American visiting the UK reveals 'proper and posh' phrases his pals don't understand

An American man who's been visiting the UK has revealed three phrases he never used before coming to Britain.

TikToker Kalani Smith is a Hawaiian chap who decided to travel from his lovely island to the other side of the world and do a spot of sightseeing on our lovely island.

Like many Americans who pop over here for a visit and find Blighty to be quite delightful, Kalani has really come to like it here and has many nice things to say about the UK.

Gratifyingly, he's also told folks back across the pond that it actually does feel hotter here in summer and that the same temperature is less bearable in the UK than in the US.

He's also been very complimentary about the food. At this point, all he needs to do is point out that British teeth are 'healthier' than American ones and he could probably get fast-tracked for citizenship.

Anyhow, he's now returned to the US and said that some of the phrases he's picked up while in the UK have bamboozled his friends and family as they don't understand what he's saying.

'I fancy a takeaway'

You might know that Americans are more likely to call a takeaway 'takeout', and there was all that hullabaloo when some of them tried to pick at the phrase 'going for a Chinese'.

Kalani explained that 'in America we would never call it a takeaway', and he would never say 'I fancy something' to say he'd want it.

"Something I have noticed though is the longer I'm around Brits, the more and more my vocabulary and phrasing changes," he said of the way the UK has got into his use of language.

"So 'I fancy a takeaway' just means that you want some takeout. But the way that they say it sounds so nice and proper and posh. In the US we just don't say it that way."

After all this talk of takeaways, I actually do fancy a takeaway.

'Put the kettle on'

The kettle is a staple of the British kitchen, even for those who don't enjoy a hot beverage it's useful for when you have people round that do.

However, it's not quite as popular over in the US as they will sometimes boil water on the hob or (heaven forbid) use a microwave.

"It's a big part of British hospitality," Kalani said, demonstrating that he's learned our ways while visiting us and explaining that while some Americans do have kettles they're nowhere near as prevalent as in the UK.

"So if someone's telling you to put the kettle on you're in good standing."

'Can't be a***d'

Isn't language a wonderful thing?

"The US version of this is 'I can't be bothered', but it essentially means you don't wanna do something or you're too lazy to do something or care," the TikToker recounted on what he called a 'classic British' phrase.

This one is not so 'proper and posh', and Kalani said that when he said these things back in the US people looked 'dumbfounded'.

Fortunately, he's educating them one utterance at a time in what is basically a cultural exchange.