She also gave me this which I would have no way of knowing otherwise. (I will paraphrase her as we were being uber bitchy about our fanfiction tastes and I promised my flist an f-locked post to do so in relative private).
My first reaction was "THAT'S JUST SICK! You can't drink coffee with pie! Surely it's pie and a pint if you have to specify a beverage!" Then I realised that in this case, "pie" meant "CAKE!" Pie, over here, unless you specify otherwise, likely contains steak and ale. Or chicken and mushroom. Or ham and leek. Lovely, savoury awesome-filled pies. English people have tea and biscuits. Or go for afternoon tea. Or, if you're in a rush/strapped for cash, tea and cake. Having "coffee" is something you do with friends you don't really have any intention of seeing ever again ("Yeah, let's go for coffee sometime") or as a euphemism for sex ("You want to come up for 'coffee' *nudge nudge wink wink*?)
Misuse of "mate" is another big one. We use "mate" all the time. Though I suppose it's the equivalent of the American "pal". The problem is, it's not really logically used so although you'd say "You alright, mate!" or "I'm just going out with my mates", you'd never say "Hi, mates!" or "I'm just going out with my mate." English people are weird.
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Here's an example from a Sherlock fanfic: "How about we go to that café there [...] and you can tell us what happened two nights ago over coffee and pie."
My first reaction was "THAT'S JUST SICK! You can't drink coffee with pie! Surely it's pie and a pint if you have to specify a beverage!" Then I realised that in this case, "pie" meant "CAKE!" Pie, over here, unless you specify otherwise, likely contains steak and ale. Or chicken and mushroom. Or ham and leek. Lovely, savoury awesome-filled pies. English people have tea and biscuits. Or go for afternoon tea. Or, if you're in a rush/strapped for cash, tea and cake. Having "coffee" is something you do with friends you don't really have any intention of seeing ever again ("Yeah, let's go for coffee sometime") or as a euphemism for sex ("You want to come up for 'coffee' *nudge nudge wink wink*?)
Misuse of "mate" is another big one. We use "mate" all the time. Though I suppose it's the equivalent of the American "pal". The problem is, it's not really logically used so although you'd say "You alright, mate!" or "I'm just going out with my mates", you'd never say "Hi, mates!" or "I'm just going out with my mate." English people are weird.