WHAT DID YOU SAY?
THOUGHTS FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE
By
Brian Hannon
Living
in a Scottish lighthouse during the past year has allowed me not only to
observe America through my Internet spyglass but also to swing the lens onto
my new European home. One of the most interesting discoveries has been that
Britain and America share a language but not always a vocabulary.
This
past summer I asked a pharmacy cashier if she would throw a piece of paper
into the trash can behind the counter. She remained silent. I asked her
again for use of her trash can, thinking she hadn’t heard me. This time she
stared more intently, perplexed, as if I had two heads. Then I realized my
error: “Could you please put this in your rubbish bin?” She instantly
snapped out of her contemplation of my alien form. “Of course,” she replied,
taking my rubbish/trash and tossing it into the bin/can.
The
traveling American should understand that the English spoken in the United
Kingdom can seem like a distinct dialect from the version we employ in the
states. Common words are used in ways unfamiliar to Americans, creating
moments or even minutes of confusion. Overcoming these little
misunderstandings is a matter of learning the vocabulary. For example:
You
take a lift (elevator) up to a flat (apartment). Inside the flat there’ll be
a bathroom, although that might be separate from the toilet; bathrooms are
where you bathe and not necessarily the location of the flushing mechanism,
so you might get funny looks if asking for the bathroom in a restaurant. The
cheque is your tab; to the Brits, a bill is something you get in the mail
from the phone company, not the thing you ask for at the end of the meal
before you seek out the toilet.
Motorway or dual carriageway = highway or freeway; crisps = potato chips;
chips = French fries; football = soccer; match = a game of football; pitch =
field, where a football match is played, and you sit in the stand eating
crisps or chips.
Chat up
= hit on, flirt; bird = woman, as in “I’ve been chatting up a bird at the
pub”; fancy = admire or to be desirous of, both as in “I fancy a cup of tea”
or “I really fancy that bird at the pub I keep chatting up when I order
tea.”
Posh =
swanky or cultured, often to the point of extravagance or aloofness; posh
can be good or bad depending on the viewpoint of the person using it, in
much the same way in America that “wealthy gentleman” and “rich asshole”
might be references to the same person. In the latter case, you might be
inclined to “slag” that posh guy, meaning to mock or insult.
Tragically, the word “baseball” does not exist in British culture. Here they
have something called “cricket” that is infinitely less interesting than the
great American pastime. Also, while baseball attracts people from every walk
of life, cricket is for posh assholes.
Just
because someone is your “pal,” doesn’t mean he is your “mate.” A mate is a
genuine friend; the person you trust most is your “best mate.” Pal is what
you’ll be called by a taxi driver affecting a chummy manner or someone who’s
trying to be nice before they knock your block off, as in, “Listen, pal,
I’ve had enough of you slagging cricket.”
In the
UK, “cheers” can be put to its common American use as a festive declaration
made when clinking glasses. Yet in Britain it more often means “thank you,”
like when a stranger holds a door for you, or a cashier hands over your
change. “Cheers for that,” someone might say to a coworker who fixed the
copier or delivered a message. Personally, I’m sticking with “thanks” on
those occasions, since I still hold dear the special connection “cheers” has
with beers.
“All
right?” has many meanings, kind of like aloha. Used as a greeting, it can
mean “I am sincerely interested in your well being and really want to know
if you are all right,” but more often simply, “hello, mate.” Depending on
inflection it can also signify, “I am acknowledging your presence, but I
don’t want to have any more conversation than that one word.” When a
bartender, waiter, or waitress asks you “All right?” it usually means, “What
exactly would you like to order?” or “Do you require anything else before I
go on another smoke break?” or “For God’s sake, she’s not going home with
you, so stop chatting her up and pay the cheque.”
Adding
to the confusion, many words are spelled differently than in America, with
the British preferring for some unfathomable reason to lengthen perfectly
workable words by adding an extra vowel or a superfluous consonant.
A filet
cooked on a British grill becomes a fillet; the mustache on a British face
is a moustache; the BBC shows television programmes, not programs; a Brit
works in a building annexe, not an annex. Your breakfast is no longer
yogurt, but rather yoghurt, and you don’t care about its mold but you hope
it doesn’t contain mould. British doctors come in varieties such as
orthopaedic and paediatric and seek cures for leukaemia, haemophilia, and
diarrhoea.
The
Brits also have an affinity for Y and a hatred for Z (which they call
“zed”). Tire is spelled tyre, and pajamas are pyjamas. In Britain you don’t
analyze and categorize something, you analyse and categorise it. And when
they still had an empire, they practiced colonisation, not the colonization
of American homesteaders.
With
some words there are barely noticeable changes that would nevertheless throw
any red-blooded Yank for a loop if they entered a British spelling bee. Your
American specialty is your British speciality. You don’t have a nasty vice
and a metal vise, you have vise both in your heart and in your garage. A
Scot will take in a show at the theatre or a cultural centre, an English
pilot manoeuvres her aeroplane, and a Welsh farmer driving a plough might
unearth an artefact. There are also odd differences in some word endings; we
eat French fries while watching the game, the Brits eat chips whilst
watching the match.
There
are plenty of Americans in Scotland, especially in the capital, Edinburgh,
but we frequently have a sense of being outsiders upon opening our mouths.
While I have
learned quite a bit about British speaking and spelling habits, they would
insist I have “learnt” a lot, thus proving I have learned/learnt nothing.
