Learning any language is hard, but learning English can be especially challenging. Why? Because native speakers use the language in ways that textbooks could never describe. In particular, words that British people use cause many language students to scratch their heads.
Here' s an example: You overhear a Briton calling someone a " wazzock" . But what exactly is a wazzock? This word, in fact, means a foolish person, although there' s nothing about it that would help you guess that. There are many strange terms like this in British English — the Oxford English Dictionary would be much smaller without these odd usages filling its pages.
How can these odd words be explained? Part of the answer is the British sense of humor. Britons don' t like to take things too seriously, and this is evident through many British words and phrases. For example, to " spend a penny" means to use the bathroom. It refers to the days when people had to pay a penny to use a public toilet.
In an interview for the BBC' s website, British linguist David Crystal suggested there may be historical reasons for the large number of odd words and phrases in British English. He thinks that they began in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This was a great age for the theater, when Shakespear e and other writers worked hard to keep up with the demand for new plays. The theater' s popularity also created an incentive to invent new words. With this in mind, perhaps Shakespeare and his peers are to blame for unusual British words such as " codswallop" and " balderdash" — which both, mean " nonsense" .
While these strange words may be confusing to non-native speakers, they certainly make studying English a lot more interesting.
