LET’S ALL PRETEND WE’RE BRITISH

A third Downton Abby movie is on the way! It was filmed and will premiere on 12th September 2025.  To get ready, let’s pretend we’re Brits!  We might be aristocracy, or aristo.  Or maybe we’ll be like Lord Byron, who was “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” 

(And like someone else we know.)

Maybe we’ll be honored with an OBE. Just in case, we should know the current classes.

The five classes of appointment to the Order are, from highest grade to lowest grade:

Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE) (Makes you a knight or a dame.)

Knight Commander or Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE or DBE) (Makes you a knight or a dame.)

Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)

Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)

Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)

Next, we’ll need to learn the lingo.  Here are a few of my favorite British phrases.  

“Let’s bin the whole thing.” 

“He’s a dab hand at ….” = good or skilled at, for example, cooking.  

“That’s a bit of okay.” 

“I’d done the maths.”

“But it fairly put the wind up me.” = make someone frightened or nervous.

“It’s all very well to say that ….”

“Naught point eight percent.”

“I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.” In the US we would say “I wouldn’t touch it with a five-foot pole.”

“He could drink for England.”

“Laying the table.”  In the US, we would say, “setting the table.”

Sprinkle in these words: 

Cad – bounder – rotter = bad person, listed in order of badness.

Brolly = slang for small, casual umbrella

Kitchen roll = paper towels

Serviette = napkin

Rent boy = young, male prostitute

Cheats. In the US, we say “cheaters.” Example:  “The team were cheats.”  

Remember to pronounce these tricky words like a Brit. 

Cleeuntel = clientele

Shed-yul = schedule

In my Big Picture Trilogy my protagonist lives a double life. One is in Bath, England, so I work to keep up with British slang. I hope you’ve enjoyed these. 

Best,

Lane Stone

3 comments

  1. We tend to use “brolly” for any umbrella. And an aristocrat would never use the “serviette”, always “napkin”. A lot of fun and hurrah for a new look at Downton. The house also turns up in some of the fabulous “Jeeves and Wooster” series with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

  2. This was great fun, Lane, especially the different levels of awards.

    In my Nora Tierney English Mysteries, Nora stores her son’s buggy (stroller) in her boot (trunk) of her car.

    You’re a star!

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