Excuse me?

Every day we hear words spoken in the English language but we can only guess at their meaning. The English use a lot of words that we know the meaning of, but may use in a different way. We are always commenting between ourselves about the way they phrase certain things. Even the road signs sometimes puzzle us, but are easier to "read" when accompanied by pictures. Sometimes I can grab a photo, but usually traffic prevents me.

slow down?

For example, one signs says "try your brakes." To my American ears, that would suggest tapping my brakes to see if they are working. However, I learned that it means "try brakes after crossing a ford or before descending a steep hill" and there are plenty of both around here!


I'm not familiar with "chippings" but I can guess by the drawing that it means loose rocks or gravel. Today we saw a sign that read "roads liable to subsidence." What??

loose chippings

Love this one - surely "dual carriageway" means a two-lane highway. It's been a long time since carriages have ridden on these roads!

dual carriageway ends

I suppose that "queues likely" should cause one to expect that traffic will probably back up.

set down point (could it mean drop off?)

zebra crossing = pedestrian crossing

we would say "park strollers here"

Detour?

we know them as shopping carts

no dumping trash in this field  (i had to have help on this one)

ice warning

Yield

Since so many of the buildings here are centuries old, the clearances on doorways are usually several inches shorter than modern day folks need. Even our apartment has "mind your head" signs going in and out of the bathroom to remind us not to knock ourselves silly! So we've gotten quite used to seeing and hearing "mind your head" or "mind your step" or if walking onto a train "mind the gap." This past weekend when we were at Cogges farm, our guide kindly instructed us to "mind the poo." It sounded so much more polite than "don't step in that ...!!"

and we see a lot of these!