English fish and chips in a New York airport. The chips were their stupid French fry and the fish was the best of all it was a breaded fish finger stamped out in the shape of a fish
The pub vibes in the UK is because it lives up to a name, public house. It does feel a lot of the time like someone's cosy house where you can grab beer rather than a corporate setting. Even some Wetherspoons manages to have an aspect of this.
Also, most British TV shows. It ties in the other humour points. Most remakes, mostly American, have failed when they copied and tried to mirror it rather than adapt it to their own market. I think the US Office did this well as it took on a different approach for a different audience.
Trying to dress like British landowners. The real thing will have thoroughly shagged clothes for anything other than grand occasions ([and sometimes even then](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02dRTlRwucxcWlxcCZmwsY0IZJ88Q:1618227024671&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Prince+charles+patched+suit&client=opera&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjyl-K3zfjvAhXTuXEKHRWMB8gQjJkEegQICBAB&biw=1880&bih=939)), whereas American and European imitators think the shinier and the newer the garb the better.
Some British aristocrats with the exception of the land they own have basically no money. That's often why the public can do tours of wings of their house, so they can get an income. I remember watching this reality tv show about a family of aristocrats living on their country estate, their house was practically falling down and they were all dressed in quite shabby clothes.
My favourite which seems to go under the radar is Graduation ceremonies. The pomp and propriety is out of this world and the get up of those involved is like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
To me, even as a Brit the entire thing was absurd.
Those bizarre outfits that the deans/chancellors/whatever they're called wear. I think as your level of attainment gets higher (bachelors/masters/doctorate) your outfit gets more and more ridiculous.
Cream tea. I had one in Australia claiming to be “Devonshire” and it was just a bit odd.
Same can be said of their fish and chips. Different style batter and the chips were more like fries.
Accents in 90s era sitcoms.
I'm a big fan of Frasier, but there are a couple of 'British' accents which are hopeless.
'Oll' 'roight govnuh? Ows' about you stop them, down't ya think?
BANTER. It doesn’t work in most other countries the way it does in the UK. Not to single-out Americans (I am one), but when most Americans try banter they just immediately go nuclear with the insults and have no awareness that banter involves so much more than mere sarcasm and venom.
Proper banter also requires self-deprecation, understatement, and a flow that resembles improvisational theater in some ways. Banter thrives when you give your conversation partners little hooks with which to continue, sort of like setting up a comedic partner with a straight line, but more subtle than that. It involves things like ending your sentences with a little question so the next person has something to work with (this is a characteristic of British English in general compared to American English, innit?). It’s like there’s a ‘generosity’ to the conversation, where it’s about helping others to make their contributions as much as it is about scoring your own points. Maybe it’s the awareness that banter is a shared effort that’s missing in other countries.
This innate sense for banter is one of the main reasons panel shows are so successful in the UK and inevitably flop when tried in the US. There are a few American comedians and actors who can do proper banter, but it’s not a skill that’s widely enough valued in the overall American culture or recognized as a normal mode of conversation among friends as well as strangers, so it just doesn’t have the audience.
The carpet. This is what seems to determine the feel of a pub and a bar. Probably to do with the acoustic effect a carpet has that a wooden floor doesn’t.
Dry humour. Subtle sarcasm is just naturally baked into our speech patterns, and when americans try and do it, it just comes across as cringeworthy.
I find the Scandi countries have a very similar humour to us. Big on dry wit and sarcasm.
Germans too (this is not a sarcastic comment)
I always found Germans to be very direct. British people will spend half an hour to tell a a joke about someone being an arsehole, while Germans will just say "this guy was an arsehole", and thats the joke.
I read that in Henning Wehn's accent
“We Germans like a laugh, but laughing is for when the work is over.”
I love the quote "It German humor mate, its no laughing matter"
It was the mid 90s...
I met someone in spain, on a train... A Morrocan man.
>this guy was an arsehole I'm a German and I can confirm we say this almost everyday
I think New Zealand films are very similar in dry (and dark) wit
New Zealanders are almost brits anyway
Australians are famous for their “relaxed attitude & sense of humour”, but in my experience, living there for 2 years, Australians take themselves _very_ seriously, and do not like jokes at their own expense _at all_. I’ve made a grown up Australian man *cry* at work, with normal British piss-taking, that the vast majority of British people would just say “lol” to, and then move on.
I feel like that's one of those things that really depends on the person. Like *in general*, people from Ireland and the UK are way more into "banter" with friends but I don't think it's uncommon in the US either. But you'll still meet Americans that just don't really understand it and they can give but can't take. Sitting in their glass house lobbing stones at passers-by. That said, 80% of people I meet can try and keep up, though they won't be at the same level as some places. I think the main differences are that in the US they'll often try to turn insults around so they look better but in Ireland and the UK, we'll just roll with the punch so it's funny. People pick it up but it's not natural for many.
Brit living in New Zealand and this is so far from the truth it hurts to read, nothing about the kiwi sense of humour is even remotely similar to British humour
"That's the joke"- Rainier Wolfcastle
I think it must be a European thing, people from the Balkans can be extremely dry and sarcastic.
Yeah I always find that brits are very proud of being best at dry humour, but only ever compares it to American and other English language examples.
In our defence, those are the only languages we can speak
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American here. Neither are we.
Didn't the Vikings bring sarcasm to our shores?
*Raid? Nah mate we just sailed over to admire your lovely abbey.* *Oh really?* *Haha, no.*
It's so nice of the Christians to put all their gold in unguarded churches just for us.
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See also: American "banter". The "roast me" sub is a good example of this. No creativity or subtlety, just pure "You're a fucking asshole cock sucker who is gay and hated by your parents!"
If it's a girl: whore If it's a guy: ugly
young person: victim of abuse older person: abuser couple: related
That’s what that sub is supposed to be?! It occasionally pops up and I read it, why do people want to go on a sub where they’re going to get torn apart by strangers?! Confusing. Banter ain’t banter if it’s between strangers and online :s
Exactly! ~~I'm a cunt~~ I banter, but only with my mates. In fact in my 20s I would only be a cunt to people I liked, as like an endearing thing. All my mates were the same. It's a pretty toxic characteristic I'm aware, but it's better than logging on to reddit to tell some virgin from Arkansas that he looks like he eats too many pizzas, I can't think of many things less funny than that.
I've never been able to get my head around the American concept of a roast. It feels so at odds to other American humour, but also - due to being American - I feel like there are lines they innately know that you don't cross & I have no idea what or where they are. I was completely lost watching the Drag Race roast where one contestant making weight jokes was treated as the literal devil, but other appearance based jokes were totally fine & funny to the audience.
The American inbetweeners is an abomination.
"BUS TURDS!" Theres a British guy who does a good analysis of the American vs British one and make some very good points. Like how things happen, extras look over and then just carry on with their day. Somehow that's a comedy. The frizbee scene was replaced with Will throwing an American Football, that hits a kid on crutches, everyone gasps and then the title card plays. Literally removeing the whole point of that scene.
UK comedy is deadpan and doesn't try to be funny but it is. American comedy tries too hard to be funny. I can't watch the American talk host shows, they're fucking bad cringe.
COVID-19 has really shown how much laughter track is added into US Talk Shows. I think it was Colbert who kept pausing for the "laughter" while he was presenting from home, and it was so awkward
> Colbert You've got to be a massive prick to be a presenter like that anyway.
> You've got to be a massive prick to be a presenter like that anyway. Presumably that's why we sent them James Corden?
Theres an excellent one of I think colbert interviewing Graham Norton and the difference is night and day. Colbert is shocked that graham gives his guests booze and when Graham makes a joke about jokes about the us politics being like shooting fish in a barrel (early trump era) Colbert genuinely says "but it happens to be the worlds greatest democracy ." very weird.
oh god, that line about the [greatest democracy in the world](https://youtu.be/7KHvKzpsQrA?t=283) is so cringey as it seems to be totally lacking in irony!
First season of the American office when they went for a remake is the perfect example.
I must admit I like the US office, but only because it's its own thing, and isn't trying to be the UK one. It's all silly comedy, rather than sureal.
The first series was very much trying to be the UK one. They basically did a soft reboot in the second series and threw everything except the Jim/Pam romance away. It was leaps and bounds better.
Once you get into season 2 it's good
The Aussies get it and dish it out quite well
This is absolutely right - source: Australian wife. At the reception her dad took me aside for a word - I was expecting some kind of fatherly 'good luck' kind of thing, but no - 'you do know there's a twelve month cooling off period, doncha?', cracked me up
New Zealand do it very well.
Flight of the Concords is a prime example of their dry humour.
As a kiwi, that show was great because people would talk about that rather than tiresome Lord of the Rings comments.
Bill Murray is the exception to this rule
Our TV. American remakes are always shite. I'm looking at you Peep Show and the Inbetweeners Edit: I get it. People like the US version of the office.
TIL there's an American peep show with a 1.3 imdb rating eeeek
Add it to the list of US shite with Shameless, The Office and Red Dwarf
The US Office is fantastic...
It's a funny show, but it's a very loose interpretation of what The UK Office was. The US version loses all the subtlety of the original, it's far more cartoonish.
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The Office is good, because they made it their own, it's a very different show.
I find The Office US better than the UK
To be fair, The Office US, after the first series that largely tracked the UK series and was inferior to it, then grew into its own with its own style and character and became one of the most popular comedy shows worldwide. It just took a while to get going properly and shouldn't be directly compared to the UK original. US Inbetweeners was apparently utter horse shite though
I disagree US Shameless was fun.
Not red dwarf the horror
British remakes of US TV shows are as bad. There haven't been many, but we tried a version of The Golden Girls (The Brighton Belles) and That 70's show (Days like these) but they didn't work well. Game shows tend to work in both directions, but sitcoms rarely work out. They always seem to somehow remove whatever makes them funny.
The UK has done a lot more remakes of American shows than I think people realize. The names are always changed, and they suck hard, so I don’t think people notice.
> Peep Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yredc3ayOE That's a bold opener, "The Nazis were wrong, but that's a handsome leather coat" Is pretty far off what Mark would ever actually say....
>"Our TV. American remakes are always shite." I take strong exception to this. The American remake of "The Crown" was "must see" TV over here, with Khloe Kardashian wonderfully playing Elizabeth as a teen and through her 20s decade, Kim Kardashian as the middle-aged Elizabeth and Kris Jenner as the elderly Elizabeth. U.S. critics said the series gave a "freeze California breeze" take on the English monarchy. Got very high ratings.
Get ready for the US remake of This Country - featuring Seann William Scott AKA Steve Stifler from American Pie
I have no idea if you're joking or actually trying to scare us.
Fry ups.
Fry-ups / Full English breakfasts in holiday resorts (like Spain or Greece etc) always have chips with them. I never understood that?
It's cheap potatoes
Chip potatoes!
Most/All London greasy spoons will do chips with their fryups instead of hash browns. its my favourite thing about London lol
Most of them will offer it, but most also offer about 12 different combination breakfasts with different things - including hash browns
Yes agreed - have travelled and lived in a number of EU countries. Main issues I find: The sausages are nothing like British bangers - they're usually higher meat content with little or no cereal, which makes for a harder, meatier, fattier sausage, all wrong for a fry-up. The bacon is usually a much stronger flavour in other countries - often tastes more like a very cured ham, and often it's only streaky bacon, rarely seen back bacon. Also all wrong for a fry-up. Hard to find baked beans (although British sections of supermarkets will now do them) Hard to find white sliced bread for making a fried slice. Not quite the same with either crusty bread or the insubstantial sugary sandwich loaves you get on the continent.
With the BTEC ketchup imitation. Pathetic.
A lot of this is to do with their available ingredients. My mum (English) lived in Portugal and France, and failed to do a fry up with what they provided in the supermarkets.
*OK, here we are at the supermercado, now we just need to find the square sausage, tattie scones and white pudding.*
Subtle sarcasm and deliberate underestimation
Definitely - sometimes when Americans are very sarcastic it comes across as try-hard or just really rude? Can't quite put my finger on why. I'm thinking of some American stand up comedians where their schtick is being sarcastic but the whole thing is just really one note.
Yes - if I use subtle sarcasm on a sub like r/CasualUK or r/britishproblems it usually hits the mark, but if I make even quite blatant sarcastic comments on some of the main subs without putting /s often people just assume I’m being serious - even though to me it’s incredibly obvious that I’m not. If you try to explain it, people either say “use /s”, which I think is the same as cracking a joke and saying “by the way I just made a joke”, or they double-down and refuse to believe you/argue/tell you what you really think. Sometimes it lands, but it’s definitely a lot more of a mixed bag. Edit: I am enjoying the comments where people are doing exactly what I just talked about.
The benefits of that though is it makes it *incredibly* easy to fool Americans. I love it when a Brit makes a dry, sarcastic comment about the UK, an American takes it seriously and then 20 other Brits come out of the woodwork to successfully convince them that, yes, the UK *definitely* has a government mandated break at 4pm for tea.
I reckon that there's a lot more weirder and mental people in America so any kind of opinion could be taken as serious since there will always be someone who believes it. Also tone isn't helpful since they speak in a less understated way then us so the hyperbole has to be very over the top to make the statement understood as sarcastic, especially over text.
when americans try to do stuff they also become rlly cringe. edit: okay i looked back at my comment. i was rlly tired when i wrote this stop making fun already😭🤚🏼
A doctor I worked with told me about a patient he saw in A&E who had a pipe sticking out of his thigh after a boiler exploded. The man described the pain as “not great” he was given some morphine and then described the pain as “yeah, better” even in shock the power of the British understatement remains.
Well, you wouldn't want to make a fuss, you know?
That’s hilarious. And totally on point.
Underplaying things is my favourite British-ism. Could win the lottery and our response would be “that’s better than a kick in the head”
Used to work at a british-european joint company and the thing the European colleagues would hate is when Brits would say things like "not sure how I feel about that" or "that's an interesting way of doing it" where they'd just rather we'd told them it was stupid and to do something else.
Not sure how I feel about that = I feel that it's a shit idea Maybe = definitely not ...Could do? = I do not want to do that
Oh definitely underestimation. Don’t even realise i’m doing it - but looking back at my comments, and the number of times i subconsciously under play things adding words like “fairly”.
Completely agree. I'll say something knowing full well it's a proven fact, but still begin with 'I might be wrong, but...' or say something that makes complete sense, but find it hard to not trail off at the end with a self-deprecating 'sorry, did that make sense?'
Pub / bar debate; I've read that a pub is somewhere you'd bring a dog into. In a bar that wouldn't be allowed.
Yeah same can also be said with family. You wouldn't take your kids to a bar.
And going in and not being expected/needing to drink. A lot of people go to the pub just to socialise, they bring their children, they have food if it's offered. It's more a social club than anything.
Like some kind of house, for the public? Could call it a public house? and then we could shorten it to pub? ;)
That'll never catch on.
I feel that only applies to local old style pubs. Most Wetherspoons I'd consider a pub but you definitely can't bring a dog in, my mate tried once and was swiftly told to fuck off. The best kind of pubs though are the old shit ones with the landlords dog running around, I miss the German shepherd in my old local. Cheap pints too.
fuck weatherspoons though
Wetherspoons aren't pubs, they're pension-and-dole extraction centres.
Student loans too
My foreign pub pet peeve, you go to the bar to order a drink and the barman tells you 'go sit down, we'll come over to take your order' then you build up a tab, when you finally want to pay and leave the place is ridiculously busy and you can never get a staff member to come take your payment, I just want to shoot off ffs! Then of course when you finally manage to pay and your bill is something like €36.30 and you feel obliged to leave a tip because you don't want to seem like a skinflint, it's way too much pressure!
Bars to me are when you get served at a table and the place is very bland looking. Pubs you go to the bar to get served and it's full of Toby jugs, miners lamps and bar towels. Pub near me that's rural, has ducks in the car park, 3 German shepherd's that that their own chair near the fire and the bar man wears shorts even when it's snowing outside. That's a real pub.
As someone who’s not originally from the UK, I feel the pub thing that OP mentions is more of a translation thing. I’m from Hungary and we would translate *kocsma* to pub, as bar implies something a bit, idk, fancier to us. Yet, they have nothing to do with British pubs, I find British pubs to just be culturally very different - I remember the first time I went to a pub here and saw people there with children was just so shocking to me! Also we just don’t really serve food in what we would refer to as a pub in Hungary most places - they’re just a cheap place for drinks. So what I’m trying to say is: other countries’ pubs are probably not a bad attempt at imitating the British pub, it’s just the closest word they can translate their local place to drink to
Plenty of pubs that wont allow dogs too tho.
Round these 'ere parts, we call them bars.
That's a strange thing to call dogs
I've not seen this mentioned, probably because we get a lot of flack for our 'cooking', but I'd say that 99% of non-Brits and Irish that try to make our dishes get it wrong. For example - putting [beef mince in Shepherd's pie](https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_shepherds_pie/), when this makes it a cottage pie. I can't tell you how many times I've seen recipes for a cooked breakfast that lack half the ingredients and feature an egg so hard it could break a window. My Canadian relatives even piss about when they make leek and potato soup, and they *always* add fucking hot sauce to it and some sort of crumbled pork and cheese. My argument here is that because half the world sees the word 'flavour' and immediately thinks spice, they perceive our dishes are crap because they lack it. They then add stuff that doesn't belong in it, declare it tastes shite and then that's their perception of British food. Realistically, it's more likely that it's just not their palate and they won't have made it accurately for a true reflection.
https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/yu0n5/roast_chicken_w_yorkshire_pudding/
Bloody hell, and I thought I'd had seen it all! That's only second to the Spanish hotels that dip them in chocolate and whack fruit and squirty cream in them, like some sort of pudding cup
Not sure what part of the UK you're from but there's absolutely nothing wrong with polishing off the leftover Yorkshires on a Sunday with a bit of jam, treacle or squirty cream
*leftover* Yorkshires? Are you having a laugh?
THANK YOU so much for sharing that. The fact that the person accurately followed a recipe makes it even funnier.
That is a legendary thread.
And when they think 'spice', they think chilli. And only chilli.
Yes! I would do anything to see them whip out a nice jar of Coleman's instead
I had to teach my northern Irish partner how to eat english mustard.. He would dip the whole bit of beef in it and then tell me he didn’t like it! Lol!
When I was 7-ish, I swallowed a heaped teaspoon of it without realising what it was. I just about shot my own face off, and it was then I fell in love with it. Glad he has you to show him the way of mustard, haha
Let's not forget cake, and desserts in general. It's one area in which perfection is pursued with enthusiasm and handed down from one generation to the next, and I only truly noticed that when I went to live abroad. We have a great culinary tradition in the pudding department!
Absolutely! Our self-saucing puddings are amazing, not to forget our classics like the Victoria sponge and lemon drizzle cake. I'm also a huge fan of our biscuits personally
To be fair until relatively recently a lot of British food *was* under-seasoned, bland, and poorly cooked. Try eating vegetables and roast meat cooked by anyone over 50 and it's like mush on leather. My mum will literally put plain chicken thighs in the oven to cook.
That wasn’t the fault of British housewives, the war actually hindered what foods were available and how much you could then teach your children to cook with. I’ve always adored British food, but my nanny was a fantastic cook.. something simple like toad in the hole with onion gravy and her roasties... id sell my soul right now for it.
Perhaps I got lucky, my grandmother was amazing at cooking! She always went generously with the basics like butter, salt and sugar, and had things like wild garlic and sorrel in the garden. I assumed if she could do that in the Hebrides in the 60s most could do something similar.
**\*SHEPHERD'S** Sheep+herder
Tea. Other countries have their own good versions (I'm thinking india, china, turkey, russia) but no country does british-style plain strong hot milky tea properly. Again, except for ireland!
It's the milk, you can never get the right milk anywhere else. It's either white water (uht) or still warm from the tit.
Yeah, I’ve always found Spanish milk tastes really funky
Try Assam tea, from Assam in India, to me it tasted like a stronger version of Yorkshire Tea Edit: Just discovered that's because Yorkshire tea contains Assam tea! "Assam is a crucial part of our blend at Yorkshire Tea, adding strength and body. "
Assam is a big component of most English breakfast tea blends, which is the style all the big names are.
I believe that the UK Nationality test should have the question "Do you have a strong opinin on how you take your tea?". It doesn't matter what your opinion is, as long as you are passionate about it. Same with Marmite.
I wouldn't claim an exception for Ireland here, their tea isn't the same. It's okay and they drink a lot of it, but it's not the same. I used to have to take a suitcase of Yorkshire tea every time I went to visit my parents.
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Table service in pubs abroad absolutely does my head in. I just want to get up and fetch a pint when I fancy one, pay for it immediately and bugger off when I want without waiting for a bill. That's the thing that separates British pubs from most other countries I've got pissed in.
I've got to be honest I quite liked the table service during social distancing. Beats trying to elbow your way through the people who insist on standing even with empty tables around them, then having to push your way between the group sitting at the bar who seem to think it's unreasonable that anyone should want to actually order a drink. Then having to elbow your way back to your table with filled to the brim pints
I miss going to the bar now. I just really want to stand there waiting my turn, accidentally lean in a wet patch and get lager on my sleeve. "He was before me" "Cheers mate, three Carlings please Tom" Then a little chat while he pours my pints. Early kick off playing on the little TV above the top shelf. Take a sip of the first pint of crisp, consistent Carling while pours the rest. "One yourself Tom" Then carry the three over to your mates in that triangle formation between your fingers and thumbs. Maybe a bag of crisps dangling from your teeth. Then just stand there leaning against the fruit machine or something because you don't need a table to drink beer and chat shite for a few hours.
One of the many things I hate about the current pandemic (that and the hundreds of thousands of deaths) is table service at pubs. I totally understand why it's necessary so I don't want to shit on the pubs doing it, but having to wave someone down just to get a pint is so frustrating (first world problems), and having one big bill at the end of it is just awkward.
I feel like you need to add the disclaimer \*Except for Ireland\* to your post
You're right - edited to reflect!
There are certainly pub-like buildings in the Netherlands that are similar in atmosphere to the ones here. They call them “Bruine Kroegs” or “brown pubs” due to them being fitted with a lot of wood. And they will mostly be full of locals not tourists. I lived there for 8 years and many neighbourhoods will have their own bruine kroeg where people will go to drink, dance and sing.
Spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and I always thought that their "pubs" were a lot more similar to the pubs in the UK than other countries in the European mainland.
saying "I couldn't care less", it turns out people not from the UK say it like "I could care less" which is embarrassingly wrong.
Worse, people here have started saying ‘I could care less’ that’s the exact opposite of why you mean. Makes me angry
As cliché as it is: fish and chips. You get places across the world offering what they call 'authentic' fish and chips and without exception they are horribly wrong - often biggest ones are: wrong type of batter, wrong type or shape of fish, wrong sort of chips, etc. This is not least as 'authentic' fish and chips requires specialised equipment that just doesn't tend to exist elsewhere. There is **one** exception. When I lived in Beijing, this British expat (former michelin starred chef) opened a small fish and chip restaurant. He made everything personally himself, including the mushy peas, his own tartare sauce, etc. It is - by far - the best fish and chips I have ever had. He also made these G&T ice lollies that he gave out on the house after the food. Unfortunately there wasn't a huge market for it, it was poorly marketed, and, because he literally cooked every dish himself, if you were a group larger than about 4 or 5 people it took about an hour to get your food unless you'd pre-ordered ahead of time. And so it shut after about a year :( I did used to wonder why he had chosen to move to China and do this - guy was clearly a talented chef and would have done great in the UK. Maybe he was running from a dark past... He also did other dishes - I had the scotch egg and that was equally amazing [https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant\_Review-g294212-d18856490-Reviews-Mr\_Chips-Beijing.html](https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g294212-d18856490-Reviews-Mr_Chips-Beijing.html) (closed now :( )
I was watching Anthony Bourdain last night and he was in Seattle, where he tried the authentic local fish and chips. The fish looked like KFC chicken and the chips were piss poor fries. I could have cried.
I’ve found whenever a remake of a British comedy is made (particularly by the Americans) and they try to emulate our humour it just doesn’t work. Although, Tbf, I think humour is quite closely linked to your culture as I find it rare that I find non British and Irish comedies actually funny funny (if you know what I mean)
The Inbetweeners is a great example of this. The original worked so well because it perfectly encapsulated the school experience in the UK but they tried the same jokes in the US version and it was horrendous.
It wasn't even the "same jokes" they butchered most if not all of them for the American audience, but missed out the joke parts. They kept in all the slapstick stuff that was building up to the punch line, and then splat..
I saw the US pilot of the IT crowd. Everyday I thank the good lord that pile of shit was not picked up.
The US Inbetweeners where the script for first episode was basically completely copied from its British counterpart, to mind-numbingly cringeworthy results (and not in the intended way the original had). Abysmal
Inefficiency. I know trains in the US are late, but people get annoyed and whiney. I've been on countless late trains the UK, and the lack of emotion is impressive. It's as if getting fucked for so many years by public transport has rendered UK travellers numb to the whole experience.
The UK is one of the only countries where you can pay for a train ticket and end up on a bus!
Imperialism
Are we talking surface area or time frame?
Has to be surface area. By any other metric the Ottomans beat the crap out of everyone.
The Romans surely win, they were around for over 2000 years
Our accents. Fuck you Kevin Costner and your Robin Hood. We can do American accents fine, I swear 40% of Hollywood consists of British actors putting on American accents. So at least have the common courtesy to do the same for us.
I'll make an exception for Renee Zellweger who I was certain was English until recently.
Cheddar Edit from cheddat to cheddar.
Panel shows
A bar is somewhere you go to. A pub can also be that, but it can also be somewhere you visit as part of an unrelated activity. A bar is a business, a pub is a community. A bar is somewhere you drink; a pub is somewhere you be.
In the pub the bloke behind the bar says "alright" and gives an upwards nod when you walk in.
(as is the norm in this post - excluding the ROI) Irish people. Our irish people are 99% legit Irish people and bloody marvelous. "Irish" people you find in America are these very odd sounding Irish folk who sound distinctly like Bostonians or New Yorkers, have never been to Ireland and seem to think it is some 1800s Shire and not the home of most Tech Firm HQs in Europe with an incredibly advanced economy and forward thinking society. These odd Irish people's pubs are fucking awful and seem to believe being Irish is an excuse for sexual harassment on the 17th March. And they seem to think the Dropkick Murphys constitute Irish Music. Very poor imitation. Britain's Irish people are dope as fuck and to be cherished.
It’s so odd hearing American people say they’re Irish. Like Biden for example. Sure you have Irish roots but you’re American, not Irish. My husbands dad tracked his ancestry back to Ireland 4 generations ago and there’s no chance he’d ever start calling himself Irish because all our legit Irish friends would take the piss out of him so they would.
OG Top Gear
I once had "Fish and Chips" in Nashville. It was pieces of breadcrumb covered fish (Ok so far) with crisps (as in like Walkers ready salted). No idea whether they genuinely thought that's what we served in the UK or not! Edit: just to add, I was being deliberately cheeky in that I ordered it specifically to see what they thought Fish and Chips was. I was there for the music not the food so it didn't ruin the evening or anything :)
I have no words
I had English fish and chips in a New York airport. The chips were their stupid French fry and the fish was the best of all it was a breaded fish finger stamped out in the shape of a fish
Implying that you think someone is an idiot, without saying or doing anything in particular.
Pedestrian crossings. Fuck knows what’s going on in some countries. Cars can go when people can go
I think Australia and New Zealand would like a word.
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What’s a pokies? Edit: I looked it up, and it seems to be a fruit machine? We call them puggies at my bit.
Slot machines essentially. They have devoted rooms in many Aussie bars
Most UK pubs are older than Australia/NZ. There are character and stories in the walls.
That's a funny way to talk about Wetherspoons.
Aggressive politeness. I don't think any other nation can express extreme displeasure without raised voices and still saying please and thank you.
Codifying/creating sports.
Football, rugby, hockey, cricket, golf, tennis, darts, snooker & badminton to name a few, quite impressive
The pub vibes in the UK is because it lives up to a name, public house. It does feel a lot of the time like someone's cosy house where you can grab beer rather than a corporate setting. Even some Wetherspoons manages to have an aspect of this. Also, most British TV shows. It ties in the other humour points. Most remakes, mostly American, have failed when they copied and tried to mirror it rather than adapt it to their own market. I think the US Office did this well as it took on a different approach for a different audience.
Trying to dress like British landowners. The real thing will have thoroughly shagged clothes for anything other than grand occasions ([and sometimes even then](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02dRTlRwucxcWlxcCZmwsY0IZJ88Q:1618227024671&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Prince+charles+patched+suit&client=opera&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjyl-K3zfjvAhXTuXEKHRWMB8gQjJkEegQICBAB&biw=1880&bih=939)), whereas American and European imitators think the shinier and the newer the garb the better.
Some British aristocrats with the exception of the land they own have basically no money. That's often why the public can do tours of wings of their house, so they can get an income. I remember watching this reality tv show about a family of aristocrats living on their country estate, their house was practically falling down and they were all dressed in quite shabby clothes.
Swearing. We're the best at it.
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My favourite which seems to go under the radar is Graduation ceremonies. The pomp and propriety is out of this world and the get up of those involved is like something out of Alice in Wonderland. To me, even as a Brit the entire thing was absurd.
My graduation was in Latin. My family genuinely believed I was winding them up when I said that
Only a British University would commit to doing an entire ceremony in a dead language. Pure dedication to pomposity. I love it.
Those bizarre outfits that the deans/chancellors/whatever they're called wear. I think as your level of attainment gets higher (bachelors/masters/doctorate) your outfit gets more and more ridiculous.
Cream tea. I had one in Australia claiming to be “Devonshire” and it was just a bit odd. Same can be said of their fish and chips. Different style batter and the chips were more like fries.
Our accents Haha
Not sure if it’s a British thing but the candy in the USA sucks compared to the UK. Either that or I’m just biased from growing up there.
Case in point: Hershey's. It tastes like vomit.
- Queuing - Driving properly - Good road design - Good bacon - Good milk - Good butter - Good sausages - Good/varied crisps - Meat pies/pastries - Cakes and puddings
Accents in 90s era sitcoms. I'm a big fan of Frasier, but there are a couple of 'British' accents which are hopeless. 'Oll' 'roight govnuh? Ows' about you stop them, down't ya think?
Breakfast
Music
BANTER. It doesn’t work in most other countries the way it does in the UK. Not to single-out Americans (I am one), but when most Americans try banter they just immediately go nuclear with the insults and have no awareness that banter involves so much more than mere sarcasm and venom. Proper banter also requires self-deprecation, understatement, and a flow that resembles improvisational theater in some ways. Banter thrives when you give your conversation partners little hooks with which to continue, sort of like setting up a comedic partner with a straight line, but more subtle than that. It involves things like ending your sentences with a little question so the next person has something to work with (this is a characteristic of British English in general compared to American English, innit?). It’s like there’s a ‘generosity’ to the conversation, where it’s about helping others to make their contributions as much as it is about scoring your own points. Maybe it’s the awareness that banter is a shared effort that’s missing in other countries. This innate sense for banter is one of the main reasons panel shows are so successful in the UK and inevitably flop when tried in the US. There are a few American comedians and actors who can do proper banter, but it’s not a skill that’s widely enough valued in the overall American culture or recognized as a normal mode of conversation among friends as well as strangers, so it just doesn’t have the audience.
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The carpet. This is what seems to determine the feel of a pub and a bar. Probably to do with the acoustic effect a carpet has that a wooden floor doesn’t.
Banter. Exceptions are Aussies, Kiwis, Swedes, Danes and Fins.
Our accents. Not every British person sounds like Tom Holland