The Language Difference
Dairy Heaven and Haiches
TUESDAY: Lunch is edam and olive tapenade on a very seedy and very flat Sainsbury's breadcake. I like the flatness combined with the abundance of crunchy seeds. It's aesthetically pleasing, somehow. It's Art in my mouth.
Since my mind is a bit flat and seedy this week and full of spatial problems, Marmite, and Dewey decimal numbers, I think I'll go back to my Life in the UK Pros & Cons list. I'll start with a Pro, which may sound more like a paid advertisement but I can assure you it's not. It's just that quality induces praise, and I am definitely not getting one penny for the following spiel.
This week's Pro is simply 2 words: Longley Farm. This West Yorkshire dairy, located just up the road in Holmfirth, produces the best yogurt and cottage cheese I've ever tasted. It's difficult to explain to Americans just how absolutely gorgeous these two dairy products are. (By the way, if you're one of those people who hates cottage cheese and/or yogurt you can skip the next 2 paragraphs.)
I've discovered that the most mediocre British cottage cheese is superior to the finest American cottage cheese. I can't explain why this is true, but it is. I mean, you'd think the fact that American cottage cheese comes from cow's milk just like British cottage cheese, and also that American cows eat grasses grown in soil just like British cows, would mean that there would not be much difference between fine American and fine British cottage cheese -- or mediocre American and mediocre British cottage cheese, for that matter. But there's a world of difference. For instance, Longley Farm cottage cheese is cream-coloured as opposed to white. And it's delicious spread on crackers. It tastes like a happy cow out frolicking in the pasture was just milked. It tastes real, not plastic. It tastes. And Longley Farm yogurt -- well, I can't do it justice. It's heavenly. I eat the plain yogurt, either full-fat or virtually fat-free. They're both addictive.
ANNOUNCER: Available at finer shops in Western Sheffield. Buy some today! And now back to "Expat In The Land of Marmite" with your host, JC!
My Con this week is related to my ears rather than my taste buds. It has to do with 3 specific things some Brits say. I'm absolutely fascinated by the way some people end a phone conversation by saying "Bye, bye, bye…" often in a vocal decrescendo two octaves above their normal speaking voice. It's as if they're pretending to fade off into the distance, as if they're riding off into the sunset while looking back and waving. I have to admit this habit doesn't bother me too much, but it does make me laugh because it is a bit absurd.
The second thing really bugs me. As most of the older Brits I know don't do this, it may simply be a product of more recent educational practices. But it still makes me cringe whenever I hear someone vocally spell the letter h as "haich". Why not "aich", which is what the letter is called? Sure, I've heard the rationale that it makes it more audible when spelling over a bad phone line. But why have I never heard Americans say "haich"? It just seems like a glottally superfluous load of work, not to mention redundantly obvious. And it's patronising to the listener, if I don't mind saying so. I mean, I know how to pronounce an h -- you don't have to keep telling me. I've got an h in my own name, but I would never dream of spelling it "em-eye-tee-see-haich-ee-ell-ell". My name's Mitchell, not Mitch-hell.
The third thing that irks me may well be universal in the English speaking world, but I thought I'd mention it anyway because it really bugs me. It's when people say "it's about". I'm not referring to the use as in "It's about 10:00 o'clock", "It's about 400 miles", or "It's about a boy who meets a sheep and falls in love." I'm talking about the use of "it's about" as a catch-all explanation or justification for just about anything. The phrase is used in advertising all the time, as in "It's about looks. It's about performance. It's about being totally cool." I can even imagine it appearing on a graduate's CV as a list of bullet points:
· It's about wanting a rewarding job.
· It's about getting recognition and respect.
· It's about gaining experience so I can get a better job.
· It's about making my parents happy.
· It's about paying off my student loan.
In this short-attention-span world where magazines are filled with concise encapsulations and soundbytes instead of real articles, where "business-speak" is an accepted way of running companies, and where many written things, like this very blog, exist not in the writer's possession but on some unknown computer whose actual location is a mystery, we simply don't need more vagueness and ambiguity. Life is blurred and feathered enough. Let's keep the ability to use language.
You know what I'm saying? It's about speaking English.
Where Am I? Top or Bottom?
WEDNESDAY:
A beerless bar might,
and a gearless car might,
but I can't go on
without my Marmite.
Sorry -- just reminding myself to stop at the shop because I'm out of Marmite. Lunch is a leftover Co-Op salmon fish cake sandwich on a fresh breadcake from my local bakery. The fishcake is quite good, with lots of fresh salmon mixed with smoked salmon, and it's held in with low-fat cream cheese and has a garnish of lettuce and red pepper. My fruit cup contains excellent strawberry and nectarine slices. I do love the summer fruits.
I could easily write this week about how I'm mystified as to why so many patronising personalities end up working in university libraries, but I'm not going to.
FRIDAY: Today's lunch is late and therefore in danger of being devoured instantly. It's a bit of a challenge to eat, as it's basil-marinated tofu, cream cheese, and chopped red pepper and spring onion on most of a long skinny baguette, cut at various angles so it will fit into my square plastic container. So today's lunch is a bit precarious.
One of the things Brits tend to assume about Americans -- aside from the erroneous assumption that 95 percent of the population are massively obese right-wing Christians -- is that all of the cities are built on grids. It's true that many of the roads of the newer cities are arranged this way, especially when the geography is flat and boring. But there's usually quite a bit of variation from horizontal streets crossing vertical avenues, especially when the landscape is hilly and/or marked with rivers or lakes. And the capitol of Washington, DC, like some of the world's oldest cities, was built on a series of spokes and hubs. I grew up in a city where the Pacific Ocean was to the south and the entire city completely surrounded a hill which was its own city, so this could have led to me being geographically disorientated later in life. Of course I was the type who would get lost driving the perfect grid of inland Orange County in search of Disneyland simply because every intersection looked exactly like every other intersection. For a British comparison try finding your way around the cloned roundabouts in the Edinburgh suburb of Livingston and you'll understand.
Regardless of this I still become extreme confused navigating the streets of Sheffield because I'm used to thinking in terms of North, South, East, and West, not to mention being aware of street names. Whereas in America one will give directions by saying something like "go down 3 blocks, turn left at the signal onto Elm Street, then go 2 blocks and turn right onto 34th Way, and it's the 3rd house on the right", somebody in the UK might say "Go down the main road until you come to the second set of lights, then make the second turning and keep on past the Red Lion until you come to a junction and make the third turning and keep on up the hill until you come to some shops on the left, and it's just opposite the Co-Op." So what's the name of the street you want? Who knows? It doesn't matter -- only taxi drivers are required to know the names of streets. When I spent a year in Sheffield delivering pizza and home improvement fliers door to door, I got to know the streets in the western half of central Sheffield like the back of my hand. As a result, because of my Knowledge, everybody in my neighbourhood knew that anybody who was searching for a certain street by name should consult me.
Another thing that confuses me are the terms "top" and "bottom", as in "the top of Fargate" or "the bottom of the Moor". It's been explained to me that these terms refer to the elevation of the street, which makes sense in the case of where I live, because my "top" half of the street is up the hill from the main drag, whereas my friends who live on the other side of the main drag live on the "bottom" part of the same street because it's down the hill. But this is all fine and good because I live on the slope of a hill. I still can't figure out why "the top of Fargate", for instance, is called this because I can't distinguish any notable elevation change when one walks from one end of Fargate to the other, and I'm not in the habit of carrying a pocket altimeter or even a spirit level with me.
As to which way is North, South, East, or West, on a sunny day I can make a good educated guess; but when the sky is evenly tinted with grey I can only really guess that a particular 180-degree direction from my particular standpoint has at least a bit of North in it, or South or whatever.
I suppose, so I don't seem like such a disorientated foreigner, I should start carrying a pocket compass as well as a spirit level…
Bagpipes and Apologies
MONDAY: Today's lunch is a homemade trout pate sandwich in a really really chewy rustic roll. I feel a bit like a cat, gnawing and tugging away at my yummy and fragrantly fishy sarnie. If only I could polish this off, give my face a quick wash, and go curl up in a sunny spot for a nap…but alas, I must resume my low-paid human existence.
In a story in a recent Guardian historian and piper Hugh Cheape claimed that Highland bagpipes were invented by the Scottish middle classes in the early 1800s, and therefore they could not have been played at the battles of Culloden in 1745 and Flodden in 1513. This is interesting news to me for the following reason.
As a "Heinz 57" -- as they call us melting-pot Americans with a zillion different nationalities and races in our background -- I suppose I've always considered myself to be a bit more Scottish than I actually am. After all, just because my father's father's father's father's father ad infinitum had a Scottish surname doesn't account for the fact that the Mitchell genes I've inherited have been diluted by my mother's genes, not to mention my mother's father's and mother's genes and my father's mother's genes and all of their various fathers and mothers, on and on throughout the infinite pyramid of genealogy -- and I haven't even taken all the adoptions into account. So that feeling of ancestral pride swelling in my breast whenever I hear the Scottish pipes may be no more than oesophageal reflux. Must have been the Marmite...
I first became excited about bagpipes when I was a young girl. As my father played the trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn, and my big brother and I were both mutually inclined, I grew up in a house full of musical instruments. One night my father took my brother out to a music shop to see about buying a new guitar. They didn't return until after I'd gone to bed. When I awoke the next morning I told my mother about how I dreamt my brother was standing at the foot of my bed cradling a set of Scottish bagpipes and doing a stunning aural impression of a neighbourhood-wide cat fight. And my mother, with a tired but tolerant smile, told me that was no dream.
Since that time I've become acquainted with the wide world of pipes, especially the Greek pipes or tsambouna of my folk-dancing days and the wonderfully alluring Uilleann pipes of Ireland, both of which are played without blowing into anything. So I suppose my special appreciation of the Scottish pipes may be down simply to an admiration for a strong set of lungs.
WEDNESDAY: Ah, lunch! Lunch yesterday was a wonderful brie from the French cheese stall at the Continental Market last weekend. Sadly they'd run out of what I call "walking camembert", eg. a gloriously fragrant camembert that ages rapidly in the fridge, eventually bursting out and walking across the floor. But the same fromagerie's brie is a good second-best, perhaps not blessed with legs but at least with flippers. Today's lunch is a good strong cheddar with the olive tapenade I bought from a Greek stall. I have to admit it is nearly as good as my own tapenade, which is saying a lot.
I feel like I've lived in the UK long enough to become adept at the British art of apologising. And I'm not referring to the apology as an expression of regret and humility for having offended someone or done someone wrong. I'm referring to the custom of saying "Sorry" in situations where an American would say "Excuse me" -- specifically when trying to maneouvre past others in a crowded or narrow space. Obviously in the UK one finds more crowded and narrow spaces than in a lot of the United States; but the passive "Sorry" as opposed to the active "Excuse me" seems to require a certain amount of timing to execute it properly. For instance, in America, when trying to get past a group of oblivious people on the pavement, I'd simply say "Excuse me" as I push my way through, with my statement acting to alert others as to my presence. This tactic is used all over America, although there are some variations. For instance, an ex-workmate of mine from Detroit told me his family tend to use the more direct "BEEP-BEEP! COMIN' THRU!" as they barge through their obstacles.
But if a person says "Sorry" it really needs to be said either a fraction of a second after the apologiser passes by her obstacles (with a tasteful amount of regret implied), or else said somewhat timidly, as if interrupting a conversation, before attempting to pass. These are simply my general observations and not rules, of course, as sometimes I've witnessed both the obstructed and the obstructers dancing about self-consciously like mating birds, generating an entire chorus of Sorrys.
I've become quite comfortable with "Sorry". But what really irritates me is a phrase I hear over and over again in the library where I work. If I or someone else is slightly blocking an aisle of books and somebody else wants to get through, they often say, "Can I just squeeze past?" To me this is insulting, as if my massive 7-stone-9 girth is obstructing so much of the aisle that another person is forced to make themselves as thin as possible to "squeeze" past me, conjuring up visions of a rat flattening itself into a pancake in order to slip through a locked desk drawer full of biscuits. And when the "squeeze-past" requester happens to be the size of a three-bedroom house, I'm afraid that vision of a wafer-thin rat just flies out the window, and I'm left not insulted but trying to keep myself from bursting out laughing.
No, this "squeezing past" just doesn't cut it. "Sorry" is much better, although I think I'll stick to my very effective "Excuse me", especially when followed by a mildly grateful "Thanks" or "Cheers".
Or perhaps I'll start saying, "BEEP-BEEP! COMIN' THROUGH!"
The Alumin(i)um Debate
TUESDAY: Lunch isn’t very exciting: a sandwich with cheddar, red onion, red pepper, and English mustard. This week is a very tight one financially, so I couldn’t afford to buy anything interesting for my lunch. So it’s cheese, cheese, and more cheese, so I won’t mention it again this week. My fruit is a bit more interesting: white grapes, clementine and mandora slices, and strawberries. I don’t know where the strawberries have come from, but I’m sure my carbon footprint is quite a bit bigger than usual this week. Guess I'll have to buy some bigger shoes.
As I don’t like soggy sarnies I never put sliced tomatoes in my packed sandwiches. And I mean tomatoes, pronounced “to-MAH-toes” and not “to-MAY-does”, as I used to pronounce the word before living in England. Not that my American accent will ever change, but a language should be spoken as the natives speak it, specifically using the local pronunciation of names and words.
Having always been good at foreign languages I pride myself on my command of British English. I’ll admit I do slip sometimes, especially when I’m overtired or I’ve just been talking on the phone to my American mother. But I’ve been here long enough to adeptly pronounce the word oregano “o-ree-GAH-no” instead of “o-RAY-ga-no”, to wear “knickers” as opposed to “panties” and “trousers” as opposed to “pants”, to keep a torch in the glove box and to put the recycling in the boot, etc. The only word I can’t bring myself to utter comfortably is “Ta” (Thanks), as I find “Cheers” or “Thanks” much easier to spit out. But I am quite comfortable typing “ta” into text messages.
So why is the aluminium/aluminum debate such a huge issue? I’ll admit I don’t say “aluminium” more than maybe once a month on average, as I’m not a consumer of canned drinks and I do tend to refer to aluminium foil as simply foil. But why is it that on those occasions when I do mention aluminium the Brits around me make fun of me, saying, “You mean a-LOO-mi-num!” and then a tired argument inevitably starts about why the Americans dumped the second i and otherwise mangled the entire English language. And often it quickly branches out into other aspects of American culture. Personally I get very tired of explaining over and over to my friends that I am not the only American in existence who is not a loud, obese, right-wing George W. Bush-supporting Christian. Good god, how the hell do they explain why I spent most of my life living in America? If I were the only one like me I would have quickly spurned civilisation and probably moved into a cave to live on raw meat. Or at least raw vegetables…
But I digress. The fact is the Americans didn’t dump the second i’s in aluminium and speciality due to pure laziness caused by obesity and religious extremism. I mean, come on, guys! What about those Aussies? Like French, English is a language of many continents and cultures. So, as they say in America, get over it!
At least nobody complains about the way I pronounce “Marmite”…
WEDNESDAY: I’m sorry, I am mentioning it again, simply because I found a tin of tuna in the cupboard this morning. It was a matter of being sick of cheese sandwiches which made me spend 5 extra minutes this morning making myself a tuna sandwich. It’s actually quite good: tuna mixed with capers and caper vinegar, chopped red pepper and mushroom and spring onion, fresh basil, and sprinkles of dried thyme, chipotle chilli powder, cayenne, black pepper, and cumin, all on a breadcake with a thin smattering of cream cheese to hold it on. It's almost exotic.
