Understatements.

Coming from a different culture where hyperbole in speech is often prized, one thing that strikes me as very British is the frequent use of understatements in everyday speech.

From tube service announcements rattling off the name of 10 (out of 13) tube lines with service disruptions, ending with "….. there is good service on all other lines" to the mother patiently trying to coax her toddler twins out of a puddle - "I wouldn't do that guys...frogs pee in that", understatement is all pervasive.

A famous modern example is that from Captain Eric Moody, pilot of British Airways Flight 9 -

On its way to Perth from Kuala Lumpur, the Boeing 747 flew into volcanic ash resulting in all four engines shutting down at 37,000 feet above Indian ocean, near Java.

As the plane started descending, oxygen masks came down and Moody had to make an announcement. So he said -

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are all doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

BBC had a good story - When volcanic ash stopped a Jumbo at 37,000ft

:) British understatement.

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A mild-mannered exchange between the Earl of Uxbridge and the Duke of Wellington, as the Earl's leg was blown off by a canon during the Battle of Waterloo.

The Earl reportedly said: 'By God, sir, I've lost my leg!' to which the Duke responded: 'By God, sir, so you have!'

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The Queen's response when asked how she was following the historic Brexit vote: "Well, I'm still alive anyway.”

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Handkerchief hats and socks with sandles.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g&sns=em


LONDON, ENGLAND Green Day Crowd Singing Bohemian Rhapsody - Hyde Park July 1st, 2017Green Day 8,434,913 viewsSent from my iPad

 

My dad used to fly in Vulcan bombers during the cold war. It has long been the case that British bomber crews wore silk scarves, as a matter of tradition. Vulcan crews, however, were issued with silk scarves printed with maps of parts of the Soviet Union they might be asked to bomb, so (in the unlikely event that they survived being shot down in the opening moments of the subsequent thermonuclear obliteration) they could perhaps evade capture and even return to friendly territory.

All well and good, except the names on all the maps were printed in latin script - meaning that bomber command then had to send all their crews on courses in speaking rudimentary Russian, so that they could convert the latin names on the maps into their Cyrillic counterparts.

On another such note, my Dad’s original squadron leader was an old WW2 Lancaster man. At one time, the entire squadron was out on parade to perform a goodwill gesture, with some local German dignitaries. One such local was the then-mayor of Cologne, who politely asked the squadron leader if he had ever been to Cologne, and seen the famous Cathedral?

Without a moment’s thought, the squadron leader replied that he had been to Cologne many times - before realising that this would mean admitting that the only reason he remembered the Cathedral, was that, if you lined the Cathedral up with the water treatment plant, you were two and a half minutes from the start of your run on the Krupp ball-bearings factory, across the river.

He made his excuses and assured the major that the cathedral was, indeed, very fine!

On yet another note, we still have the black eye patch, that he, and all, V-bomber crews were issued with for the Final Conflict.

The basic logic was, that the British would be amongst the first ones going in, at the start of World War 3, hitting the targets deepest into Soviet Territory, east of the Urals. On their way back out, of course, they would be exposed to the thermonuclear flashes of American bombs, being dropped on cities less further in - in Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus, and so on.

Thus bomber crews would wear eye patches over one eye, on the way in (or perhaps on the way back out), so that if their allies’ bombs burned out the retinas of their exposed eyes (should they survive the blast from those bombs) they could swap the eye patch over from their ruined eye, and still fly home with their remaining good eye*.

My brothers and sisters used the eye patch in pirate costumes - and fortunately, this is the only use the eye patches have ever had to face!

*In actual fact, this was a relatively low risk, since there were about a total of 50 targets in the whole of the USSR, at this point in the Cold War. Aircrews would not, in fact, have been flying back through a forest of mushroom clouds. I suspect that - like the scarves - it was as easy to issue the eye patches, as not.

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Saying thank you to cars that stop at a zebra crossing for you

In the 1840s, shortly after reading Alfred Tennyson's poem, "The Vision of Sin," mathematician and "father of the computer," Charles Babbage, wrote the following letter to the poet and suggested an alteration in the name of accuracy.


(Source: The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer; Image: Charles Babbage in 1860, via LIFE.)

Sir:

In your otherwise beautiful poem "The Vision of Sin" there is a verse which reads – "Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born." It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death.

I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read – "Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born."

The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry. 

I am, Sir, yours, etc., 

Charles Babbage

 

.... Fish n Chips in newspaper on Blackpool Pier ......... as in "Fush n Chups in a Butty sanger"   - lol lol 

http://londonist.com/london/art-and-photography/reasons-why-london-is-the-greatest?rel=handpicked

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What is the most British thing ever?

Robert Menzies, Tony Abbott and Pete.

most british thing is whinge, whinge and warm beer