Americans baffled by 'posh' British behaviour which is completely normal in UK

12 March 2024 , 13:51

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Some people only say they did not realise what tea time really means in Britain (stock image) (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Anyone who is British has heard all the clichés or connotations of living in the UK - from constantly sipping cups of tea to the Royal Family or munching on fish and chips - we definitely have a lot of uniqueness.

But have you ever wondered what others really think of the Brits? Some Americans have taken to online forum site Reddit to share that they have been left stumped by what day-to-day British activities they thought were "posh", that are actually very normal.

From discovering what tea time actually means to realising that "living on an estate" does not mean you are extremely wealthy, and noticing how "rowdy" horse racing can be, some individuals were stunned by the revelations. In a thread titled 'What British thing is considered more posh by foreigners than by actual British people?', people paint a very different picture to what you would expect.

The post stated: "To give you an example, the whole tea drinking thing. Say the words 'tea time' and a lot of us Americans imagine some Victorian club full of moustachioed gentlemen being waited on by servants, or a bunch of ladies in frilly dresses and giant hats in a well-kept English garden on a fancy Victorian estate.

"We get that from the movies. Most of us won't think of some regular guy drinking tea out of a metal thermos in his work van, and are only vaguely aware that tea is universal across the board. So that's just one example. What else is there?"

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The post saw a lot of people commenting on how they thought living on the estate meant a grand estate with a country house. An American was also stunned when they realised not all houses are on cobblestone streets with Victorian street lamps.

One individual commented: "Living on an estate. To an American it conjures up an image of a country house surrounded by countryside, with groundsmen and household staff. To a Brit, it is a grey council house, surrounded by other council houses filled with k**bheads." "British people understand there's two different estate types," another said.

Another replied: "An American friend of mine told me that she'd genuinely thought until she moved to the UK that most places still looked like cobblestone village streets with Victorian street lamps and wooden window frames warmly illuminated below thatched roofs.

"She genuinely thought when she first landed at Gatwick that the plane had to land somewhere else in America due to all the concrete and block-shaped buildings stretching out into the horizon. She expected nights out to be extravagant and classy affairs with crystal glasses, spacious ballrooms, and so on, only to walk into a dingy nightclub and almost immediately have a shoe get stuck to the floor and slide off of her foot."

A few people mentioned window cleaners - most people have them in the UK. One individual wrote: "I can't remember the exact context, but I remember some poor Brit mentioning their window cleaner on some post on Reddit, and all the Americans piled in on them calling them extremely privileged etc and just wouldn't listen to them saying 'no it's pretty normal and not something only privileged people have'."

Another activity which baffled people was horse racing. They commented: "Horse racing – not particularly expensive for most tickets, some folks get absolutely sloshed and rowdy." One thing that is always attached to being posh in Britain - by many who aren't from here or live here - is teatime and scones or crumpets.

One user joked: "Crumpets - 'tea and crumpets' sounds posh but usually I'm eating crumpets as a hangover-cure breakfast haha." "Teatime is when we eat in the evening," said another. One Brit said: "Used to do that as a kid in the 90s. Sunday evenings, tea cakes and crumpets toasted on the open fire, sardines on toast and cheese and banana sandwiches. Working class family. We did it because my mum grew up and orphan in a house without electricity and it's how she made her meals. It's not a posh thing at all."

"When I eat crumpets it gets so messy and is anything but posh," said another. Others pointed out that they did not realise Stella is cheap here or often drunk. One American said: "I had Stella and thought it was incredibly sophisticated. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was commonly referred to as 'wife beater'."

"In Argentina, Stella is considered a premium lager," commented another. A Brit said: "Fish and chips. My American friends absolutely adore them and treat them as a delicacy rather than cheap - well, they used to be - food of the masses."

Would you agree with any of these? Share your thoughts in the comments below.