I kept getting sidetracked when reading Ben Aaronovitch’s Broken Homes because I was curious about Peter Grant’s British-isms even when context made the meaning clear. I kept my phone open to Wikipedia and Google and Dictionary and after a few hours reading as much online as in the book I decided to emulate Peter and note down what I found. Then I read the book all the way through again without stopping – it is that good!
Kathy’s Guide to Peter Grant’s British-isms
Breeze Block = this one is grand. It’s a cement block, and after living through 20 Michigan winters in a cement block house, “breeze block” is the perfect name.
Crittal strip window. Crittal is an English window manufacturer, so I’m guessing this is a narrow transom window.
Damp Course = this one turned out to be my ignorance of building, not a British-ism at all. It’s the waterproof layer one puts in a house.
Flat Packed Furniture = knocked down, stuff you buy in a box and assemble per the easy instructions.
Muggins = myself, me.
Mullered = beat up.
“Isn’t It” = rhetorical type question, way to end a statement without actually saying “duh, you dummy”.
Shebeen = pretty darn informal market, originally one selling unlicensed liquor
Tin = can. (Yes, I know, anyone who reads any books by English novelists should know this one!)
Jam & Suet Pudding = Sort of a cross between jelly roll, pastry and lard in a steamed dessert. You make a pastry using suet (the cow version of lard and just as healthy), roll up with jam, then steam over boiling water. Remember our English friends call desserts “puddings” and cookies are “biscuits”. (Before I read the recipe I feared it might be a jam version of Eskimo ice cream. Luckily for our English friends’ health, not so.)
Fried Slice = fried piece of bread. Really. Think of French toast but without the egg coating.
Candy Floss = cotton candy.
75 Inch Samsung Television in a Poor Person’s Apartment = Clue that said poor person might be collecting televisions that fall off trucks (or lorries).
Garden = yard, as in your front / side / back yard with lawn, bushes, trees and maybe a garden.
Krio = a real language, sort of a pidgin that Sierra Leone residents who originally migrated from Nova Scotia, ex slaves and similar developed.
Jumper = sweater. This one used to throw me until I looked it up. We call sleeveless dresses you wear over turtlenecks “jumpers” and they are ladies’ wear, not for men. English men wear jumpers that are crew neck sweaters.
Artic = a type of articulated bus.
Lorry = truck. This is one of the basics, like Hoovering for vacuuming or loo for bathroom.
Biro = ball point pen, so named because a gentleman named Biro invented them!
Council Housing = subsidized housing. This was a fascinating topic, interesting to see differences between English and American solutions to house poorer people. The town we lived in had subsidized housing but it looked just like regular apartment buildings, or sometimes people got vouchers (or equivalent) to rent a house. It’s a little different in big cities where well-meaning planners built huge housing projects that today sadly sometimes are assaulted by gangs and may be rather nasty and unsafe.
Per Wikipedia at one time about 25% of all families lived in council housing; I don’t think it was ever so high here. From the photos and descriptions council housing ranged from individual houses to more commonly duplexes, 4-apartment buildings and on up. Enormous complexes like Sky Garden apparently got a bad rep, just as the mammoth projects did in the US.
Semi = duplex, two houses stuck together, often mirror images of each other.
Terrace Housing = town house, two story apartments built together in a single structure, each separate entrance.
Estates, as in Council Estates, to Live on an Estate = I’m not sure why the names include “estates” but it apparently refers to a group of homes of any design that are managed together. I thought this was an odd term, and to live on an estate sounded strange to my ears. My guess is that the term drifted over from the old lord of the manor who had his tenant farmers who lived on his estate.
Sink Estate = really bad locale, don’t go after dark type of council estate.
There you have it, British decoded for American ears. Now back to the book…
Leave a Reply