I’d heard the old adage that Britain and America were two nations separated by a common language and like many I’d scratched the surface on business trips and holidays, sorry vacations but nothing really prepares you for the day to day challenges of living here.
For a country bereft of butchers shops, they’ve made a darn good job of butchering our language.
I say “our language” with some sense of colonial pride as after all, it is called English, not American unless you’re selecting American English on your iphone which basically just replaces your “s” with a “z” (pronounced ZEE not ZED) and removes the “u” from your keyboard!
Order chips with your fish and you’ll get a strange combination of battered something resembling a haddock and a bag of crisps.
I say resembling a haddock but only by dint of the fact that it once swam and now doesn’t – but that category also includes Duncan Goodhew so the comparison soon collapses!
And it’s not just the odd word they’ve changed, sometimes I find myself having to create whole new sentences.
About a year after moving into our house, I finally emptied the last of the boxes and with no public refuse facilities available, I filled up my car with empty boxes and took them to work.
“I have some rubbish in my boot that needs to go in the skip”, I declared to a colleague.
“You what?” he replied.
Which I think means: “What do you need and how can I assist you in this endeavor?”
Realising the error of my ways, I repeated: “I have some trash in my trunk that needs to go in the dumpster.”
Mr ‘You What?’ was straight on it and I realised then and there that resistance is futile and selling out was the only way to get anything done in this sun scorched land.
I should have known it wasn’t all going to be plain sailing when we visited the school with our oldest son the day after we arrived in Texas.
His well presented math(s) teacher asked him: “So where are you from?”
“Scotland” he replied with a smidgen of pride.
“Do – you – speak – Eng – lish?” she drawled.
This is the first time I was proud of my pre-teen using the word “Duh!” to an adult but on this occasion it seemed the only plausible response.
As if the aforementioned “Duh” didn’t highlight the ridiculousness of the question, she turned to us and asked “does – he – have – a – basic – grasp – of – our – language?”
With hindsight and in my mind, my response was an eloquent yet cutting tirade that had her promptly resign and take up a position at a drive-through where she’d join the many others who mix up my fast food order and force me to throw pickles from my car window, but that never happened and all I could muster was a defeated “yup!”
Looking back, it’s hard to be too harsh on Ms X since the only three words she heard from our family that night were “Scotland, Duh and Yup” and as I reflect on this encounter I am reminded of going to Banff Academy in August 1985 on the short eight mile bus journey from Gamrie only to be asked… “Do – you – speak – English?”
George Booth was born in Aberdeen and grew up in Gardenstown (a.k.a. Gamrie). In 2010 he moved from Aberdeen to The Woodlands, Texas with his wife Gillian and their three children. George spent over 20 years of his career in the freight industry and is still involved in a non-executive capacity but in mid 2015 he started working as Pastor of Development at Church Project.