DaveAgain wrote:I'm really surprised by this!
Me too!
Btw, I'm sure there are lots of ridiculous American words/slang that English speakers from other countries think sound hilarious/confusing so I hope no one thinks I'm trashtalking British English.
Some words I'm familiar with from watching shows like British Top Gear (like boffins), some I can figure out either from context or the Italian version but one of the ones I can't quite figure out is Aga. It seems like it's either something related to a drying rack for clothes or a stove, but I don't remember the Italian version translating it with stendino (drying rack) or fornello. It came up a few times and now I'm wondering if the Italian version ignored it all together or possibly translated it differently each time.
There was also a sentence where a character took a shower then got a "kip". I don't know what kip means and my very helpful dictionary tells me that it's the hide of a small animal. I'm assuming that's slang for something but I can't figure out what.
The other confusing one I remember is the phrase "the media haven't cottoned on". I'm assuming cottoned on = caught on, but that just sounds like such a funny thing to say that I'm wondering if it's a typo in the book.