Yesterday I told you about an A+ book, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society by Christine Coleman. The story is set in England and contained many colloquial words I didn’t know. My regular dictionaries didn’t carry them so I resorted to the Urban Dictionary.
Here are a couple:
1. recce: Well, there was no one to hold her back now. She must go on a recce to get the facts.
Recce is a slang term for reconnaisance. In other word, scouting out a location.
2. tannoy: This part of railway-land was a kind of limbo: exposed to the open sky, and almost out of earshot of the occasional crackling tannoy announcements.
The Urban Dictionary refers to the word as tube tannoy. It’s a system of stiff, pre-recorded announcements on the tube or subway.
Reading stories from other countries is part of the adventure of reading. Learning the words is just part of it. Thanks so much to Kathy of Bermuda Onion’s Weblog for hosting this weekly feature.
I love learning new words from the urban dictionary! I hope I can remember tannoy and use it the next time it’s appropriate. Thanks for being such a loyal participant, Margot!
I love the word recce. I see it all the time in the British mysteries. I just love the way they talk. I’m still not sure about the word “jumper” however – I guess it is supposed to mean sweater, but from descriptions in books, it doesn’t sound like sweaters we have over here….
This made me laugh. I read Bill Bryson’s “Notes From A Small Island” last year which is all about his thoughts on traveling through Britain before moving back to America after many years abroad. He used all British phrases and terms without translating for American-speak – probably because it was written for a British audience. Lucky for me I read it for an online book group who is largely based in Britain. They set up a topic for me to post vocabulary translation questions as I read along and it was funny to learn the different words we use to describe the same things.
I made a list new to us British English terms and words when we were there, but neither of these was on it!
I love the urban dictionary, don’t you? I didn’t know either of your words. That sounds like such an intriguing book!
I’m so going to use recce. I love to use reconnaisance but this one is faster!
The thing you need to know about tannoy annoucements is that you can’t make out any of the words – they’re loud, but the words are all muffled and full of cracklings and odd noises and a bit echoing. They’re useless.