No Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom

At the library, I see a lot of books, tapes, cds and playaways that teach Spanish, Greek, German, Russian, etc. But I have seen nothing that instructs Americans how to speak British. Seems like that might be a preferred skill in today's global market. Let's say I'm a paper clip salesman in Chicago and I have a client in Manchester. How can I even begin to relate to these "blokes" across the ocean? True, I do have some English heritage, but my family's been removed from the motherland for over 200 years. How do I learn to communicate with Union Jack?

I'll tell you how. You pay attention to the ESPN Gamecasts of soccer games, reported by on-the-scene British reporters.
Yesterday, I was watching the online commentary of the Chelsea-Barcelona Champions League game...and I learned all kinds of new vocabulary. Here are some precious snippets:

29th minute: Ballack clatters Henry and is booked following the collision of egos.
36th minute: Some argy-bargy going on between Alves and Drogba.
38th minute: Alves and Malouda are also arguing with each other. The stroppiness might make this a little more interesting.
78th minute: Drogba is writhing following a tackle from Puyol. If it were still the 80s, he could have a second career as a body-popper.

You have just added four new words to your British vocabulary! To review, they are:
- clatter, argy-bargy, stroppiness, body-popper

Keep studying up! If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding!