Divided Languages - Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America - page 3

has it, that Americans say “tomato” and the British say “tomahto,” but nobody in Britain
says “potahto.” However, many Americans incorrectly pronounce the name “Edinburgh”
to rhyme with “Marlboro.” This is particularly confusing, since the British pronounce the
word “Marlborough” in a way that rhymes with the correct pronunciation of “Edinburgh.”
British and American types of English sound alike but are also different, which is true of
the two cultures as a whole. Their ways are both strange and similar to each other, a condi-
tion that Freud knew as the uncanny. It is uncanny to see something which looks familiar
in outlandish guise, or to see what is foreign as though it were routine.
Every now and then, an American will reveal by a casual word or gesture that he or she
is more alien than you imagined. This is rather like those science fiction movies in which
the extraterrestrials appear in convincing human guise, but betray by some well-nigh im-
perceptible blunder—a word slightly mispronounced, a coffee cup held at a bizarre angle,
a tiny drop of green blood—that they are not what they seem. At this point, a sinisterly
dissonant chord will be heard on the soundtrack. In the same way, Americans can appear
convincingly human to the British, only to reveal in a casual aside that they do not know
how to boil an egg, brew a pot of tea, or understand the meaning of the word “fortnight.”
Their true otherness then flashes out in all its mind-numbing horror.
Everyone knows that when a British schoolteacher asks his boys to get out their rubbers,
he is inviting them to have their erasers ready to hand, not about to give them a lesson in
contraception. British people who live in flats do not set up home in burst tires. The word
“bum” in Britain means buttocks, not vagrant. Americans might be interested to hear that
when a British friend tells them he is going to bum a fag, he means that he is about to cadge
a cigarette. An Englishman who gets through twenty fags a day is not necessarily a promis-
cuous homosexual. To say “I'll call you Wednesday” in British English does not mean that
I shall telephone you on Wednesday, but that I shall refer to you by the name Wednesday,
even if your actual name happens to be Roger or Roberta. In British English, braces keep
your trousers up as well as keeping your teeth straight.
Keywords
Not all Americans know that the following words and phrases are fairly distinctive to their
own brand of English: weird, awesome, reach out to, feel comfortable with, have a hard
time, big time, way too much, miracle, dream, buy into, gross, closure, impact (as a trans-
itive verb), heal, like, flunk, scary, facility, structure, blown away, I appreciate it, zero in,
kind of, issue (for problem), focused, respected, determine, freaking, roil, America, mo-
mentarily, at this time, barf, kids, meet with, share with, number one, craft (as a verb), fam-
ily, hacked off, bottom line, out there, bunch, totally, hero, excited, garner, aggressive (used
positively), off of, empower.