It's actually just regular English as it's taught in school, not some American slang, but I do remember there being some discussion about possible misunderstandings on the part of people who don't speak English very well. In the end I think people agreed that whoever doesn't know the proper meaning of that term will learn it when he encounters it here
As for the spies, I'm pretty sure the number of spies can vary according to map size or something...in my current game I think I got 2 spies in the Renaissance, initially (I'm not playing as England).