English Traditions and Customs

Every country and every nation has its own traditions and customs. Traditions make a nation special. You can not speak about England without speaking about its traditions and customs. Englishmen are proud of their traditions and carefully keep them up.

The English are stay-at-home people. «There is no place like home», they say. When they don't work they like to spend their days off at home with their families. Englishmen are very fond of a chimney, that’s why many of them prefer the open fire to central heating. They like to live in small houses with a small garden. People all over the world know the saying "The Englishman's home is his castle". They say that English people keep to their tradi­tions even in meals. Porridge is the dish Englishmen are very fond of. Many of them eat porridge with milk and sugar for breakfast. As for the Scotch, for example, they never put sugar into their porridge, they always put salt into it.

By the way, breakfast time in England is between seven and nine. Then, between 12 ana 2 there comes lunch time. In some English houses lunch is the biggest meal of the day - they have meat or fish, vegetables, fruit or pudding. Some people who go out to work have sandwiches and coffee. In the afternoon, at tea-time the English like to have a cup of tea with milk. Some Englishmen have their dinner late in the evening. For dinner they have soup, fish or meat, vegetables, pudding or fruit. They never eat any bread with meet and vegetables, they eat bread only with their soup.

For supper they usually have a glass of milk and a cake or a cup of tea and a sand­wich. The English are tea-drinkers. They have it many times a day. Some Englishmen have tea for breakfast, tea at lunch time, tea after dinner, tea at tea-time and tea with supper. Some English families have "high tea" or big tea, and no supper. For high tea they may have cold meat, bread and butter, cakes, and, of course, a lot of tea. The Englishmen always drink tea out of cups, never out of glasses. They usually drink tea with milk.

Every country has its drinking habits and a national drink. In England it is beer. English beer is always warm: it’s sold in pubs (short for “public house”) where people talk, eat, drink, meet their friends and relax.

It’s common knowledge, the British talk about the weather a lot. They do it because the weather in Britain changes so often. Wind, rain, sun, cloud, snow - they can all happen in Britain both in winter and in summer.

Hundreds of years ago soldiers began the tradition of shaking hands. They shook hands to show that they did not have a sword. Now shaking hands is a custom in most countries. Frenchmen and Russians shake hands every time they meet, while Englishmen do it only when they are introduced, or after a long absence.Young ladies never shake men’s hands. Married ladies can offer their hands in a room, but not in public, where they should bow slightly.

These are only some topical English traditions and customs. You know British people are very conservative. Foreigners coming to English are stuck up at once by quite a number of customs and peculiarities.