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The How to be British Collection by Martyn Alexander Ford, Peter Christopher Legon (Spiral Bound, 2003)

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Author(s): Martyn Ford, Peter Legon. Title: The How to be British Collection. Binding: Hardcover.

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About this product

Product Information

A perennially popular collection of colour cartoon illustrations, with accompanying texts, on the endearing oddities of our British life and character. Drawing on their many years' experience of teaching English as a Foreign Language the authors also offer the wider world a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to get around in English and at the same time make sense of our 'funny ways'. It's a gentle brand of satire, and although there's the occasional barbed arrow for bland food, fashion disasters or dubious standards of hygiene, the tone of The How To Be British Collection is more nostalgic than scornful, and the pet-loving, royal-watching, tea drinking characters that populate its pages are viewed with wry affection. Cartoons like How to be Polite and How to Complain have been reproduced in publications all over the world, perhaps because they put a finger on that peculiar tentativeness that foreigners find so puzzling (and so funny) about us. In order to be British, or at any rate to pass unnoticed in British society, the visitor must learn not to 'make a fuss'. A fuss is something that the true Brit cannot stand. It is nearly as bad as a 'scene', and in the same category as 'drawing attention to yourself'. In the first frame of How To Be Polite, a man -- presumably an uninitiated foreign visitor -- has fallen into a river. He's clearly in trouble and is shouting HELP! -- at the top of his voice, judging by the speech bubble. An English gentleman is walking his dog along the river bank. There's a lifebelt prominently displayed beside them, but the gent and his dog are walking away from the emergency with disapproving expressions. In the next frame, the man in the river has changed his strategy and is calling out: Excuse me, Sir. I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you would mind helping me a moment, as long as it's no trouble, of course... . And this time, naturally, the English gent is rushing to his aid, throwing the lifebelt into the water. Even the dog is smiling. Much of the material in The How to be British Collection is about how cultural differences can prove a minefield for the unwary. To that extent its appeal - in an age where so many of us travel and even set up home overseas - is universal. Every visitor to Britain comes knowing that our favourite conversational gambit is the weather. But how many can successfully do it at 1) Elementary 2) Intermediate and 3) Advanced levels? The book's enduring popularity comes from the recognition factor -- how exposed we can be once we stray away from the comfort zone of our own native language. A hapless visitor, phrase book in hand, stops to ask an old lady in the street for directions. He looks pleased with himself for phrasing the question so nicely, but then is utterly at a loss to understand her long, rambling, minutely detailed reply. We've all been there. To help the poor innocent abroad around these cultural and linguistic booby-traps, the book includes on most pages collectible Expressions to learn and (of course) Expressions to avoid. Thus, under the entry for Real English, which negotiates the difficult area of colloquial speech including idioms, slang and even the occasional taboo word, as used by flesh and blood native speakers we find -- Expressions to learn: 'E nicked it off of a lorry and now the coppers 'ave done 'im for it. Expressions to avoid: That's not correct English, Mrs. Jones -- it says so here in my grammar book .

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Lee Gone Publications
ISBN-13
9780952287018
eBay Product ID (ePID)
87831483

Product Key Features

Book Title
The How to Be British Collection
Author
Martyn Alexander Ford, Peter Christopher Legon
Format
Spiral Bound
Language
English
Publication Year
2003
Genre
Humor
Number of Pages
64 Pages

Dimensions

Item Height
120mm
Item Width
176mm

Additional Product Features

Title_Author
Peter Christopher Legon, Martyn Alexander Ford
Country/Region of Manufacture
United Kingdom

4.5

4.5 out of 5 stars based on 2 product ratings

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Most relevant reviews

4 out of 5 stars
by mLlEosSmTZW@Del...01 Aug, 2011
I like it so much that I bought another copy for a friend as a gift.
In spite of its title, this is not a real how-to book. It is a tongue-in-cheek take on the British culture. The author both follows the stereotypes people have about Great Britain, and at the same time, presents the contrasting pictures of the modern UK, commercialised by tourism . It seems to aim at foreigners who are curious about what it is like to live in the UK, but can be enjoyed by the British with a good sense of humour. It contains short passages and colourful illustrations, good as a fun gift or light reading.
5 out of 5 stars
by doreedalliso-019 Dec, 2019
A good humorous look at British life.
Great British Humour and Clean. It made me smile a lot.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New

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