Jonathan wrote that “keep pouring cold water on everything” may not translate well because of the colloquialisms. This got me thinking about when I first arrived in the United States back in 1998. I thought I knew the English language very well. After all, I graduated from a well respected American university in Lebanon. Little did I know that in order to master the English language, or at least understand the spoken English, one should also master, or at least be familiar with, common slang language. For example, I did not know that almost everyone in the southern United States automatically uses the word “y’all.”, like “Hi y’all”, “What y’all doing?”.
Each area in the world has its own slang. You have American slang, English slang, Australian slang, Canadian slang, Scottish slang, Arabic slang, … I believe that the best way to learn slang is to live with people who speak it and learn as you converse with them on a daily basis.
While reading the book Google Hacks, I came across the following list of slang related dictionary web sites. For example, these sites may come in handy when someone tells you that you have egg on your chin:
The Probert Encyclopedia. This site is browseable by first letter or searchable by keyword. The slang presented here is from all over the world.
A Dictionary of Slang. This site focuses on slang heard in the United Kingdom, and also from other places. It’s browseable by letter or via a search engine. Words from outside the UK are marked with their place of origin in brackets.
Surfing for Slang. This site has a good meta-list of English and Scandinavian slang resources. You will find interesting things like words Americans should avoid saying to Australians and New Zealanders.
Urban Dictionary. You can browse this collaborative dictionary by word and find dozens or hundreds of definitions for each word. The definitions are added by site visitors, and each definition is open to votes from other visitors. The most widely accepted definitions for each word bubble up to the top.
Later mate 
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Hahaha its not really that easy to offend us kiwi’s, lol but keep away from the sheep jokes.
January 4th, 2007, at 4:16 am #Well, even in the US, there are different dialects. For example, in Missouri, you will hear people say “you’ins” (pronounced you - ins) instead of “y’all”.
Also, in the Boston area, you’ll hear people pronounce the letter O as -ah-, like Bahsten (Boston).
January 8th, 2007, at 4:35 am #