22 Quirks British People Don't Realise Are Super Weird

Nobody understands spotted dick.

1. Using two taps instead of one.

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This one's easy to explain: We enjoy the performance of moving our hands very fast between the two horrific streams of water. We call it "tap dancing", and if you can do it well it proves you are truly British.

2. Eating something called spotted dick.

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What? It's just something soft and warm to put in your mouth.

3. Giving weirdly sexual names to food in general.

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"Fancy a big saucy banger, love, eh? Eh?"

4. Calling something that is not actually a pudding a pudding.

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For some reason Yorkshire pudding confuses the rest of the world. That's obviously their problem, not ours.

5. Calling something that appears to be a biscuit a cake.

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THEY WERE LEGALLY PROVEN TO BE CAKES BY THE HIGHEST COURT IN THE LAND, THAT IS WHAT OUR LEGAL SYSTEM IS FOR.

6. Constantly apologising.

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We apologise when someone bangs into us, when our food is cold in a restaurant, when we get into a crowded lift, when we ask for something in a shop, when we pay with change, when we can't find something in our bag, etc, etc, etc. Sorry we're weird.

7. The insane number of murders in Midsomer.

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It's just your average dark and fucked-up tiny British village.

8. British newspaper headlines.

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It's like these sort of things could only happen in Britain, but why? Why are we?

9. A weird love of queuing.

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There's a rumour that an entire section of the new British Citizenship Test will be dedicated to the art of queuing, and include a practical exam where applicants must wait for a bus that may never come without losing their shit completely.

10. Cricket.

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Hey! It's not just British people! There are loads of people around the world playing and loving cricket. It just happens to be the British people's fault that it is quite confusing.

11. Marmite.

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It was actually invented by the Victorians as a polish for horses' hooves, but then a stable boy spread it on toast and realised it was delicious and so our love of Marmite was born.

12. The thing about all the BBC channels.

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BBC 3 is online only now btw, and BBC Five is not real, but OK, we get the point. Oh, and you forgot CBBC, CBeebies, and BBC Alba.

13. "Bollocks."

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It can be the highest compliment, an insult, an expression of frustration. Truly one of the most useful words in the English language.

14. The question of what exactly is going on with these hats.

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They're called the Grenadier Guards, and fyi those aren't hats, they're black cats that have been trained to sit on the soldiers' heads. It's an ancient British tradition.

15. British place names, lol.

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

16. Oh, yeah, and British celebrity names.

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What's wrong with the name Bodysnatch Cummerbund? I mean Buffalo Custardbath? I mean Bumblesnuff Crimpysnitch? I mean Brendadirk Cramplescrunch?

17. The whole "teeny-tiny nation with 1 million different accents" thing.

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Basically what happened was that in the year 991AD King Egglemund the Unruly ordered all British people to put on a funny voice for his amusement and they just sort of stuck.

18. Ending all phone calls to the gas people/broadband people/tax people/doctor/council/funeral director with these three words.

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It's a compulsion. We can't not say it.

19. Drinking tea. All. The. Damn. Time.

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It is taken so seriously there are science textbooks dedicated to it and British children can even do a GCSE in tea making.

20. Mint sauce.

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People don't understand why we would make a sauce out of mint, but we say: Why wouldn't you make a sauce out of mint when it goes so bloody well with roast lamb? Ha. Answer that.

21. Creative swearing.

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Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, cockwomble. We have a strong and proud literary heritage, and we put it to good use.

22. Brown sauce.

Twitter: @LindyMean

Um, yeah, that thing we said about the strong and proud literary heritage – it doesn't really apply to "brown sauce".