British English editing for Yanks

Phyrebrat said:
No No No; tea is made in a pot and poured first into a very thin china cup then milk added (preferably red milk); Dinner is evening meal; and supper is what you eat to make you hungry in preparation for breakfast the next day.

see? SMH

pH
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Ever so sorry to go back so far but I'm late to this discussion (and it's totes amazeballs IMO;))
But I just had to comment ... I'm afraid you are mistaken Phyrebrat - it clearly should be green milk in tea (although my other half prefers the blue which is almost as wrong as red!)
Rather keen on your theory of supper though - makes some camembert, a tea-cake and a Feast all seem perfectly reasonable!
 
My Godfathers. No. Only blue milk. For everything. Green and red milk isn't even milk. It's water that somebody's tried to wash a paintbrush off in.

(And Phyrebrat, red milk?? WTBF?)
 
Blimey, what a to-do! Blue milk is fine for cereal and coffee but tea is definitely green. (Am also echoing the WTBF? Sorry Phyrebrat)

Mind you, had a bit of a moment in Tesco the other day as their blue and green milk both have lilac lids. (First world problems?)
 
Did no one notice that Phyrebrat wanted to pour hot tea, and then add the milk? Into fine china? Maybe in thicker ceramics, but not in your fine china tea cup!

We have red milk, sometimes green if I can talk people into it, and that's only as a compromise as I'd rather have blue. Just occasionally I get Jersey gold top.
 
Mouse said:
My Godfathers. No. Only blue milk. For everything. Green and red milk isn't even milk. It's water that somebody's tried to wash a paintbrush off in.

(And Phyrebrat, red milk?? WTBF?)
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I have to agree about red milk, but your blue milk is nasty. Green is the only thing I can stand. UK green milk is 1.7%, right? The closest American equivalent is 2% (which is almost always bottled with a blue top, just to make things confusing).
 
Blue milk's full fat milk. Anything else is watered down and doesn't actually taste like milk. I drink raw milk too. And have raw cream.

Erm... on topic... I won the jumper vs sweater battle and I get to keep jumper! I didn't win B&B though and have to have B and B. :(
 
Well, it's "full fat" milk that never has any "top of the milk" on... er... top.


It's so long ago that I saw any "top of the milk", I'm beginning to think that it's a false memory produced by my elderly brain's dreams of a former golden (top) age.
 
I remember having to shake the bottles up, ah. And frozen milk in the winter.
 
I still get proper milk. Glass bottle. Delivered to the door. Silver top is the only way (full fat) which has cream on top. Others half red and silver stripey skimmed milk and if I am feeling in the mood I'll ask for some gold top creamy milky goodness! Plastic bottled milk is eugh, and if I have to get it I get gold top as that is the closest to my glass silver top :)
 
Ok, I'm glad someone finally cleared it up that you're talking about the lids, not the milk itself. I was beginning to wonder what on earth you people were doing to the milk!

So yes, American milk would be red=3% or "full fat" that doesn't have any actual cream on top, blue=2%, and ...err... pink maybe?=1% or water with a little white coloring added. I can't even remember what color 1% has, as I would never buy that. We're actually used to the 2% now, but I prefer the regular stuff -- in truth, I would prefer to get it from the dairy with 3 inches of cream on top, like we did when I was little, but that's difficult now if not impossible. But since I'm not the one who drinks nearly all of the milk, I don't care if it's 2%.
 
Another little ditty I remembered after stumbling across it again recently. AE: to pry. BE: to prise. Every time I see the BE version 'prising' I think of 'prissy' for some reason and wonder why people are getting prissy with a door or jar.
 
Actually, as far as I'm aware, BE would be pries. That's what I used in my novel anyway and my (US) editor did go through and change it all to 'pry.'
 
In BE the verb is "to prise" when talking about levering and "to pry" when talking about nosing into someone else's affairs.

But I have come across a tool called a "pry-bar", which was meant for the first task rather than the second. (I assume, since it was just a steel rod with no listening device attached.)
 
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