“England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” That quote, often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, but sometimes also to Oscar Wilde, is one of my husband’s favourites. Most of us are aware of the well-known differences – lorry instead of truck, torch instead of flashlight, courgette instead of zucchini. It is when a familiar word or phrase has a different meaning that signals can become crossed.

My first experience of this phenomenon came the day my husband moved into our new home. I was still in the U.S. while my spouse visa was processing and was eagerly awaiting his phone call telling me how the move had gone and what he thought of our little house, now that he was actually in residence. When the anticipated call finally came he reported that all had gone well, and that the next door neighbours were extremely friendly – even bringing over cups of coffee and tea throughout the day. They had chatted a bit and my husband had told them we were newly married and I would be joining him as soon as my visa was approved. That evening they returned with a welcome card and, as my husband phrased it, “a pot plant”.

Now, in the U.S. the first thing you think of when someone says “a pot plant” is marijuana, so immediately I had an image of my new next-door neighbours as an ageing hippie couple with a small patch of cannabis growing out in their back garden. Did he really say they brought him a pot plant?

“They brought you a what?” I demanded.

“A pot plant. I’m not sure what it is. It’s got some sort of pinkish flowers on it.” My husband doesn’t know flowers, having once identified gladiolas as iris. It’s one of the few areas where my font of knowledge actually exceeds his, and I therefore find it very endearing.

“Oh, you mean a potted plant.” The light bulb went on. “I was about to tell you not to eat any of their cakes if they brought some over.”

So it turns out that in the UK a pot plant is just a plant in a pot, what we in the States call the aforementioned potted plant. It’s a little thing, but not understanding that subtle difference can lead to sending quite the wrong message indeed.

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The second surprising language misunderstanding came shortly after I arrived in my new home. It was July and all of Britain was sweltering through the hottest summer in a decade. My husband and I were finding it hard to buckle down to the newlywed chores of furniture shopping and home decorating, and we frequently chucked the whole business and headed off on some sightseeing excursion. I was eager to take in all the beautiful sites and historical monuments that seem to be everywhere you look in the U.K., and my husband was only too happy to share his favourite places with me.

On this particular Sunday he took me to the World Heritage and National Trust site of Avebury. For those of you who have never heard of it, Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles around the village of, you guessed it, Avebury. Stonehenge is the more famous monument, also in Wiltshire, but at Stonehenge you are kept well back from the stones and not allowed to get very close. At Avebury you can actually walk through the fields where the stones are standing, stroll right up to them, touch them, lean against them. You’re not kept back taking photos from afar with a tour bus load of people crowding you. You’re standing in the fields with sheep grazing all around you, and you’re actually touching these ancient bits of history.

The day we were there grey clouds were scudding dramatically across the sky, and although it wasn’t cold there was a brisk breeze whipping the grass. It all added to the drama of that ancient monument and I was blissfully enjoying our hike around the henges (a henge is a bank and a ditch) and hills, still marveling at the incredible beauty and amazed that I actually was here, married, living in the UK with these remnants of previous civilizations practically at my back door.

We’d hiked around to the top of a hill that gave us sweeping views of the stone circles and nearby Silbury Hill, an artificial chalk mound. It also gave us a view of a storm moving swiftly toward us. My husband cocked his weather eye at the clouds that seemed to be racing in our direction and said, “We’re never going to outrun that.”

Still, we gave it our best shot, racing downward, laughing and dodging sheep, trying to outrun the clouds. The downpour overtook us before we reached the bottom, and by the time we ducked beneath the tree canopy we were both soaked. Ah, but we were newly married and dewy-eyed, and all was a joyful adventure. We were happy, although damp, and stood there gazing with wonder at the power displayed in that brief, sudden summer storm. It passed quickly and we resumed our walk back toward the village.

The grass was nearly waist high on either side of the pathway, and by the time we reached the village my jeans were soaked. With each step it felt like I was lifting an extra ten pounds of wet denim. My husband sauntered along in his all-weather gear, the ever prepared experienced hill walker, his drip dry clothing quickly drip drying in the breeze.

By the time we reached the village it was late enough that we decided to eat at the pub before heading for home. We were seated at a quiet table for two in front of the fireplace. The salmon was delicious, and the cheese plate served afterward was just the thing to make one feel warm and mellow and gaze upon the world with satisfaction. Even my jeans began to dry out. It was the perfect end to the perfect day. Romance was in the air.

I gazed into my husband’s eyes, leaned closer across the table…and said, “If we’re going to do this on a regular basis I’m going to need some waterproof underwear.”

OK, what I actually said was, “If we’re going to do this on a regular basis I’m going to need some waterproof pants.” However, to the English the word “pants” refers to underwear. When he managed to stop laughing my husband explained that the correct word for me to have used was “trousers”.

It just goes to show how a subtle difference in language usage between countries can cause us to be the unwitting source of a great deal of amusement for the locals.

By the way, I still don’t have any waterproof trousers…or pants, for that matter.