“Well, what language are we speaking? It’s English, so I am right!”
Truth is, the discussion never ends because like it or not, although we both speak the same language, we speak it differently. I was thinking about how to write this account, and in truth I am still unsure. Maybe I’ll go with British English and put the American translation in brackets, for no other reason than my Gran can understand it better that way.
A good example of how the two languages differ happened just the other day, I was talking to a friend about going to the hospital to get some injections for my visa application and when referred to them as “Jabs” he looked at me weird and first asked if I was looking for a “Job”, my accent confuses most people here, even friends. But even when I repeated myself, my friend thought someone had punched me. After some miming and explanation on my part it turns out that the American term for injections is “Shots” and not the kind you drink.
Everywhere I go people comment on my accent and ask where I am from. Most people in America have family history in Europe, so this sparks a conversation. But only once during Aelisa’s numerous trips to England did someone comment on her accent, this was a teenage cashier at Primark! Why is this? Is it simply because Brits grow up on a diet of American television and film? People often try to imitate my accent too, but they all sound the same, posh. People have an obsession here with the Royal family and people drinking tea and eating scones at a white table made of iron in the afternoons. The recent royal wedding was everywhere in the media here.
When I speak to my family on the phone they often comment that I am sounding more American, and it isn’t my accent, it’s my tone of voice. I know from meeting other ex-pats living in the area (there’s more than you would imagine) that my accent is here to stay, thank god, but it is the tone of my voice which will change. I am O.K. with that, I think.
Spellings, anyone who has used a computer to type up a word document or an email with spell checker turned on will know that because of the stupid squiggly red line, American’s omit the letter U from certain words like colour, neighbour, flavour and favourite. You will also know that words like personalise are spelt with a Z (Zed, not Zee) instead of an S or theatre and centre are spelt with the E and R the other way around. It is a running joke that when I start teaching that my class will always lose a spelling bee (something I have only seen once in England) because I will teach them the English way to spell things. Probably true, but who and when did America decide to take these vowels from their words and apply these different spelling rules?
I have read that it is because of different interpretations of the Latin language. British people owe their spelling to the Norman French speakers who invaded during the Norman Conquest in 1066 and America decided to stick with traditional Latin language and a Dr Samuel Johnson’s 1755 ‘A dictionary of the English Language’ which was worldly renowned as the ‘bible’ of the English language until the Oxford English dictionary came along some 150 years later. Ironically, Dr Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England.
Another reason for the friendly discussions about the English language in the McEvilly household is the difference in vocabulary. For example, like most British people my favo(u)rite sport is football, and because I have coached the sport over here and I am lucky enough that my in-laws are sports fans, people are surprised when I refer to it as soccer. I am also a fan of NFL, which is referred to in these parts as football, although only two plays on a team kick the ball, everyone else uses their hands. A few other translations, other than Jam – Jelly, for British people to bear in mind if they visit this part of the world are:
Shopping trolley – Kart
Shop of any sort – Store
Road – Street
Path – Sidewalk
Indicators (in a car) – Blinkers
A Flat – Apartment
Handbag – Purse
Purse – Wallet
Cellophane – Cling Film
Baby Grow - Onsie
And the one that ALWAYS gets me is Anti-Clockwise – Counter clockwise.
Then there is the fact that American people often use brand names to describe objects, such as Kleenex for tissues, the kind your Gran carries in her handbag, Band Aids for plasters and Q-Tips for cotton wool buds.
Then there is the fact that American people often use brand names to describe objects, such as Kleenex for tissues, the kind your Gran carries in her handbag, Band Aids for plasters and Q-Tips for cotton wool buds.
Finally, there’s pronunciation. Everyone knows the old adage “You say Tom-ay-to, I say Tomato” but Americans also pronounce Aluminum as A-loo-minum and Semi as Sem-I instead of Sem-E. Iran and Irak are pronounced Eye-Ran and Eye-Raq here as as Al Qaeda being pronounced by Americans as Al-Kay-da instead of Al-kay-ee-da.
I know that these differences may not be huge, but they certainly make life a little more difficult for me, even if it is down to having to explain myself through mime or going into more detail (that’s dee-tail not d-tail) when conversing with people.
