You have to be careful if you are in the US and you ask for certain things. This is because a lot of people simply can’t understand the finer points of the English accent.

The problem is worse if you are trying to communicate with someone who speaks American English as a second language. It's very likely they are only familiar with the spoken word: they only recognise the sound of the word but have no clue how it is spelled.

So for example someone serving in a restaurant understands perfectly when an American says "gimme a glessa waddur" but responds with blank looks when a refined Englishman (like me) requests “a glass of water please, old chap”. They simply do not understand what is this waugh-tuh that you are asking for.

Another difficult word is beddurees. Of course you and I know that we are asking for batteries but all that they hear is ba-trees.

Again, blank looks all round. Although why you would want to be ordering batteries in a restaurant is not really clear to me.

Budder is also a tricky thing to ask for. All you want is a small amount of churned dairy product to spread on your bread but your waiter/waitress stares back uncomprehendingly, not having a clue what you are on about or what buh-tah is.

And don’t even think about ordering a croissant. In England, we at least try and pronounce it in something like a French accent (“cwassan”) but that won’t get you very far in the US where you have to say it as “cruh-saunt”.

Still I suppose the same thing would happen in the UK when Randy Yankmeister asks the Estonian waitress for a glessa waddur. She is not familiar with the written word, is only used to locals asking for a glarse a wartur innit, and looks back at Randy as if he is a complete idiot.

So next time you encounter an American, the easiest thing is not to bring words such as battery, butter, water or croissant into the conversation.

To help you get what you need while out dining or shopping, try doing what I do: glue pictures of those “difficult” items on to handy pieces of card which you can then wave around to get what you want when verbal communication becomes impossible.