The British trait of being too polite to speak one's mind has led to a table translating numerous hollow English phrases becoming an internet hit.

The headline of the article I have read is "Translation table explaining the truth behind British politeness becomes internet hit". The article was written by Alice Philipson and was published in telegraph.co.uk website on the 2^nd of September, 2013.

The main idea of the article is that the Britons use the words and expressions in the broadest sense. They don’t say what they keep in mind in fact, point-blank out of politeness. When foreigners communicating with the Britons sometimes they do not feel the brink and perceive words without subtext.

For example, when the Briton says “you must come for dinner” actually he says it out of politeness and it does not result in an invitation.

Difficulties in communication arise because of such misunderstandings.

In her article the author has placed a table which shows how for a foreigner can be difficult to understand what the Briton really wants to say.

For example, when the Briton begins a sentence “with the greatest respect ...”, he actually means “I think you are an idiot”.

This table posted on the Internet Duncan Green, a strategic adviser for Oxfam and described it as "a handy guide for our fellow Europeans and others trying to fathom weaselly Brit-speak".

The real author of this table is unconfirmed, but it is thought that this table has been drawn up by a Dutch company which wanted to help working employees in the UK.

I found this article very interesting, because I learned a lot of useful information there. As far as I am also a foreigner and I have to communicate with the British, it is very important to understand the implication of the phrase because I don’t want to be in an awkward situation.

In your opinion is it a popular problem now? How do you think how to avoid such misunderstandings? Do you have any personal examples of this misunderstanding?