Trousers! Not because it's difficult to pronounce, but because what North Americans call pants, the British call trousers. And even this isn't the main reason why it's a big deal. The problem is, every time I refer to my "pants" (instead of trousers) I'm talking about my underwear! They call underwear "pants" and they call ladies undies "knickers". So when I took Brian's trousers to the dry cleaner today, and started to say, I have some pants to drop off. . . she looked at me funny and quickly pointed out that they are called trousers. I, of coursed, laughed at my own mistake, thinking she too would laugh with me, but no. It was not funny to her, only annoying!
Another "pants" story I've heard comes from my Canadian friend Lindsay, who sometimes substitute teaches at a nearby elementary school. She was giving a spelling test to a class of 4th years. She states the word, then uses it in a sentence, then states the word again for them to spell. So the word was, "tight". Her sentence was: After I ate a large dinner, my pants were too tight. Those kids never laughed so hard, and she quickly realized her enormous mistake (as any little faux paux is so huge here!) and changed to saying her trousers were too tight!
This is a tough one to get used to, and I still haven't gotten it right!
No comments:
Post a Comment