Many Canadian and American tourists are drawn to England because they think they know the language, but when you see seven women from Buffalo in a pub in Bloomsbury, looking at each other in fear while the barman waits for their order, you know they need help.
Londoners are under the illusion that all the English speak the same language, that the old dialects have been dissolved into something called "estuary English," the sounds made by natives of the Thames estuary, has now become universal.
If you believe this, spend an hour in a betting shop in Birmingham, only 160 kilometres from London. You won't understand a word they are saying. You will need help, and not just in Birmingham.
Hemingway remarked about 80 years ago that the English upper classes employ a tiny, highly inflected vocabulary — like the Eskimos, he said.
This is still true, and useful, and it applies to all classes.
Brilliant's many meanings
The most highly inflected word in use in England is "brilliant." At one time, the word meant "astonishing," "amazing," "dazzling." Some time ago, it evolved into an editorial comment for all situations. With a positive edge, it means, still, "Sir, you have made the problem clear (and solved it) and I understand every word." More commonly it has a harder edge, as in, "Did you really put your passport in your outside jacket pocket while you were on a subway train in Madrid?" At its most highly inflected it becomes a bark of despair, when, say, the waiter spills the soup over your pants.
"Brilliant," then, will respond to any situation, depending on your inflection.
Cheers all round
Equally useful is "cheers." "Brilliant" is a comment, "Cheers" is not a comment on anything. For the natives, it is a universal grunt of good will. You can use it in a bar as you approach the counter, when you leave, and in between when you are manoeuvring with your hands full of Guinness through the Saturday-night crowd around the bar. Kingsley Amis devoted half a page in one book to characters saying "cheers" to each other. It means nothing, signifying only a minimum recognition that someone else exists.
The real test: pubs
"Brilliant" and "cheers", then, will get you through most situations in the United Kingdom (though not in Ireland, where they like a bit of chat), but if you want to feel at home, try this. Soon after you arrive, you will try to experience the famous British pubs, and think, from watching Coronation Street, that you know how it's done. Almost certainly you will want to show your learning by asking for a pint of bitter. The barman will then point to the 11 pump handles sticking out of the bar and ask, "Which one, guv?" You might make one more try at looking like an insider, and say, "The local one."
"There isn't actually a brewery in Piccadilly Circus," he will say, and wink at the regulars, listening around the bar. So now you just point at the most authentic-looking handle and he will draw you a lukewarm pint of the kind of cider drunk by women and adolescents.
The thing to ask for if you want to look knowledgeable is "mild." The young barman may not know what you are talking about, and he certainly won't have it on tap. Mild ale was once the cheapest draft beer in the land, the staple of farmhand and navvy, thin, dark, and delicious. Today, there are so-called connoisseurs of draft beer, the "real ale" snobs, who have never tasted mild, and for you to ask for it, and above all to be able to explain to a barman what it is, is to put you one up for the evening.
The local lexicon
