@rumtscho, Borough Market is great! It's changed a lot from when I first moved to the UK. Back then it was only open Saturdays, and it was still partly a wholesale market. It's evolved to have loads of specialist places and is open 7 days a week. It's a bit touristy, okay very touristy but still one of my favorite places to go.

@GdD well I was a tourist, so it didn't bother me :)

Also, in general, I'm not against places being touristy (maybe because I don't live in a place like London).

So, you like shopping at "wet markets"?

I had to look up the term @rumtscho, its the first time I've heard it in 20 years in the UK! Britain if full of archaic terms like that, nobody uses them but they're still officially used. Like on cars, rather than saying left side or right side they say near side and off-side. On my inspection document it will say something like "offside brake rotor nearing tolerance". WTF is off-side, why can't they just say right?!

I do like markets, there's one that comes to the neighborhood once a month which has a few good stalls. Oh yeah, another good britishism is to add 'monger' to someone who sells things. A fishmonger sells fish, an ironmonger sells hardware and houseware. The local market has a good cheesemonger.

@GdD ah, I thought you might have seen it above, because Journeyman Geek and I were using it in that conversation. I didn't even know it's British, when I looked it up, it said Singapore-specific.

These weird terms are indeed funny. And also add color to the language. But I agree, when you are in a serious mood, like trying to figure out what your mechanic is charging you for, you don't want to have "fun" with words.