I've seen those English dramas too

From a recent Guardian piece on Vampire Weekend, describing a song from their new album: "In a way, it's their two fingers up to the tired idea of being a two-fingers-up band."

They'd only use one finger, is my guess. They may be cosmopolitan, but they're still American.

But I'm snarking. It strikes me a little weird, but I don't think the writer did wrong, exactly -- he's a Brit writing for Brits, how else would he put it?

As for the larger issue, there's got to be a word for relating someone's thoughts in argot that's foreign to them. I've been keeping an eye out for this kind of thing since reading this passage on Blanche Lincoln in the Economist a few months ago: "She first won a seat in the House ... after ousting a sitting congressman in a Democratic primary. He had 487 overdrafts at the House bank. She campaigned on the promise that 'I can sure enough balance my chequebook.'"

Again, what are they going to do, change their spellings just because she's from Arkansas? All the same -- take a minute and savor.