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Not long ago, an American friend was driving rather toovigorously in the west of Ireland whe
n he was pulled overby a Gard (police officer).
'What would happen if youwere to run into Mr. Fog?' the Gard inquired gruffly in histhick Irish
brogue. Stung by this patronizing query, myfriend replied with heavy sarcasm,
'Well, I guess I'd putMr. Foot on Mr. Brake.' Whereupon the officer stared athim rather strang
ely and growled, 'I said mist or fog.'
My friend, as it happens, is an anthropologist. For oneenthralling moment he thought he had
stumbled upon atribe in the west of Ireland which personified aspects ofthe weather, speakin
g of Mrs. Hailstorm, MasterSunshine and so on. But it was just another case ofinternational m
iscommunication.
Most people know that when a British schoolteacher askshis pupils to take out their rubbers,
he is inviting them toproduce their erasers, not about to give them a lesson incontraception.
British people who live in flats do not setup home in burst tires. The word 'bum' in British En
glishmeans buttocks as well as vagrant.
People in Britain do not usually say 'I appreciate it,' havea hard time, zero in, reach out to oth
er people, stayfocused, ask to be given a break, refer to the bottom lineor get blown away. T
he word 'scary,' as opposed to'frightening' or 'alarming,' sounds childish to British ears,rather
like talking about your buttocks as your bottie. Britstend not to use the word 'awesome,' a ter
m which, if itwere banned in the States, would cause airplanes to fallfrom the sky and cars to
lurch off freeways.
Using the word 'aggressive' positively also sounds strangeacross the pond. In Britain, it sound
s almost as bizarre ascomplimenting someone on being as ugly as sin. Thehabit of using the
word 'like' every four seconds,widespread among American youth, has now caught onin Britai
n as well. Perhaps it has to do with an attemptnot to sound dogmatic.
'It's 9 o'clock' sounds unpleasantlyauthoritarian, whereas 'It's, like,
9 o'clock' soundssuitably tentative and nondoctrinaire. It is rumored inEurope that you can no
w find tombstones in the g 'To Our Beloved Son, Brother and, Like,Husband.'
The phrase 'to feel comfortable with' is quintessentiallyAmerican. The British would not usu
ally say 'we feelcomfortable with using this taxi firm,' any more thanthey would feel comfo
rtable with being scourged untilthe blood ran down their thighs.
Americans tend to say 'Excuse me' when they accidentallyget in your way, while the British sa
y 'Sorry.' Americanssay 'Excuse me' even when they are 10 paces away fromyou, since they a
re accustomed to a lot more space thanwe are in Europe. One knows one is back in the U.K.
when everyone is constantly saying sorry for no reasonwhatsoever.
What you say in Britain when you mishear what someonesays depends on your social class. T
he working class say'Aye?'; the lower middle class, 'Pardon?'; the middleclass,
'Sorry?'; and the upper class, 'What?'
Americans tend to lapse into the present tense whenspeaking of the past much more commo
nly than Brits do.
'I'm in the kitchen and there's this terrific bang and I diveunder the table' is distinctively Amer
ican. Perhaps theBritish rate the past more highly than their trans-Atlanticcousins. People in B
ritain might call children kids, but notin newspaper headlines or on television news. American
stend to prefer the ugly monosyllable 'kids' to the ratherbeautiful word 'children,' seemingly c
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