frongus by scrongusi fucking love realising how batshit britishisms are thru the lens of Everyone Else
why yes, we are creepy weirdos, thank u for highlighting
Tess, Joint Chief of Stiff@seafrog I have literally never heard anyone say that and I'd be so freaked out by that.
@diffractie time 2 invite tess for tea
masto certified hot wife 🧿@diffractie @seafrog me neither, I just thought it was a shitpost to mock weird British things and now I'm like oh man, we're even weirder than I thought
@PublicChaffinch @diffractie omg what. you guys are making me doubt myself lmao I've heard it a whole bunch
Matt Madell (He/Him)@seafrog @PublicChaffinch @diffractie I am having the same response to the opposite. People actually say this? Is it geographical? I'm south east of England.
Scornflakegrrrl@diffractie @seafrog I thought it was just me
who is morgan@seafrog wh. what
@ItsMorgan it's like a tongue-in-cheek "oh go on then you pretend like you're mum sharing everything out" and i always found it quite sweet, but they're absolutely right it's actually haunted as fuck and i love that for us
dezi@seafrog @PublicChaffinch I know I’m being picky, but I always said « shall I be Mother? » before pouring.
Which has a whole other context I suppose.
@sdm @PublicChaffinch yeah somehow it feels much less creepy that way round!!
@seafrog @PublicChaffinch I always thought it was a sweet, rather old-fashioned thing to say (and apparently according to my British-Danish partner, very UC).
@sdm @PublicChaffinch Me too, just a quaint cute thing! (sorry, what's UC?)
@seafrog @PublicChaffinch upper class (as a linguistic term, UC vs LC)
@sdm @PublicChaffinch Oh gotcha!! yeah you're probably right, i've likely picked it up from the poshos lmao
@seafrog @PublicChaffinch I definitely did. My late partner was RAF and from a wealthy family and I sat French lit at Cambridge. Posh was forced upon me.
James Baillie@sdm @seafrog @PublicChaffinch My family say "shall I be mother" and we're I guess broadly liberal-left rural middle class (teachers/academics in the last generation or so, grandparents were first university generation).
👻™ supreme goblin 🐊@seafrog I get this one, like, I understand how someone could come to that being a phrase and I see the context and all that, like, objectively this makes sense as a thing to say
But SUBJECTIVELY what the FUCK???
@coriander LMAOOO RIGHT??
charlag@seafrog as a non-native speaker I'm just confused af
@charlag would you like it explained? 💚
@seafrog please!!
@charlag if someone says "shall i be mother?" it means "shall i pour all the tea for everyone/serve the cake?" Like you're playing mother to everyone, or like when small children play at families.
So if someone says "Will you be mother?", they're asking you to pour the tea or serve the cake or similar 😊
@charlag and it's usually used in a jokey or light-hearted way
@seafrog but why dolls??
@seafrog thanks btw
@charlag OH i see! I think it's referring to haunted dolls from films who might turn to you and say "will you be my mother?" and it's very spooky :P
personally, it reminds me of the dr who (#10) episodes with the gas masks, if you've seen that
Oblomov
Fish Id Wardrobe@seafrog It's more done ironically these days. But it certainly used to be a normal (if upper class) thing, say, 50 years ago.
@fishidwardrobe Yeah i feel like it's used more like "More tea, vicar?", very tongue in cheek
@seafrog They are very much from the same scene in the same sort of Edwardian play.
Caleb@seafrog this is weird, slightly funny, but absolutely untrue. What we actually say is "oi oi piffle poffle cuthbert dibble and grub"
@MrMisfit you're absolutely right
Mr. Q The Pizza Demon@seafrog fucked up little island you all have yourselves there
@radicalrobit sticking this reply up on the fridge along with the 'normal island' meme
Alex R@seafrog I confused and alarmed my Irish partner when I picked up the teapot and said ‘shall I be mother’
Queen Faun@seafrog It is deeply weird, but I have heard people say it, and it crops up on tv every so often as well
@ackthrice love to be deeply weird sometimes
Harry@seafrog I’ve never heard this phrase, the fuck?!?! But also…I think in the same instance people don’t grasp the perfection with which British people will understate something. Ie, “it’s a bit dodgy at the moment” = shit is hitting the fucking fan and we’re about to die
Nick@seafrog Never heard this expression! Are there still any of us Brits out there using teapots instead of just making a brew with a kettle and tea bags?
@stereopixels mostly i default to kettle & teabags but when my family have big get-togethers the older generations will sometimes get a teapot out! which is quite good fun
@seafrog well I feel like I'm missing out now! On the topic of tea and fun though sometimes I drink it out of a bone china cup with a saucer which I feel sure makes it taste better.
@stereopixels oh yeah, gotta have some ceremony to it sometimes just for fun
PinkColl@seafrog I've never heard this. I think I'm probably not posh enough 😆
We tend to just yell into the kitchen "Make me a brew while you're in there".
berko / בערקאָ@seafrog I’ll be mother today, if you’ll be mother tomorrow!
Fool on the hill@seafrog
Did you know that in England an intellectual is a man (sorry!) who when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, resists the temptation to put it on his head.
A tea cosy is like a tiny sweater for teapots!
Melissa@seafrog I just had to Google to verify that it’s not satire 🤯
引发洪水@seafrog hey what the fuck
@ArachnoCommunist this is the response i aim for
Stable Jenious@seafrog lmao Elise I just read this entire thread and it's branches and I love how delighted you are at everyone else exclaiming WTF
@ItsJenNotGabby i fuckin love weird human behaviours that were thought entirely commonplace, i find it utterly delightful to discover that we are all just very strange and unaware of it!!
i also love watching other people do it, like with the potato allergy person:
@seafrog the potato sweats lmfao
meanwhile I had a student asst one year who FOR BREAKFAST before a day game ordered mashed potatoes with a side of fries. And that's all she ate lmao