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Traditions and holidays of Great Britian (реферат)

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Traditions and holidays of Great Britain.

Every nation and every country has its own traditions and customs.
Traditions make a nation special. Some of them are old-fashioned and
many people remember them, others are part of people’s life. Some
British customs and traditions are known all the world.

From Scotland to Cornwall, Britain is full of customs and traditions. A
lot of them have very long histories. Some are funny and some are
strange. But they are all interesting. There is the long menu of
traditional British food. There are many royal occasions. There are
songs, saying and superstitions. They are all part of the British way of
life.

You cannot really imagine Britain without all its traditions, this
integral feature of social and private life of the people living on the
British Isles that has always been an important part of their life and
work.

English traditions can classified into several groups: traditions
concerning the Englishmen’s private life (child’s birth, wedding,
marriage, wedding anniversary); which are connected with families
incomes; state traditions; national holidays, religious holidays, public
festival, traditional ceremonies.

What about royal traditions? There are numerous royal traditions in
Britain, some are ancient, others are modern.

The Queen is the only person in Britain with two birthdays. Her real
birthday is on April 21st, but she has an “official” birthday, too. That
is on the second Saturday in June. And on the Queen’s official birthday,
there is a traditional ceremony called the Trooping of the Colour. It is
a big parade with brass bands and hundreds of soldiers at Horse Guard’s
Parade in London. A “regiment” of the Queen’s soldiers, the Guards,
march in front of her. At the front of the parade there is the
regiment’s flag or “colour”. Thousands of Londoners and visitors watch
in Horse Guards’ Parade. And millions of people at home watch it on
television. This custom is not very old, but it is for very old people.
On his or her one hundredth birthday, a British person gets a telegram
with congratulations from the Queen.

The changing of the Guard happens every day at Buckingham Palace, the
Queen’s home in London. The ceremony always attracts a lot of spectators
– Londoners as well as visitors – to the British capital.

So soldiers stand on front of the palace. Each morning these soldiers
(the “guard”) change. One group leaves and another arrives. In summer
and winter tourists stand outside the palace at 11:30 every morning and
watch the Changing of the Guard.

Traditionally the Queen opens Parliament every autumn. But Parliament,
not the Royal Family, controls modern Britain. The Queen travels from
Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament in a gold carriage – the
Irish State Coach. At the Houses of Parliament the Queen sits on a
“throne” in the House of Lords. Then she reads the “Queen’s Speech”. At
the State Opening of Parliament the Queen wears a crown. She wears other
jewels from the Crown Jewels, too.

Every year, there is a new Lord Mayor of London. The Mayor is the city’s
traditional leader. And the second Saturday in November is always the
day for the Lord Mayor’s Show. This ceremony is over six hundred years
old. It is also London’s biggest parade.

The Lord Mayor drives to the Royal Courts of Justice in a coach. The
coach is two hundred years old. It is red and gold and it has six
horses.

As it is also a big parade, people make special costumes and act stories
from London’s history.

In Britain as in other countries costumes and uniforms have a long
history.

One is the uniform of the Beefeaters at the tower of London. This came
first from France. Another is the uniform of the Horse Guards at Horse
Guard’s Parade, not far from Buckingham Palace. Thousands of visitors
take photographs of the Horse Guards.

Britannia is a symbol of Britain. And she wears traditional clothes,
too. But she is not a real person.

Lots of ordinary clothes have a long tradition. The famous bowler hat,
for example. A man called Beaulieu made the first one in 1850.

One of the British soldiers, Wellington, gave his name to a pair of
boots. They have a shorter name today – “Wellies”.

There is a very special royal tradition. On the River Thames there are
hundreds of swans. A lot of these beautiful white birds belong,
traditionally, to the king or queen. In July the young swans on the
Thames are about two months old. Then the Queen’s swan keeper goes, in a
boat, from London Bridge to Henley. He looks at all the young swans and
marks the royal ones. The name of this strange nut interesting custom is
Swan Upping.

There are only six public holidays a year in Great Britain, that is days
on which people need not go in to work. They are: Christmas Day, Good
Friday, Easter Monday, Spring Bank Holiday and Late Summer Bank Holiday,
Boxing Day.

So the most popular holiday in Britain is Christmas. Christmas has been
celebrated from the earliest days of recorded history, and each era and
race has pasted a colourful sheet of new customs and traditions over the
old.

On the Sunday before Christmas many churches hold a carol service where
special hymns are sung. Sometimes carol singers can be heard in the
streets as they collect money for charity. There are a lot of very
popular British Christmas carols. Three famous ones are: “Good King
Wenceslas”, “The Holly and The Ivy” and “We Three Kings”.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world send and
receive Christmas cards. Most of people think that exchanging cards at
Christmas is a very ancient custom but it is not right. In fact it is
barely 100 years old. The idea of exchanging illustrated greeting and
presents is, however, ancient. So the first commercial Christmas card
was produced in Britain in 1843 by Henry Cole, founder of the Victoria
and Albert Museum, London. The handcoloured print was inscribed with the
words ’A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you’. It was
horizontally rectangular in shape, printed on stout cardboard by
lithography.

A traditional feature of Christmas in Britain is the Christmas tree.
Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, brought the German tradition
(he was German) to Britain. He and the Queen had a Christmas tree at
Windsor Castle in 1841. A few years after, nearly every house in Britain
had one. Traditionally people decorate their trees on Christmas Eve –
that’s December 24th. They take down the decorations twelve days later,
on Twelfth Night (January 5th).

An older tradition is Christmas mistletoe. People put a piece of this
green plant with its white berries over a door. Mistletoe brings good
luck, people say. Also, at Christmas British people kiss their friends
and family under the mistletoe.

Those who live away try to get back home because Christmas is a family
celebration and it is the biggest holiday of the year. As Christmas
comes nearer, everyone is buying presents for relatives and friends. At
Christmas people try to give their children everything they want. And
the children count the weeks, than the days, to Christmas. They are
wondering what presents on December 24th. Father Christmas brings their
presents in the night. Then they open them on the morning of the 25th.

There is another name for Father Christmas in Britain – Santa Claus.
That comes from the European name for him – Saint Nicholas. In the
traditional story he lives at the North Pole. But now he lives in big
shops in towns and cities all over Britain. Well, that’s where children
see him in November and December. Then on Christmas Eve he visits every
house. He climbs down the chimney and leaves lots of presents. Some
people leave something for him, too. A glass of wine and some biscuits,
for example.

At Christmas everyone decorates their houses with holly, ivy colourful
lamps.

In Britain the most important meal on December 25th is Christmas dinner.
Nearly all Christmas food is traditional, but a lot of the traditions
are not very old. For example, there were no turkeys in Britain before
1800. And even in the nineteenth century, goose was the traditional meat
at Christmas. But not now.

A twentieth-century British Christmas dinner is roast turkey with
carrots, potatoes, peas, Brussels sprouts and gravy. There are sausages
and bacon, too. Then, after the turkey, there’s Christmas pudding. Some
people make this pudding months before Christmas. A lot of families have
their own Christmas pudding recipes. Some, for example, use a lot of
brandy. Others put in a lot of fruit or add a silver coin for good luck.
Real Christmas puddings always have a piece of holly on the top. Holly
bushes and trees have red berries at Christmas time, and so people use
holly to decorate their houses for Christmas. The holly on the pudding
is part of the decoration.

Crackers are also usual at Christmas dinner. These came to Britain from
China in the nineteenth century. Two people pull a cracker. Usually
there is a small toy in the middle. Often there is a joke on a piece of
paper, too. Most of the jokes in Christmas crackers are not very good.
Here is on example:

Customer: Waiter, there’s a frog in my soup.

Waiter: Yes, sir, the fly’s on holidays.

A pantomime is a traditional English entertainment at Christmas. It is
meant for children, but adults enjoy is just as much. It is a very old
form of entertainment, and can be traced back to 16th century Italian
comedies. There have been a lot of changes over the years. Singing and
dancing and all kinds of jokes have been added; but the stories that are
told are still fairy tales, with a hero, a heroine, and a villain.

In every pantomime there are always three main characters. These are the
“principal boy”, the “principal girl”, and the “dame”. Pantomimes are
changing all the time. Every year, someone has a new idea to make them
more exciting or more up-to-date.

December 26th is Boxing Day. Traditionally boys from the shops in each
town asked for money at Christmas. They went from house to house on
December 26th and took boxes made of wood with them. At each house
people gave them money. This was a Christmas present. So the name of
December 26th doesn’t come from the sport of boxing – it comes from the
boys’ wooden boxes. Now, Boxing Day is an extra holiday after Christmas
Day.

Traditionally Boxing Day Hunts is a day for foxhunting. The huntsmen and
huntswomen ride horses. They use dogs, too. The dogs (fox hounds) follow
the smell of the fox. Then the huntsmen and huntswomen follow the
hounds. Before a Boxing Day hunt, the huntsmen and huntswomen drink not
wine. But the tradition of the December 26th hunt is changing. Now, some
people want to stop Boxing Day Hunts (and other hunts, too). They don’t
like foxhunting. For them it’s not a sport – it is cruel.

In England people celebrate the New Year. But it is not as widely or as
enthusiastically observed as Christmas. Some people ignore it completely
and go to bed at the same time as usual on New Year’s Eve. Many others,
however, do celebrate it in one way or another, the type of celebration
varying very much according to the local custom, family tradition and
personal taste.

The most common type of celebration is a New Year party, either a family
party or one arranged by a group of young people. And another popular
way of celebrating the New Year is to go to a New Year’s dance.

The most famous celebration is in London round the statue of Eros in
Piccadilly Circus where crowds gather and sing and welcome the New Year.
In Trafalgar Square there is also a big crowd and someone usually falls
into the fountain.

Every Year the people of Norway give the city of London a present. It’s
a big Christmas tree and it stands in Trafalgar Square. Also in central
London, Oxford Street and Regent Street always have beautiful
decorations at the New Year and Christmas. Thousands of people come to
look at them.

In Britain a lot of people make New Year Resolutions on the evening of
December 31st. For example, “I’ll get up early every morning next year”,
or “I’ll clean, my shoes every day”. But there is a problem. Most people
forget their New Year Resolutions on January 2nd.

But New Year’s Eve is a more important festival in Scotland then it is
in England, and it even has a special name. It is not clear where the
‘Hogmanay’ comes from, but it is connected with the provision of food
and drink for all visitors to your home on 31st December.

There is a Scottish song that is sung all over the world at midnight on
New Year’s Eve. It was written by Robert Burns, the famous Scottish
poet, and you may find some of the traditional words a bit difficult to
understand, but that’s the way it’s always sung – even by English
people!

It was believed that the first person to visit one’s house on New Year’s
Day could bring good or bad luck. Therefore, people tried to arrange for
the person of their own choice to be standing outside their houses ready
to be let in the moment midnight had come.

Usually a dark-complexioned man was chosen, and never a woman, for she
would bring bad luck. The first footer was required to carry three
articles: a piece of coal to wish warmth, a piece of bread to wish food,
and a silver coin to wish wealth. In some parts of northern England this
pleasing custom is still observed. So this interesting tradition called
“First Footing”.

On Bank holiday the townsfolk usually flock into the country and to the
coast. If the weather is fine many families take a picnic – lunch or tea
with them and enjoy their meal in the open. Seaside towns near London,
such as Southend, are invaded by thousands of trippers who come in cars
and coaches, trains and bicycles. Great amusement parks like Southend
Kursoal do a roaring trade with their scenic railways, shooting
galleries, water-shoots, Crazy houses and so on. Trippers will wear
comic paper hats with slogans, and they will eat and drink the weirdest
mixture of stuff you can imagine, sea food like cockles, mussels,
whelks, fish and chips, candy floss, tea, fizzy drinks, everything you
can imagine.

Bank holiday is also an occasion for big sports meeting at places like
the White City Stadium, mainly all kinds of athletics. There are also
horse race meetings all over the country, and most traditional of all,
there are large fairs with swings, roundabouts, a Punch and Judy show,
hoop-la stalls and every kind of side-show including, in recent, bingo.
There is also much boating activity on the Thames.

Although the Christian religion gave the world Easter as we know it
today, the celebration owes its name and many of its customs and symbols
to a pagan festival called Eostre. Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of
springtime and sunrise, got her name from the world east, where the
sunrises. Every spring northern European peoples celebrated the festival
of Eostre to honour the awakening of new life in nature. Christians
related the rising of the sun to the resurrection of Jesus and their own
spiritual rebirth.

Many modern Easter symbols come from pagan time. The egg, for instance,
was a fertility symbol long before the Christian era. The ancient
Persians, Greeks and Chinese exchanged eggs at their sping festivals. In
Christian times the egg took on a new meaning symbolizing the tomb from
which Christ rose. The ancient custom of dyeing eggs at Easter time is
still very popular.

The Easter bunny also originated in pre-Christian fertility lore. The
rabbit was the most fertile animal our ances tors knew, so they selected
it as a symbol of new life. Today, children enjoy eating candy bunnies
and listening to stories about the Easter bunny, who supposedly brings
Easter eggs in a fancy basket.

Also there is a spectacular parade on Easter. It is a truly spectacular
Easter Parade in Battersea Park. It is sponsored by the London Tourist
Board and is usually planned around a central theme related to the
history and attractions of London. The great procession, or parade,
begins at 3 p.m. but it is advisable to find a vantage-point well before
that hour.

On October 31st British people celebrate Halloween. It is undoubtedly
the most colourful and exciting holiday of the year. Though it is not a
public holiday, it is very dear to those who celebrate it, especially to
children and teenagers. This day was originally called All Hallow’s Eve
because it fell on the eve of All Saints’ Day. The name was later
shortened to Halloween. According to old beliefs, Halloween is the time,
when the veil between the living and the dead is partially lifted, and
witches, ghosts and other super natural beings are about. Now children
celebrate Halloween in unusual costumes and masks. It is a festival of
merrymaking, superstitions spells, fortunetelling, traditional games and
pranks. Halloween is a time for fun.

Few holidays tell us much of the past as Halloween. Its origins dateback
to a time, when people believed in devils, witches and ghosts. Many
Halloween customs are based on beliefs of the ancient Celts, who lived
more than 2,000 years ago in what is now Great Britain, Ireland, and
northern France.

Every year the Celts celebrated the Druid festival of Samhain, Lord of
the Dead and Prince of Darkness. It fell on October 31, the eve of the
Druid new year. The date marked the end of summer, or the time when the
sun retreated before the powers of darkness and the reign of the Lord of
Death began. The Dun god took part in the holiday and received thanks
for the year’s harvest.

It was believed that evil spirits sometimes played tricks on October 31.
They could also do all kinds of damage to property. Some people tried to
ward of the witches by painting magic signs on their barns. Others tried
to frighten them away by nailing a piece of iron, such as a horseshoe,
over the door.

Many fears and superstitions grew up about this day. An old Scotch
superstition was that witches – those who had sold their souls to the
devil – left in their beds on Halloween night a stick made by magic to
look like themselves. Then they would fly up the chime attended by a
black cat.

In Ireland, and some other parts of Great Britain, it was believed, that
fairies spirited away young wives, whom they returned dazed and amnesic
366 days later.

When Halloween night fell, people in some places dressed up and tried to
resemble the souls of the dead. They hoped that the ghosts would leave
peacefully before midnight. They carried food to the edge of town or
village and left it for the spirits.

In Wales, they believed that the devil appeared in the shape of a pig, a
horse, or a dog. On that night, every person marked a stone and put it
in a bonfire. If a person’s stone was missing the next morning, he or
she would die within a year.

Much later, when Christianity came to Great Britain and Ireland, the
Church wisely let the people keep their old feast. But it gave it a new
association when in the 9th century a festival in honour of all saints
(All Hallows) was fixed on November 1. In the 11th century November 2
became All Souls’ Day to honour the souls of the dead, particularly
those who died during the year.

Christian tradition included the lighting of bonfires and carring
blazing torches all around the fields. In some places masses of flaming
staw were flung into the air. When these ceremonies were over, everyone
returned home to feast on the new crop of apples and nuts, which are the
traditional Halloween foods. On that night, people related their
experience with strange noises and spooky shadows and played traditional
games.

Halloween customs today follow many of the ancient traditions, though
their significance has long since disappeared.

A favourite Halloween custom is to make a jack-j’-lantern. Children take
out the middle of the pumpkin, cut hole holes for the eyes, nose and
mouth in its side and, finally, they put a candle inside the pumpkin to
scare their friends. The candle burning inside makes the orange face
visible from far away on a dark night – and the pulp makes a delicious
pumpkin-pie.

People in England and Ireland once carved out beets, potatoes, and
turnips to make jack-o’-lanterns on Halloween. When the Scots and Irish
came to the United States, they brought their customs with them. But
they began to carve faces on pumpkins because they were more plentiful
in autumn than turnips. Nowadays, British carve faces on pumpkins, too.

According to an Irish legend, jack-o’-lanterns were named for a man
called Jack who was notorious for his drunkenness and being stingy. One
evening at the local pub, the Devil appeared to take his soul. Clever
Jack persuaded the Devil to “have one drink together before we go”. To
pay for his drink the Devil turned himself into a sixpence. Jack
immediately put it into his wallet. The Devil couldn’t escape from it
because it had a catch in the form of a cross. Jack released the Devil
only when the latter promised to leave him in peace for another year.
Twelve months later, Jack played another practical joke on the Devil,
letting him down from a tree only on the promise that he would never
purse him again. Finally, Jack’s body wore out. He could not enter
heaven because he was a miser. He could not enter hell either, because
he played jokes on the Devil. Jack was in despair. He begged the Devil
for a live coal to light his way out of the dark. He put it into a
turnip and, as the story goes, is still wandering around the earth with
his lantern.

Halloween is something called Beggars’ Night or Trick or Treat night.
Some people celebrate Beggars’ Night as Irish children did in the 17th
century. They dress up as ghosts and witches and go into the streets to
beg. And children go from house to house and say: “Trick or treat!”,
meaning “Give me a treat or I’ll play a trick on you”. Some groups of
“ghosts” chant Beggars’ Night rhymes:

Trick or treat,

Smell our feet.

We want something

Good to eat.

In big cities Halloween celebrations often include special decorating
contests. Young people are invited to soap shop-windows, and they get
prizes for the best soap-drawings.

In old times, practical jokes were even more elaborate. It was quite
normal to steal gates, block house doors, and cover chimneys with turf
so that smoke could not escape. Blame for resulting chaos was naturally
placed on the “spirits”.

At Halloween parties the guests wear every kind of costume. Some people
dress up like supernatural creatures, other prefers historical or
political figures. You can also meet pirates, princesses, Draculas,
Cinderellas, or even Frankenstein’s monsters at a Halloween festival.

At Halloween parties children play traditional games. Many games date
back to the harvest festivals of very ancient times. One of the most
popular is called bobbing for apples. One child at a time has to get
apples from a tub of water without using hands. But how to do this? By
sinking his or her face into the water and biting the apple!

Another game is pin-the-tail-on-the –donkey. One child is blind folded
and spun slowly so that he or she will become dizzy. Then the child must
find a paper donkey haging on the wall and try to pin a tail onto the
back.

And no Halloween party is complete without at least one scary story. It
helps too create an air of mystery.

Certain fortunetelling methods began in Europe hundreds of years ago and
became an important part of Halloween. For example, such object as a
coin, a ring, and a thimble were baked into a cake or other food. It was
believed that the person who found the coin in the cake would become
wealthy. The one who found the ring would marry soon, but the person who
got the thimble would never get married.

Unfortunately now most people do not believe in evil spirits. They know
that evil spirits do not break steps, spill garbage or pull down fences.
If property is damaged, they blame naughty boys and girls. Today,
Halloween is still a bad night for the police…

March 1st is a very important day for Welsh people. It’s St. David’s
Day. He’s the “patron” or national saint of Wales. On March 1st, the
Welsh celebrate St. Davids Day and wear daffodils in the buttonholes of
their coats or jackets.

On February 14th it’s Saint Valentine’s Day in Britain. It is not a
national holiday. Banks and offices do not close, but it is a happy
little festival in honour of St. Valentine. On this day, people send
Valentine cards to their husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends.
You can also send a card to a person you do not know. But traditionally
you must never write your name on it. Some British newspapers have got a
page for Valentine’s Day messages on February 14th.

This lovely day is widely celebrated among people of all ages by the
exchanging of “valentines”.

Saint Valentine was a martyr but this feast goes back to pagan times and
the Roman feast of Lupercalia. The names of young unmarried girls were
put into a vase. The young men each picked a name, and discovered the
identity of their brides.

This custom came to Britain when the Romans invaded it. But the church
moved the festival to the nearest Christian saint’s day: this was Saint
Valentine’s Day.

Midsummer’s Day, June 24th, is the longest day of the year. On that day
you can see a very old custom at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England.
Stonehenge is on of Europe’s biggest stone circles. A lot of the stones
are ten or twelve metres high. It is also very old. The earliest part of
Stonehenge is nearly 5,000 years old. But what was Stonehenge? A holy
place? A market? Or was it a kind of calendar? Many people think that
the Druids used it for a calendar. The Druids were the priests in
Britain 2,000 years ago. They used the sun and the stones at Stonehenge
to know the start of months and seasons. There are Druids in Britain
today, too. And every June 24th a lot of them go to Stonehenge. On that
morning the sun shines on one famous stone – the Heel stone. For the
Druids this is a very important moment in the year. But for a lot of
British people it is just a strange old custom.

Londoners celebrate carnivals. And one of them is Europe’s biggest
street carnival. A lot of people in the Notting Hill area of London come
from the West Indies – a group of islands in the Caribbean. And for two
days in August, Nutting Hill is the West Indies. There is West Indian
food and music in the streets. There is also a big parade and people
dance day and night.

April 1st is April Fool’s Day in Britain. This is a very old tradition
from the Middle Ages (between the fifth and fifteenth centuries). At
that time the servants were masters for one day of the year. They gave
orders to their masters, and their masters had to obey.

Now April Fool’s Day is different. It is a day for jokes and tricks.

One of the most interesting competitions is the university boat race.

Oxford and Cambridge are Britain’s two oldest universities. In the
nineteenth century, rowing was a popular sport at both of them. In 1829
they agreed to have a race. They raced on the river Thames and the
Oxford boat won. That started a tradition. Now, every Spring, the
University Boat Race goes from Putney to Mortlake on the Thames. That is
6,7 kilometres. The Cambridge rowers wear light blue shirts and the
Oxford rowers wear dark blue. There are eight men in each boat. There is
also a “cox”. The cox controls the boat. Traditionally coxes are men,
but Susan Brown became the first woman cox in 1981. She was the cox for
Oxford and they won.

An annual British tradition, which captures the imagination of the whole
nation is the London to Brighton Car Rally in which a fleet of ancient
cars indulges in a lighthearted race from the Capital to the Coast.

When the veteran cars set out on the London – Brighton run each
November, they are celebrating one of the great landmarks in the history
of motoring in Britain – the abolition of the rule that every “horseless
carriage” had to be preceded along the road by a pedestrian. This
extremely irksome restriction, imposed by the Locomotives on Highways
Act, was withdrawn in 1896, and on November of that year there was a
rally of motor-cars on the London – Brighton highway to celebrate the
first day of freedom – Emancipation Day, as it has known by motorists
ever since.

Emancipation is still on the first Sunday of the month, but nowadays
there is an important condition of entry – every car taking part must be
at least 60 years old.

The Run is not a race. Entrants are limited to a maximum average speed
of 20 miles per hour. The great thing is not speed but quality of
performance, and the dedicated enthusiasts have a conversation all their
own.

The Highland Games – this sporting tradition is Scottish. In the
Highlands (the mountains of Scotland) families, or “clans”, started the
Games hundreds of years ago.

Some of the sports are the Games are international: the high jump and
the long jump, for example. But other sports happen only at the Highland
Games. One is tossing the caber. “Tossing” means throwing, and a “caber”
is a long, heavy piece of wood. In tossing the caber you lift the caber
(it can be five or six metres tall). Then you throw it in front of you.

At the Highland Games a lot of men wear kilts. These are traditional
Scottish skirts for men. But they are not all the same. Each clan has a
different “tartan”. That is the name for the pattern on the kilt. So at
the Highland Games there are traditional sports and traditional
instrument – the bagpipes. The bagpipes are very loud. They say Scots
soldier played them before a battle. The noise frightened the soldiers
on other side.

The world’s most famous tennis tournament is Wimbledon. It started at a
small club in south London in the nineteenth century. Now a lot of the
nineteenth century traditions have changed. For example, the women
players don’t have to wear long skirts. And the men players do not have
to wear long trousers. But other traditions have not changed at
Wimbledon. The courts are still grass, and visitors still eat
strawberries and cream. The language of tennis has not changed either.

There are some British traditions and customs concerning their private
life. The British are considered to be the world’s greatest tea
drinkers. And so tea is Britain’s favourite drink. The English know how
to make tea and what it does for you. In England people say jokingly:
‘The test of good tea is simple. If a spoon stands up in it, then it is
strong enough; if the spoon starts to wobble, it is a feeble makeshift’.

Every country has its drinking habits, some of which are general and
obvious, others most peculiar. Most countries also have a national
drink. In England the national is beer, and the pub “pub”, where people
talk, eat, drink, meet their friends and relax.

The word “pub” is short for “public house”. Pubs sell beer. (British
beer is always warm). An important custom in pubs is “buying a round”.
In a group, one person buys all the others a drink. This is a “round”.
Then one by one all the people buy rounds, too. If they are with
friends, British people sometimes lift their glasses before they drink
and say: “Cheers”. This means “Good luck”.

In the pubs in south-west England there is another traditional
drink-scrumpy.

Pub names often have a long tradition. Some come from the thirteenth or
fourteenth century. Every pub has a name and every pub has a sign above
its door. The sign shows a picture of the pub’s name.

And as you know, the British talk about the weather a lot. They talk
about the weather because it changes so often. Wind, rain, sun, cloud,
snow – they can all happen in a British winter – or a British summer.

Hundreds of years ago, soldiers began this custom. They shook hands to
show that they did not have a sword. Now, shaking hands is a custom in
most countries.

Frenchman shake hands every time they meet, and kiss each other on both
cheeks as a ceremonial salute, like the Russians, while Englishmen shake
hands only when they are introduced, or after a long absence.

Victorian England made nearly as many rules about hand shaking as the
Chinese did about bowing. A man could not offer his hand first a lady;
young ladies did not shake men’s hands at all unless they were old
friends; married ladies could offer their hands in a room, but not in
public, where they would bow slightly.

I have chosen the topic British customs traditions because I enjoy
learning the English language and wanted to know more about British ways
of life and traditions. Working on this topic I have to conclusion that
British people are very conservative. They are proud pf their traditions
and carefully keep them up. It was interesting to know that foreigners
coming to England are stuck at once by quite a number of customs and
peculiarities.

So I think of Britain as a place a lot of different types of people who
observe their traditions.

Литература:

Голицынский Ю. “Great Britain” изд. «Каро» г. С.-Петербург, 1999г.;

Колуфман К.И. «Страницы Британской истории» изд. «Титул» г. Обнинск,
1999г.;

Костенко Г.Т. “Reader for summer” изд. «Просвещение» г. Москва 1985г.;

Миньяр-Белоручева А.П. «Английский язык для абитуриентов и школьников»
изд. «Московский лицей» 1999г.;

Ощепкова В.В. “Britain in Brief” изд. «Лист» г. Москва 1999г.;

Рис-Пармен “Christmas”, журнал «Англия» №69 стр. 113-119;

Рис-Парнал Хиларн “Hello and goodbye”, журнал «Англия» №73 стр. 115-117;

Рис-Парнал «Рождество», журнал «Англия» №77 стр.107-109;

Стивен Раблей “Customs and traditions in Britain” изд. “Longman Group”,
ИК, 1996г.;

Усова Г.С. “British history” изд. «Лань» г. С.-Петербург 1999г.;

Хишунина Т.Н. “Customs, traditions and holidays in Britain” изд.
«Просвещение» г.С.-Петербург 1975г.;

Цветкова И.В. «Английский для поступающих в вузы» изд. «Глосса» г.
Москва 1997г.;

Цветкова И.В. журнал «Speak out» изд. «Глосса» г. Тула 1997г. стр.2-8.

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