A Loaded Question

When I was out to eat with some UK colleagues the other night I got asked what I found very different about living in England. I basically gave them two answers. First, it really throws me when we are talking about time and someone says that is “half-eight”. That always takes a moment in my brain to translate into 8:30. The other thing I mentioned was the dryer situation and how some people don’t have them. They call them “tumble dryers”. They laughed at this and we discussed the U.S. and U.K. differences in this area. He said that fabric softener in the UK is a recent addition. My response was, “See, you didn’t even know that you needed it, did you?” They told me that dishwashers in UK households were a relatively new development as well.