tips, skips, punters, tah, cheers, and all that
Great topic, although after living three years in Britain, I'm mostly bilingual now, nonetheless I am sure others will benefit. My list of interesting britishisms that yanks could learn?
"tip" (dump) including in expressions like "your room is a tip!"
"skip" (dumpster, what you send "rubbish" to the "tip" in)
"lay by" (rest area)
"punters" (I'm still not sure about this one but could be somewhere between "booster", "promoter", and "schill" which is itself a borrowing from Yiddish).
"tah" and "cheers" (largely untranslatable but something like "thanks, have a nice day")
"O-levels" and "A-levels" (no US equivalent though we're getting there with the no-child-left-behind mess)
"free-hold" at term of estate agents (real estate agents) which I believe means you have what in the U.S. is called fee ownership, and there are other property ownership types that are possibly relevant and definitely untranslatable.
"bespoke" (custom, custom made)
"engineer" which in Britain means a blue-collar technician who fixes your washing machine, but in the U.S. is someone with a wall full of diplomas who invents new kinds of washing machines
"washing up liquid" also "fairy liquid" which gave me great pause the first time I heard it
"pudding" (any dessert among the classes to whom pudding (US usage) would appeal)
"quid" (a blob of chewing tobacco...no, not that one, you mean "buck" as in slang for a dollar)