Going potty over a fag.
One of my favorite things here in the UK is giggling at their commercials. You see, in the UK, some words mean very different things. They use the phrase "going potty" to mean "going crazy". And a fag here is a cigarette. So I giggle uncontrollably everytime the guy in the commercial says, "Can I nick a fag?" Here that means, "Can I borrow a cigarette?" In the US, that would mean, "Can I cut a small notch in a gay man?" And there's another one about how people are, "going potty over our mattress deals." So to my ears, they're literally wetting themselves.
Here, you may theoretically hear someone say, "I'm going potty because I haven't had a fag in hours." To my ears they are saying, "I'm crapping all over because I haven't had gay sex for hours." And "going potty over a fag" means that they are pooping on a gay man. When you're an American in the UK, you get to have a lot of little private jokes that the British people don't understand.
The guy who does the voice of Homer Simpson once said, "Here in Great Britain you would say, 'Would you like a lift in my lorry,' but in America we would say, 'Would you like an elevator in my truck.'"
Anyway, over here it is perfectly acceptable to "go outside and light up a fag." In America, we call that a "hate crime."
Alana
