| I was dismayed to learn the other day, that my all-time | | | | including Austro-Hungarians. Germans, Swedes, Dutch, |
| favourite George Bernard Shaw quote may not in fact | | | | Ukrainians, Irish, Poles and Russians. By 1890 there |
| have been uttered by him.Nevertheless, even the | | | | were over 300 German newspapers in the U.S.French |
| misquotation that Britain and the United States are two | | | | was once spoken broadly in a geographical ribbon that |
| countries divided by a common language, will ring true | | | | stretched from Quebec (where it is still the first |
| with any British Expat who has tried to make their | | | | language today) to New Orleans. Cajun - a mangling |
| new home in America.There are hundreds and | | | | of Acadian - still survives as a language today.Words |
| probably thousands of words that are different or | | | | poured into the American linguistic landscape from all |
| embody a changed meaning or intent.British people | | | | these groups and others: Cookie came from the |
| coming to America often assume that they've picked | | | | Dutch, avocado and mustang from the Spanish, canoe |
| up everything they need to know about American | | | | and tobacco from native Americans.It may be a short |
| English from a lifetime of consuming American movies | | | | history but it has been an intense one. When you really |
| and television.There is, undeniably, a huge advantage | | | | stop to consider it, it's amazing American English does |
| Britons have over other migrants, just by speaking a | | | | bear as much similarity to what is spoken in modern |
| variant of the same language. It is also astonishing how | | | | day Britain. After all, the Dutch and the Belgian Flemish |
| much British English has itself become | | | | actually share a border, but often find each other |
| Americanised.Forty years ago it would have been | | | | unintelligible.But even when you've been humbled by |
| difficult to find a British person alive who pronounced | | | | the historical evidence, it does not prevent the |
| the word secretary in any way other than the short, | | | | unsuspecting Brit from cocking up (to use a comforting |
| clipped sec-rit-tree. These days, that sounds | | | | ripe old British expression).In fact it is because the |
| old-fashioned to many people in the U.K as the | | | | English is so similar between the two nations that the |
| American sec-reh-tar-ee has taken full root. Mind you | | | | pitfalls become bigger.You can make a complete fool |
| in Britain forty years ago, no-one said "hi" and few | | | | out of yourself in the simple act of ordering a cup of |
| people knew what a teenager was.In these globalised | | | | tea. Unless you specifically ask for "hot tea" in |
| days American slang takes only a few months to | | | | America you're just as likely to be served iced tea. (Of |
| cross the Atlantic, such as the 90's fad of adding | | | | course, some would argue that even the hot tea is |
| "not"on the end of sentences, or saying "I'm like" as a | | | | neither hot nor tea).Some of the differences are |
| substitute for "I thought" or "I said" which has | | | | extremely subtle.A word like jolly in Britain has gained a |
| regrettably survived well into the new Millennium on | | | | large range of meanings. There is the jolly Father |
| both sides of the Atlantic.Perhaps it is because of the | | | | Christmas of course. But we also say somebody is |
| every day prevalence of American English in Britain | | | | jolly when they're drunk, or in the sense of humouring |
| that few British Expats realise what a linguistic | | | | or appeasing: To jolly along. It's used to describe perks |
| minefield they are entering when they cross over that | | | | or salacious fun; "I see he's getting his jollies". We |
| big moat.The very worst attitude to adopt when | | | | describe things as being "jolly good". It's also used by |
| arriving on these shores, is what the veteran | | | | some British people, usually those who sound a bit like |
| transatlantic broadcaster Alasdair Cooke once | | | | Penelope Keith, in phrases such as "I'm going to jolly |
| referred to as immediately deciding that "....Americans | | | | well go down there and give him a piece of my |
| are British people gone wrong."There is a long and | | | | mind!".In America jolly has only one meaning - merry. |
| inglorious history of British sneering at the way | | | | Other definitions used on this side of the pond will be |
| Americans speak, often based on ignorant | | | | greeted with bewildered stares.Some words are just |
| assumptions.Now of course, we all have our own | | | | designed to be confusing. A pavement in Britain is a |
| beefs about American pronunciations. I wince every | | | | sidewalk in America - where a pavement means the |
| time I hear the American president say noo-coo-ler for | | | | actual road or street. How potentially dangerous could |
| nuclear. I've never quite worked out why some | | | | that be?I once had an extremely long and strange |
| Americans say eye-talians for Italians. (Does this mean | | | | conversation before I determined that that an aerial is |
| the country is called eye-taly?) And I feel like inflicting a | | | | an anttena in America.Similarly video as a noun refers |
| great deal of real physical pain on someone when I | | | | only to a tape, not the machine. In the States the |
| hear, even seasoned American sports broadcasters, | | | | machine is a VCR.I quite recently had to carry out |
| call the tennis championship Wimble-ton or even more | | | | some swift damage control when I was taken to a |
| horribly Wimple-ton - as if the d in Wimbledon is | | | | party consisting largely of my girlfriend's family. My |
| somehow invisible.But for every one of these | | | | host, kindly introduced me to everyone."This is Lee." |
| ear-sores, we are equal opportunity manglers of | | | | she said and then added helpfully, "He's English.""Well |
| American English. Brits routinely mispronounce relatively | | | | spotted!" I replied, a tad sarcastically but meant |
| simple American place names such as Michigan, | | | | harmlessly, possibly summoning up a little Basil Fawlty |
| Houston and Arkansas. And despite pleas from the | | | | humour. The whole room fell into an uncomfortable |
| performer herself, the British adamantly refuse to | | | | silence as I searched desperately for a hole to open in |
| pronounce Dionne Warwick's name the way it is | | | | the living room carpet that would envelop me.Not only |
| pronounced in America - literally war-wick.In fact, there | | | | was the jovial sarcasm completely misinterpreted but |
| is a great body of historical evidence that American | | | | nobody in the room had a clue what "well spotted" |
| English is much closer to historical English in England, | | | | meant anyway.That story does however illustrate |
| than the version that is spoken today in modern day | | | | what a lonely place being caught in between two |
| Britain.It may come as a surprise to the sneerers to | | | | cultures can be. This can be compounded by the cruel |
| learn that words such as fall, for autumn, mad for | | | | attitude of friends looking for any evidence that you've |
| angry, trash for rubbish and scores of other | | | | gone soft in the head when you revisit the |
| Amercanisms all come from Elizabethan England. | | | | U.K"Hmmmm! You've got a twang!" is a typical |
| Many linguists believe that the accent Shakespeare's | | | | observation usually accompanied by knowing looks |
| plays would have been performed in would have | | | | signifying an innate cultural superiority. Then, with all the |
| sounded nothing like the classic renditions we've heard | | | | human empathy found in the act of pulling wings off |
| by Gielgud or Olivier. These linguists believe that the | | | | butterflies they'll furtively search and pounce upon |
| accent typically heard in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, | | | | every piece of newly acquired vocabulary or |
| would had a distinct twang that we would associate | | | | potentially offensive pronunciation.Once, when |
| today with the west country. A little bit more like, shock | | | | submitting a story to an editor in Britain, she noticed I |
| of shocks, the American accent.Indeed, Gielgud and | | | | had repeatedly used the word "lines"."Do you mean |
| Olivier spoke what we know in Britain as received or | | | | queues?" she asked."Oh yes I do." I replied, |
| BBC English. This is now largely acknowledged to be | | | | embarrassed by letting an Americanism slip in."Mind |
| an upper-class Victorian affectation. It nevertheless | | | | you, " she added generously "Line is a much more |
| became the standard English of public schools and | | | | logical word.""Oh I don't know," I replied feeling a sudden |
| was rammed into the consciousness of the British | | | | rush of British nostalgia. "I think queue is quite a |
| people with the advent of BBC radio in the 1920s. | | | | charming word.""My dear Mr. Carter," she scolded, in |
| While it may have created some sort of standard out | | | | her best schoolmistress voice, "if you're starting to find |
| of a chaotic collection of wildly differing regional | | | | your own people charming then you really have gone |
| dialects, it is an artificial, almost worthless creation that | | | | native!"And so this is the netherworld we inhabit. |
| has almost no historical value in the understanding of | | | | Neither one nor the otherBut the next time you're |
| the way English was spoken.So if we accept that | | | | struggling to order a cup of tea, or to make a fool out |
| those early settlers in America took with them some | | | | of yourself in the drug store, or if you're called a |
| of the vocabulary and sound of historic England, it's still | | | | hopeless yank by your British friends, just remind |
| amazing that the language survived the onslaught of | | | | yourself that you're actually a part of a new breed of |
| subsequent settlers.In the second half of the 19th | | | | hardy internationalists. |
| century some thirty million people poured into America, | | | | |