Tubs, Madam!

Cultures are a funny thing. Just when you think you’ve got a good grip on one, something crops up to remind you just how far off base you can be. Usually it’s an embarrassing slap in the face.

My first day in England, I was wandering around my new town, getting myself oriented, when I spied a gorgeous corner Jacuzzi bathtub in the window of a Dolphin Bath Shop. I decided to go in to have a closer look.

No sooner had I found my dream bath and was having visions of myself luxuriating in the spa, than a saleswoman began to zero in on me. She was the typical picture of the prim and proper, dignified English woman, in her tweed skirt and silk blouse, except that she was also a bust size 48EE, easily. As she strolled up to me, she asked, “May I help you?”

Well, since I couldn’t yet afford this lovely bath I was drooling all over, I replied, “No thank you. I’m just admiring your tubs. They really are exceptional!”

For some reason, the woman’s face turned crimson and the English friend I was with grabbed my wrist and immediately yanked me out of the store and onto the street, pulling my arm out of the socket in the process.

“What!?” I asked.

“Why did you say that!?”

“Say what?” My naïveté was evident.

“Why did you say you were ogling her tubs?”

“Ummmmm…. Because I was? Is that against the law?”

Although the saleswoman was very dignified and likely wearing an armour-plated Maidenform bra, like I said, she was easily a very large 48EE.

And what I didn’t realise is that in the United Kingdom “tubs” are slang for breasts.

When I realised this, of course I was looking for the trap door in the sidewalk to swallow me up.

Well, they have a saying here in the UK which goes, “Start as you mean to go on…”.

So, having started off on an embarrassing foot, culturally, I can only say I must have meant to continue in the same vein one day when I was at work and the woman at the desk next to me decided to tell me about her daughter.

“She’s a right madam”, she said.

Being from the United States, the only “Madam” I know of is the manager of a brothel. I find it curiously interesting that this woman is so relaxed and open about her daughter’s profession, because, to the best of my knowledge, prostitution is illegal in the United Kingdom, but she’s talking about it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Really?” I ask. “Tell me about her.”

“Oh, yes”, she said. “She’s always on her high horse.”

Hmmm… If this woman runs a brothel, then either she must have a high and mighty attitude about it, or else she has some kind of interesting hobby horse I probably don’t want to know about. Sometimes cultures can be tricky. Not being quite sure yet what her meaning was, I said, “Interesting. Tell me more.”

“Well she’s forever getting into trouble!”

Well, of course she would, wouldn’t she, breaking the law like that! What does she expect?

I said to her, “I find it curiously interesting that you’re so relaxed about your daughter’s profession. How long has she owned a brothel and is it in London where the rest of your family is?”

Ever have one of those lightbulb moments?

After picking herself up off the floor, my work colleague explained to me that in the UK, a little madam is a female child (or an adult, for that matter) with a selfish, stroppy, tantrum-like attitude and has nothing whatsoever to do with a house of ill repute.

Good thing she’s not up-the-duff.

Here’s another confusing one for my non-British mates. If something in the UK is awful, we say that it is “pants” or “bollocks”. However, if something is totally awesome, we say that it is “the dog’s bollocks”.

Now I’ve asked several Brits (English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh alike) and none of them seem to have an answer. Why is it that if something is exceedingly great, it is described as being a sweaty, hairy, gross pair of canine genitalia?

Cultures. :-)