Xara writes: "It amazes me how being across the pond can turn what seems to be a simple conversation among those in the know into complete gibberish. I have not the slightest idea what has been said."

There, there. I suggest that there are two forces at work here: (1) the geographic distance and (2) the distance in time, as many of these expressions are somewhat antique.

The rememdy is to read all of the Jeeves and Wooster stories by P.G. Wodehouse, all of the short stories of H.H. Munro, all of the works of G.B. Shaw and Oscar Wilde ... that sort of thing.