British English versus American English

British English versus American English

A long time ago, I flew with my husband and two babies from Texas to London, in Great Britain. We flew at night so that our two babies would sleep and we could rest. But as it turned out, the babies cried the entire 11 hours, so we walked the Atlantic Ocean, my husband marching up and down one aisle, carrying the 17-month-old, while I staggered up and down the other aisle with the 6-month-old sprout. Both infants had colds, so I had asked the pediatrician for medication that would help them breathe better. He had prescribed a cherry-flavored, liquid medicine that I hope none of my gentle readers will make the mistake of giving to their innocents. The pediatrician assured me that this vile fluid would also help my boobelehs sleep during the flight.

It did not. It only made them angry.  This made them cry even more loudly than before I administered the horrible stuff. Then their little, round noses ran more copiously than previously, which, in turn, urged them on to still louder crying. This, of course, endeared us even further to the staff on board the airplane and to the other passengers, one of whom informed me that I should have left my children at home while I “jet-setted” off to Europe. Wouldn’t that have been fun, a 17-month-old tot baby-sitting a 6-month-old baby for two years, while Mama and Papa lived and worked across the Atlantic Ocean?

When we finally reached the shores of Great Britain, we had exhausted our original supplies, which had once filled two large diaper bags to overflowing. We were out of dry diapers, bottles of formula, animal crackers, baby wipes, patience, and energy. While my husband fetched the luggage and negotiated with customs, I held both children on my lap, a sobbing baby on each knee, and collapsed against a wall, listening to stereo crying. I had a sudden horrifying vision of the fellow over at the customs desk taking a look at my disheveled state and the two screamers and telling my bleary-eyed husband, “You can’t bring THAT in HERE. You’ve got to go back where you came from!”

At that low point, a British woman came up and took one of the babies from me. I was too worn out to care that she was a total stranger and allowed her to do this. She stood there in front of me, bobbing up and down, trying to soothe my youngest. Noting his soggy state, she announced cheerfully, “You’ll have to run down to the chemist for some nappies.”

I had no earthly idea what she was talking about. To my American mind, a chemist was a fellow who worked in a laboratory with a bunch of test tubes, someone closely related to a mad scientist. He wouldn’t know thing about babies. He might have a grown daughter for some Handsome Prince to marry when some monster ran amok and destroyed New York or Tokyo. But this young lady he would have managed to acquire without the benefit of a wife or that daughter having previously gone through a childhood. As a result, I was convinced he still wouldn’t have anything useful for me. The young lady herself would probably try to run off if I so much as asked her a question. Then she would fall and twist her bendy-wendy, little ankle and Mr. Handsome Prince would have to come and rescue her. Now what were those nappies?

I knew what a nap was – a short sleep such as I desperately needed and dearly wished my children had taken earlier. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I usually put a little ending on, in order to show that I thought it was cute and little, like a doggie or a horsie. Nor was it something I could purchase, which is what the helpful lady’s sentence implied. Even more puzzling, why would a mad scientist have one in his lab? I nodded stupidly at the nice woman, just glad that somebody else was holding one of the screamers temporarily.

Then my husband showed up with the baggage as well as the incredible news that the customs man, having had all he could take of the wailing at the wall, had waived his opportunity to search our luggage for contraband and given the directive that we should enter Merry Olde Englande lickety split. So I took on the littler baby from the sweet British woman, again, while hubby toted the luggage, and we were off on a long quest in search of the outer sidewalk.

Several polite Brits offered their assistance as we marched through what seemed to be the biggest airport in the world. Each offer was gratefully accepted but, for some odd reason, no one actually moved to follow up such an offer with real assistance. Perhaps the babies’ wails were too off-putting. Perhaps it was my husband’s pace. Or perhaps it was the forlorn way I accepted those offers of assistance. My memory is a bit hazy on this point. I just remember that I carried both screamers, still screaming, to the curb, where our ride was late, having gotten lost in the wilds of London. There, a true Texan, he resolutely refused to ask anyone for directions, turn around, or consult a map, and so allowed us to watch traffic at Heathrow Airport for two hours after our arrival, to the accompaniment of more stereo sobbing.

We did eventually make it to our hotel and, despite all odds, survived two years of shoveling coal to keep warm, driving on the left side of the road, paying for goods and services in pounds and pence instead of dollars and cents, and hiring a child-minder instead of a baby-sitter on rare occasions. The screamers did eventually stop screaming and go to sleep in the car and we finally found some diapers at the drug store, which is what that nice British lady was advising me in the airport. Which brings me, at long last, to my real point. And you thought I’d never get here!

British English differs from American English. They drive lorries instead of trucks, they open the bonnet instead of the hood of their cars, and at the other end, they stick things in the boot instead of the trunk. When they drive over a nail, they get a hole in the tyre, not the tire. And when they look up at the sky, they are checking on its colour, not the color. Does the average American worry or care about any of these things? I venture to guess that you care not one whit. Nor do I. But the average American journalist, especially of the wannabe upwardly-mobile kind, certainly does, and once in awhile, one of these journalists will borrow a small piece of British English and use it, mixed in with the rest of his or her completely American English. The result is a something along the lines of a dialect oxymoron – a mixture that hadn’t ought to be mixed, in my most unhumble opinion. Why do they do this?

As an example, we may read about some muddle-headed government official having a hard time deciding what to do about some intractable problem. Say, the city council has been stewing for 30 years over whether or not to fix a certain road that runs behind the one and only hospital in my town. That road has been deteriorating for those 30 years, it never had a proper shoulder in the first place, and said road is taking on ever more traffic as the hospital grows by leaps and bounds. As the hospital grows, more houses, ancillary buildings associated with the hospital, and even shops being built along that road, too.  In addition to the extra traffic that all these buildings generate, still more folks have begun to take that little, skinny, bumpy road as a means to avoid the heavier traffic on the main road in front of the hospital. Finally, the hospital district obtains some extra funds from the state (sort of like manna from heaven) and tells the city that it will pay half the cost of rebuilding that road. As a result, one city councilman takes the decision that the city should pony up the other half and fix the road, after 30 years of indecision.

Why did the councilman take that decision, in such a British manner? That is to say, why didn’t he just make it, in the good, old-fashioned, Texan way, like the rest of us? If we talk to the councilman, that’s actually what he did. Later in the article, when we read an actual quote from him, he says as much. I’m assuming that the local journalist wanted to astound us readers with his erudition and education, sound a bit more high-falutin’ and smarty pants, by throwing in some British English, on the theory that the Brits speak the “real” English and that we Americans (especially we Texans) only speak a debased, ersatz variety. But in his eagerness to write the most purple of prose possible, our journalist ruined his effect by throwing in the very slangy expression “pony up” in the same sentence. I never read about ponies in any British rag. 

That’s my very belated point. If you’re going to pretend you’re British, my dearest dears in the media, you must go all the way. The Brits don’t pony up in print. They also don’t drive trucks, put gas in their cars, peek under the hood, or put umbrellas or grocery sacks in the trunk. So, at the risk of being even more wordy than usual, I must adjure you again, if you’re going to turn into an ersatz Englishman, you must go all the way!

There are many such examples out there even in TV-land. My favorite faux pas (French for “false step”) is abuse of that dear, little word, the unoffending, indefinite article, “an.” All English speakers normally use this instead of “a” before a word that starts with a vowel. That means a vowel in pronunciation, by the way, not according to how something is spelled. So, if we’re talking about “a unique event,” since we pronounce “unique” with a Y sound at the front, and that’s a consonant, we don’t use “an.” I’ll have you know, I’m officially an English teacher and a linguistics major, so I know whereof I speak here. If your high school English teacher, who was neither an English major nor a linguistics major, put a red mark on your paper for not putting that little word, “an” in front of “unique,” you send him or her to my e-mail and I’ll harangue him or her at great length until his or her ears turn blue.

Now, the only reason there’s a difference between British and Americans on the use of “an” is that many British do not pronounce the letter H at the beginning of a word. So, for example, a Brit may say, “This is an historical document.” But that’s because he’s really saying, “This is an ‘istorical document.” If you’re not saying it that way, leaving off that initial H, don’t put “an” in there or any other place where an H stands in front of your word! I’m wagging my index finger at y’all, journalists and TV reporters. You don’t come off looking high-falutin’ when you mimic the high and mighty and simultaneously trip over your tongue. If you really want to sound British, buy a British dictionary and go all out. Do it right or don’t do it at all! Those who wish to turn into Brits must put the extra “u” in “colour” and “favour,” put an “st” on the end of “while” so that it turns into “whilst,” and drop their aitches when they put “an” in front of a word like “historical.” If they want to pronounce that H, they have to say “a.” And that’s my ruling!

Then, if you still insist on becoming a Brit so as to impress your friends and relations, drive your car or lorry home, stopping to put a spot of petrol in your tank and check under the bonnet to have a look at the oil level. And for heaven’s sake, don’t ever make your child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! I have it on the very highest authority that such a combo would be as ghastly as eating kippers and marmalade on scones at high tea! Peanut butter is all right by itself. But jelly is gelatin across the pond and never, ever served with bread of any sort. That sweet, spreadable stuff is called jam, my dear, and don’t you forget it. If you should be so provincial as to make a whole tray of peanut butter and jam sandwiches at the local child-group, not a single British child in the whole nation shall touch one! Even the other mothers shall declare you an ignoramus and refuse to allow you in the kitchen thereafter. So, let that be a preemptive lesson to you from yours truly, the provincial ignoramus herself who offered that ghastly tray to those disappointed British children.

Your child will also thank you if preemptively warned that at afternoon tea, when offered a biscuit, he or she will want to say, "Yes, thank you, mom."  This is because, upon receipt, said child will discover that this is not a Texas-style breakfast food but a cookie and that the child is not addressing Mama but is only politely addressing the lady who is serving this sweet snack.  This handy word was the only bit of British English that my older boobeleh, 3 years old at the time of our return to the States, bothered to acquire.  So clearly it is the most important.  Now take heed!