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Two phrases I finally have down, although the first one requires active visualization to be sure I have it correctly for any given use now:

"the inside lane" - This always meant the lane furthest from the sidewalk or nearest to the median to me. A trawl of a few US sites mostly backs me up on this. This is the exact opposite of what it means in the UK. Here, in the UK, it refers to ~~the slow lane~~ the lane furthest from the median. So confusing! So dangerous to be able to confuse the two!

"What am I like." - Not actually a question, but a rhetorical phrase after doing something silly or flighty or accidental. Can also be used in the second person, i.e. "What are you like." I don't yet know if it can be used for any persons. First encountered twice on Sunday in Britannia High, followed up tonight, coincidentally, by the first instance I've noticed C. using it.

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There are 32 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

"the inside lane" - This always meant the lane nearest the sidewalk or furthest from the median to me. A trawl of a few US sites mostly backs me up on this. This is the exact opposite of what it means in the UK.

Now, speaking as an Aussie, that confuses me. *Our* slow lane is the one nearest the sidewalk or furthest from the median (ie, the very leftmost lane). We drive on the same side of the road as the Brits, but perhaps we have different fast/slow lane conventions?

You may have thought I am British, to add to the confusion? I'm American, living in Britain.

In Britain - slow lane = lane furthest from the median = inside lane
In American (as I know it) - slow lane = lane furthest from the median = outside lane.

So regardless, the slow lane is the one furthest from the median/closest to the sidewalk/pavement. The difference is whether or not it's called an inside lane.

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No, I know you're American. ;)

RIGHT I thought you were declaring... actually, I've no idea what I thought you said. IGNORE ME.

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It's just really confusing. I had to draw diagrams for C. and even then he thought I was being confused because of driving on the opposite side of the road at first.

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It wasn't you at all! I just reread my post more carefully and I wrote the exact opposite of what I meant to the first time around. It's fixed now.

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Ahaha oh, good.

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I know you can use "What is he like" and "what are they like" because I've heard them used. I heard it a lot in Manchester - perhaps it has Northern roots and, therefore, you've heard it less as you're an evil Southerner?

That was C.'s hypothesis too. Had I a more useful ear for accents - or been paying attention when the students on the show all said where they're from - I would know where the character was meant to be from.

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Hmm, I always hear the phrase in a London accent, so I've always assumed it's a South East England thing.

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By "always", do you mean in casual conversation, or do you have a t.v./radio/movie example available?

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Disappointingly, I can only attest to real life experience! I'm not sure I've every heard the phrase used on t.v.

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I didn't think it was a Northern thing, or if it was, it's something that's spontaneously arisen in recent years. It's a phrase that's fairly new to me and I think I first became aware of it when I heard my son using it. He lives in Cardiff, though it could have reached South Wales by way of Bristol.

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You drove me to look at the show's website. It hasn't wholly helped me. The character is listed as from "New Forest". Now left to my own devices, I would presume this meant THE New Forest, which is, of course, in the far south. But Google Maps tells me that the town of New Forest is located vaguely near Darlington, and thus is way up north.

I so wish I had an ear for accents.

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I know I don't have an ear for them, except for the flat Lancastrian "oh"

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"the inside lane" - This always meant the lane nearest the sidewalk or furthest from the median to me. A trawl of a few US sites mostly backs me up on this. This is the exact opposite of what it means in the UK. Here, it means the slow lane. So confusing! So dangerous to be able to confuse the two!

But the slow lane

is

the lane furthest from the central reservation/median strip, surely? The inside lane is always the lane closest to the footpath.

Now I'm confused.

I was using "slow lane" as synonymous with "lane furthest from the median". This may have been what threw

ineptshieldmaid about my post too. I will amend it.

Worse: I wrote the exact opposite of what I meant to say. Fixed now. See? I'm confused about it even when I'm trying to share it with others.

Edited Date: 2008-10-28 11:36 pm (UTC)

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Ah, so it wasn't me who was confused? Phew.

It makes total sense to me for the inside to be the bit nearest the hedge/hard shoulder/pavement. But then it would, as I've been brought up knowing no other interpretation.

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The key to the inside lane might be the inside track. On the race track the inside track is the closest to the centre and the shortest track. If I remember rightly you always turn left when running on a track and field event.

The inside lane in both North America and the UK would be the inside for the left turn. Perhaps this is the origin of the term.

I'm now curious about this use of "What am I like." It sounds intriguing, I can't remember ever encountering. So it does not have the sense of a rhetorical question, "What am I like...[crazy]?"

"What am I like" - It's rhetorical, but self-sufficient. No adjectives need be applied to it. Also, no one needs to answer it - although formed as if a question, it isn't, really.

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Yes, I'd go with the idea of the racetrack, which I think carries over whether you are in the UK or the US (it is applying it to cars that messes it up). In both countries the fast lane of auto driving is the one farthest from the curve -- it is the passing lane and the one where you, as Withnail so eloquently put it, are "making time!" (great film!) On the racetrack, however (automobile, horses, dogs, or harness - and Allan suggests human field and track and speed-skating, etc. as well), the racers want to get as close to the infield as possible and pass on the inside lane as it curves around -- it's shorter and therefore one can pass one's competition more easily (you can notice this if you and a neighboring car are doing the same speed (cruise control) and you go round long curve on the motorway - the car on the inside of the curve (i.e., concave side) will overtake, seeming to go faster even though they are both doing, say, 60mph/100kph since it travels a shorter distance).

But also, in the metaphorical use of inside track in the US, it also plays on the idea of inside information giving one the leg up on the competition and therefore progressing in business more quickly (i.e., he had the inside track on the company's plans and therefore positioned himself to be regional manager when the thing materialized).

Anyway, the thing that always mixes me up is the reversal of "pavement" (viz. "sidewalk" in the UK.

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Yeah -- to me the slow lane = the outside lane. And the fast lane is the inside lane. Because, well, crossing from the pavement, you work your way in, yes? and then, when you are in the middle/on the median, you work your way back out.

Precisely. It makes perfect sense.

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UK usage:

Inside lane: always the slow lane/lane nearest to the edge of the road. This is how it is used in road signs.

"What are you like!" as a rhetorical question is pure Manchester in my experience; it usually comes when the listener has done something strange, and I heard it all the time (yes, directed at me, why did you ask?) when I first moved to the Manchester area. In all the decades I lived in the London area, I never heard it once.

"inside lane" - further evidence that I have yet to re-license to drive in this country. (But ought to eventually.)

I'm quite sure I've never heard "What are you like." in London in all my time here. What interests me is that several other commenters from other parts of the North also hear it regularly; so if it's originally from Manchester, it's spread a bit since. (Or they were hearing Mancunians use it and extrapolated?)

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I never heard "What are you like?" etc when I lived and worked in London, but started to hear it regularly as soon as I moved to Warwickshire fourteen years ago. Which adds to evidence for the regional postulate.

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Apologies for resurrecting this, but prompted by your post, I'd posted about the phrase "What am I like?" on my own LJ and my brother questioned the Manchester origin. I had my doubts myself, so belatedly I've managed to Google some references. It looks like it's been popularised by the Catherine Tate show. Apparently it's also a catchphrase of Ainsely Harriet who was born in London. Another site says it's an Irish phrase. So I personally would question the idea of it originating in Manchester, though I'm sure people there use it, having picked it up from TV.

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I've never been able to get my head around outside and inside lanes, either, so it's not just the US/UK difference.

And I say 'what're you like" all the time, with occasionally 'what's she like' thrown in, so good chance on it being northern.

I don't think I want to know what Britannia High is; it sounds like a teen drama about a US High School that just happens, for completely convoluted reasons, to have all British pupils....

Except, weirdly, it's not in the US. It's set in London, which explains the students. It's a musical teen drama on ITV (started Sunday). It being a musical was what lured me in to watching the first episode. Somewhat like Fame-the-TV-Series, apparently.

Oh wait - you didn't want to know that, did you?

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Either 'what are you like' isn't just Manchester or it suddenly became more widely popular at some point in the 90s, which is when I remember hearing it most often. I'm an East Anglian relocated to Yorkshire, for reference.

I really don't remember it from when I lived in Manchester (which is my home city and where I was born and bred). To me "what are you like!" is a recent phrase that I first became aware of when my son used it -- and he lives in Cardiff!

Of course it could well have arisen in Manchester since I left. The language she never stands still.

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You're not going to start *saying* "what am I like" though, are you? Cos then I'd have to track you down and kill you, especially if you say it with that whiny annoying tone it usually gets. That and the American import of "like, OMG!" both deserve instant punishment. And not in the fun way!

I shall do my best - for your sake - not to pick up the phrase.

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October