Tasks and exercises

Below can be found some tasks and exercises related to well established British institutions, including commercial institutions, traditional titles, abbreviations denoting honours, etc. which have not been discussed in any detail above but are part and parcel of British life and known to most people living in the UK. We hope that by researching the topics (and information can be found readily in any good encyclopaedia or in more specialized publications) students will learn more than by studying a general text designed just to provide answers to the questions below. Students are also encouraged to compare the traditional political and other institutions, titles and honours of their native cultures with the British ones.

1. There are many traditional ways of honouring people. Although there is often talk of radically changing the system, many of the old titles are still used, e.g. people are knighted every year for their services. Answer the following questions connected with people being honoured in Britain:

1. When, in the year, do people look in the papers to see if they/their friends have been honoured for public service with a life peerage, knighthood or some lesser order?

2. What is a Life Peer?

3. Mary. Jones was knighted for her services to the Trade Union movement. What is she called?

4. Sheila Maclean's husband, Angus, was knighted for his services to industry. What is he called? And what is she called?

5. How do you generally know, from the way they are addressed in writing, that someone had been given some honour or got some professional qualification?

2. Who are the following people?

■ The Chancellor of the Exchequer

• The Home Secretary

• The Foreign Secretary

3. Identify the profession or professional institution associated with the following:

• QC

• MB

• MSc

4. Which of the military services train their officers here?

• Sandhurst

• Dartmouth

• Cranwell

5. What do the following abbreviations mean?

• NHS ■ RAF

• TUC ■ RN

• HMS ■ GP

6. What do you associate with the following long-standing brand names?

■ Bell's	■ Callard and Bowser
■ Marmite	■ Lea and Perrin's
■ Horlicks	■- Bass
■ Cadbury	■ Worthington
■ Wall's	■ Coleman
■ McVitie's

7. What do you associate with the following long-standing shop names?

■ Boots	• Selfridges	■ John Menzies
■ Harrods	■ W. H. Smith

Tasks and exercises

What would you say, if anything, in the following situations? What would a British person normally say?

1. You are in a room with a number of people. Someone who is very near you but is not looking in your direction accidentally drops some money on the ground. You want to catch their attention in order to tell them they have dropped it.

2. The same happens as in 1), except that the person is further away and is just on the point of leaving. Give a warning shout, preferably in one word.

3. You are in a crowded bus and, by accident, bump into someone, slightly upsetting their balance, in a way that can easily happen on a crowded bus.

4. The same happens as in 3) but you have clearly caused the person some pain.

5. What does the person in 4) say as they experience the pain? What is the exclamation expressing pain?

6. Your watch has stopped and so you stop a stranger in the street to ask the obvious question. What do you say?

7. Someone you do not know very well is talking to you but you are desperate to leave. The other person doesn't know it but you have a train to catch. The person is talking very quickly. What do you say when you cut short the conversation by interrupting?

8. Someone is very angry and utters a very offensive swear word. What is it likely to be? In British English, which of the following pairs of words and phrases is likely to count as the strongest?

Damn! Shit!

God! Fuck!

Bloody awful! Fucking awful!

Get the hell out of here! Bugger off.