Seven things that will confuse any American visiting Manchester for the first time

We Mancunians are a very proud bunch, with a whole wealth of traditions and values that might seem baffling to outsiders – especially to our friends across the pond.

An American in Manchester is bound to stumble across situations they find downright confusing, from navigating our unnecessarily complicated bus network to trying to work out why Piccadilly Gardens is called a ‘garden’.

Let’s face it, we do things differently round here – to borrow an overused phrase. So, to make things easier for any Americans visiting our great city, here’s seven things you might find confusing when visiting Manchester, explained.

Mike Peel / Wikimedia

1) Accents

The first thing an American will encounter is our vast array of different and sometimes confusing accents.

While the UK on the whole is home to a vast selection of accents, from Glaswegian to the Queen’s English, the North of England is home to probably the widest variation – from Liverpool to Newcastle via Yorkshire, you don’t have to travel far to hear something completely different.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Greater Manchester and the surrounding areas, where a person can travel from Bolton to Salford to Rochdale and be greeted by a series of strong local accents that will baffle the average American.

But the most confusing thing for anyone from the US visiting Manchester, is probably the realisation that everyone in England doesn’t sound like the Queen, r’kid.

2) Local slang

To make your life easier, it’s best to learn some local Mancunian slang.

If someone calls you ‘r’kid’ when you’re having a gander round town (looking around the city centre), you’ve made a friend, as the term is usually used to refer to a sibling or a very close mate (friend).

If someone says something is dead good, don’t panic, they don’t mean it no longer has a pulse, just that something is ‘very’ or ‘really’ good, i.e dead nice, dead cold, dead boring.

When you eat or drink something you really like, you can say it’s ‘mint’, and if you really want to triple-down and impress the locals you could say it’s ‘dead mint, r’kid’.

‘Hanging’ (or ‘angin’ if you’re a proper Manc, because the ‘h’ is always dropped, as is the ‘g’ at the end) means bad/awful/disgusting, and ‘sound’ means a person, place or thing is good, as in ‘r’kid is dead sound’.

If someone offers you a brew then take them up on it, as you’ll get a proper cup of Northern tea (brew = cup of tea).

Peter McDermott / Geograph

3) Piccadilly Gardens

Once you’ve finally started to work out what we’re saying, you might want to head out into the city to see what’s going on in Manchester.

Chances are you’ll head to the bustling epicentre of the city – Piccadilly Gardens. Sounds nice, right? Wrong.

To all born and bred Mancunians, Piccy Gs has now become a byword for the decline of Manchester, with everything that’s bad about our city seemingly epitomised by what goes on there. Drugs and anti-social behaviour are rife, and you definitely don’t want to be hanging around the area at night.

More importantly, however, you might ask where the actual gardens are, you know, with flowers, trees and bushes? They’re gone, sorry lads…

4) Local food

Once you flee Piccadilly Gardens after you’ve been asked by the 100th person if you want some spice – warning, they’re not trying to sell you hot sauce – you might want to escape to a local food purveyor for a scran (some food) and a pint (a delicious cold glass of alcohol).

Some local dishes include a chippy tea, which is usually fish and chips, although any combination of items from a chippy (chip shop) will suffice. You should also try chips and gravy, which is a Northern specialty, or pie and chips with gravy – if you head over to Wigan you can sample their local delicacy, the Wigan kebab aka a pie butty (a pie sandwich, basically).

While in town you can also try a Manchester egg, black pudding, Eccles cake and a Manchester tart, all washed down with an ice cold can of Vimto.

But beware of any mealtime confusion, as the three main meals are known as breakfast, dinner and tea in Manchester – not breakfast, lunch and dinner, as they call it down South. So if someone offers you tea, it’s not the same as the delicious brew you tried earlier.

Chris Bloom / Flickr

5) Football

As part of your time in Manchester, you’re probably going to want to watch a football match, as the city is home to two of the biggest teams in the world, Manchester City and Manchester United.

Don’t be alarmed when the players start kicking the ball with their feet rather than picking it up and running into each other – this is real football, aka ‘soccer’ (never, ever call it soccer out loud, though).

Of course everyone knows City and United, but if you want to see football with a proper atmosphere, stripped back from the glitz and money of the Premier League, then head down to one of the Greater Manchester teams that are less well known internationally – Bolton Wanderers, Wigan Athletic, Rochdale or Oldham Athletic (or even one of the many non-league teams).

It’s pretty much compulsory to have a pie and a pint at the football, so don’t miss out.

6) Talking about the weather

The weather – we have it in Manchester, and we won’t let you forget it.

More often than not the weather will be rain, but sometimes it changes slightly and we’ll get wind and rain, or just grey clouds. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the clouds clear up completely and the sun comes out (you’ll probably be more familiar with this concept than we are, being from America).

It’s a hot topic of conversation round here, and any little change in the weather is sure to fire up some heated conversation – your best bet is to just say ‘this bloody rain’ repeatedly, while tutting and looking skywards (you’ll fit right in).

Ben Sutherland / Flickr

7) Saying ‘you alright mate’ without expecting a reply

We have a habit of greeting people by saying ‘you alright mate’, or sometimes just ‘alright’, and absolutely not expecting a reply – in fact, it’s weird if someone does tell you if they’re okay or not.

When I visited the US and Canada on holiday I kept greeting people by asking if they’re alright, and the look on their face was something, as they desperately tried to figure out if they were acting weird, bleeding, or just had toothpaste on their face.

Just make sure you don’t actually tell someone how you’re feeling when they say ‘you alright’, as an outpouring of emotions to a stranger is a big no-no over here.

We also say ‘cheers’ instead of ‘thank you’ and apologise all the time – unless we’re behind the wheel, in which case we’re angry, very angry.