It turns out there are quite a few instances where you might want to clean up your vocabulary when in the presence of foreigners. A visiting Britisher once came up to me and asked, “Do you really have people in this country whose job it is to wash gullies?”
It turned out that he’d been listening to me tell a friend we really needed a “good gully washer,” as in a three inch rain.
There are other words you might want to eliminate from your vocabulary if you are visiting the United Kingdom. I cannot even bring myself to tell you what the word “dork” means in the UK. I’m just too embarrassed to say but if you get a good British slang dictionary you’ll find out for yourself that it’s a word not to be used in the presence of women.
Common phrases can get you into trouble too. When I was younger I told my grandpa about a mutual friend who experienced a bankrupting cattle trade and his banker practically, “Had a cow.”
Grandpa looked at me and said, “Well at least he knows a little something about the cattle business then.”
