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America: My brief observations on the language and culture

Helpful sign in cafe where we partook of breakfast one day

This sign actually filled me with much cheer. One of my moans (and do understand that I am not a moaner; I like to be very positive and see the best in people!) is that you cannot have a choice of a medium or large coffee. If there are only two sizes, then they have to be small and large! To have the option of medium, you would need 3 sizes. However, I am not exactly clear on what the customers might try to order in a typical cafe for someone to have been moved to put up the above sign.

My pre-conceptions about American culture and language:

  1. I was expecting to be told frequently ‘I just love your accent.’
  2. I was anticipating that there would be many differences in vocabulary.
  3. Related to the above, I anticipated that it would be easy to confuse Americans by using an English word that they might not have come across.
  4. I had ideas that Americans are very warm, welcoming and friendly to tourists.
  5. I was expecting to confuse many waiters by asking for ‘water.’ This was one that I had been warned about in advance; apparently the way we pronounce this word is different enough to confuse the Americans quite easily!

Usually when travelling I speak the native language if I can; in fact French is the only foreign language I can speak competently, but I have a smattering of Spanish and am willing to have a go, particularly with foodie words; I come across these in my reading of cookery books and food magazines. In America though I was deliberately sticking to English vocabulary as a kind of test. We are very at home with American culture in the UK, but I know that UK culture is not as widely known in the USA. So would it not be interesting to stick to asking for ‘chips’ and seeing what would turn up? I could talk about visiting Boston in the ‘autumn’ rather than the ‘fall.’ Where does the queue start? Is there a lift in the apartment? Where are the loos? (this one can sound rather rude I have since discovered!) However, I am not interested in going for a lie down, so I don’t want a restroom; and I am not planning to have a bath. Does the house have a lovely garden? (after all, ‘yard’ does sound to be like something at a building site!) Paul thought that I was a real stickler to my English and happily asked for the check rather than the bill and suggested we should cross to the sidewalk.

However, interestingly enough I found that Americans are probably becoming much more international and have started to embrace UK culture, as I only managed to confuse a few people! There are really an awful lot of words which vary between the two countries. This is my list of the most common ones that you might come across, with the English words on the left:

Pavement – Sidewalk

Bill – Check

Rubbish – Trash

Boot – Trunk

Chips – Fries

Crisps – Chips

Expiry date – Expiration date

Garden – Yard

Hire – Rent

Accelerator – Gas

Manual car – Stick Shift

Lift – Elevator

Mobile phone – Cell phone

Toilet/Loo – Restroom/bathroom

Autumn – Fall

Tap – Faucet

Petrol – Gas

Jelly – Jello

Jam – Jelly

Queue – Line

Trousers – Pants

Handbag – Purse

Ground Floor – First Floor

First Floor – Second Floor

Take-away – Take-out

Roundabout – Traffic Circle

Wash hands – Wash up

Postcode – Zip Code

Helpful sign in the Everglades. I don’t think we get many vultures damaging vehicles in the UK! What is a windshield wiper?!

I genuinely had not come across the notion that there is no ground floor in American apartments (note here that I think we actually use apartment as much as flat in the English language). I did not have the opportunity to try to confuse anyone with this difference in vocabulary, but maybe on our next visit… The idea that the first floor is called the second floor in America is strangely worrying. I feel a bad poetry moment coming on….. The specific example I can remember of locals having to clarify what I meant was when I asked if the apartment had a lift. We were back in New York for our second visit and the apartment was poky, the hallways were smelly and it was difficult to get away from the smell because the instructions to find the key were extremely confusing! Actually there was no lift or elevator and what a good idea I did not clarify which floor we were heading for!

Some aspects of language and culture which are much more like back home

I love the fact that miles and fractions are alive and well in the USA. We had a lot of fun with our hire car sat nav. Not only were the instructions nice and familiar being in miles, but our female guide (it seems that sat navs are always female) was rather obsessed with fractions, as in: ‘In 9 tenths of a mile you will reach the Bee Ridge Road.’ Or ‘In about half a mile, turn left.’ (why, ‘about half a mile?!’ Can you not be a bit more specific?!) Thinking about it, I am sure that she concentrated on halves, quarters and tenths, not bothering with eighths very much.

I also like to use fahrenheit rather than celsisus, so it was good to hear of temperatures in the 80s and 90s and not having to do my usual conversions that I do in the UK. Also it was nice to be working in gallons of petrol. I cannot understand the logic in the UK of describing cars as doing for instance ’60 miles to the gallon’ and then selling petrol in litres!

Returning to my list of preconceptions above, we were told on many occasions ‘I love your accent.’ People would often ask us where we were from. Paul had suggested that maybe we would get mistaken for Australians, but that was not to be the case. In fact, our ‘Swimming with the Manatees’ guide guessed that we were from Oxford when I asked her to make a guess. Actually this was one place she had visited in the UK and is not far from where we live! The silly thing is that as soon as an American says to me ‘I love your accent’, I start to speak subconsciously in an even more RP way. Maybe that is just me?

We found on the whole that Americans were extremely friendly and welcoming. On the metro, travelling from JFK airport to our apartment for the first time, one member of staff was really kind and helpful at assisting us with buying tickets and heading off in the right direction. On our second trip to New York, we took a taxi to the apartment. This was the incident with not being able to find the keys and trying to get upstairs with no lift in a very smelly building! In the midst of all that, Paul discovered that he must have dropped his mobile (no, not his cell phone!) in the taxi. He tried ringing the phone, and 15 minutes later the taxi pulled up outside the apartment block as the driver wanted to return the phone to him!

I did ask for ‘water’ a few times but was disappointed, as on each occasion I was understood even with the English pronunciation! Times have moved on….

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Eating our way through New York and Florida

Beautiful vegetables in Eataly in New York
Why is this pudding so huge with too much cream?!

This is a belated piece about our food whilst on holiday in New York and Florida in April. We love to eat good food all the time and I was looking forward to America because, like the UK, it is very multi-cultural and has such a diverse range of restaurants. My daughter Jess is also quite conservative in her food tastes but embraces American culture, so it seemed that it would be an easy place to find food to her tastes too. This was my first trip to America and Jessica’s too. Paul has been many times before, although not for a long time. I have known him for 22 years and he has not been to the USA since I have known him!

Some of my pre-conceived ideas about eating out in America and were they confirmed as being true or not?

I try not to be closed minded and have lots of pre-conceptions about places and people. However, with American culture being so widely known and shown on our TV and film screens, it was difficult not to have a few expectations. Actually, I did not have that many ideas about what to expect, but I had heard that eating out can be relatively cheap and that it is quite common to dine out a lot. My other expectation was that in restaurants the portions would be large. I have a very healthy appetite and can pile up my plate, but some of the meals defeated me! Hence the caption on the photo above of a pudding I had one day. For this reason we very rarely indulged in a pudding. In New York we ate out all the time; we had two nights there on our outward journey and three nights on our way back. Our apartments were not big enough for catering comfortably and we really wanted to see the big city in all its glory, so sitting in a cramped apartment was not an option we went for! We also like to have 3 meals a day, so sometimes I was frustrated with the breakfast being so huge and being mindful that I would need space for lunch! On our first morning in New York we had bagels – sadly I did not take any photos. They were excellent; mine was the traditional smoked salmon and cream cheese and I had fresh orange juice and fresh coffee to drink. Eating out in America is fun, noisy and vibrant and it is true that a lot of people partake of the pleasure. In terms of the cost, I’d say that New York was really quite pricey and comparable to London, whereas Florida was much more reasonable and as I was expecting American prices to be.

Below you can see some pictures of a breakfast we had en route one day in Florida:

Because of the huge portions, I was particularly looking forward to reaching our holiday home in Florida and being able to cook our own meals. Some might say, why would you go on holiday and cook your own food?! I even invited my dear old friend Gillian round for lunch on Easter Sunday; she has lived in Florida for over 30 years and was the reason for our visit. Well I just love to cook and really it does not matter where in the world I am; I want to go to the shops and go back and cook in a different kitchen. In this case the kitchen was large and well equipped; this made a lovely change from some of the villas we have rented in European countries, which often have rather small and uninspiring kitchens.

However, there are sometimes unexpected items missing or not working even in a big kitchen. The filter coffee maker did not work, so our host sent a replacement very promptly for us. The ice function in the fridge stopped working on Easter Sunday, which was not good news! Also, I could not find a proper can opener. Hence my attempt to open a can with a bottle opener. Result below, with no injuries at all!

Pre-dinner nibbles at Gillian’s fabulous Florida home

Here are some of the meals I cooked in our lovely Florida kitchen:

Roast Pork for Easter Sunday
A melange of left-over pork, beans and tomatoes with some spice and topped with asparagus
Free-form pizza made with a flour tortilla and some chilli mince cooked up by Jess
Free-form chocolate cheesecake topped with fresh fruit, for Easter Sunday

We did have some wonderfully memorable meals in Florida in particular, where the fruit and vegetables were fresh and tasty and there was plenty of fish. We also tried alligator a couple of times. I had hoped to have it unadorned and looking like an alligator, but it was served in batter or in a macaroni cheese. The latter was for a late lunch after a long afternoon swimming with the manatees – more about that in another blog piece.

Alligator Macaroni Cheese

We spent two nights away in the middle of our Florida break, travelling through the Everglades and finally arriving at Key West. Paul and Jessica did so much driving and I did my usual job of assisting or interpreting what the sat nav was trying to tell us!

We particularly enjoyed Key West, because it is a little bit different in terms of American suburbia. You get used to driving along main roads and passing shopping centres and restaurants without that town or city centre experience. It is true that it would be very difficult to walk anywhere in most locations, and those people you do see walking seem to be an oddity and it does not look very safe! Key West is more of a proper town with streets and shops. You can park your car and then stroll the streets to find somewhere to eat. Curiously though, most of the buildings are of a clapboard design so many of them look the same. We had a bit of difficulty finding the post office. Our main reason for visiting, apart from the wonderful coast (I have to swim everywhere we go!) was to see Ernest Hemingway’s House with the many 6-toed cats. More about this another time, but we had the most wonderful lunch at the Moon Dog Restaurant; it used to be called the 6 Toed Cat, but for some reason was renamed. I had the most divine steak salad, just cooked rare and to perfection.

Steak Salad
Stunning Artwork on the walls at the Moon Dog
Another view of the Moon Dog

On some occasions we got round the huge portion dilemma by sharing a meal. This is really ideal with a pizza, and to be honest we sometimes do this in the UK anyway. At home I make one big pizza and cut it into portions; we would never have a whole pizza each, although my toppings tend to be more substantial than those you get in a restaurant.

Sharing Pizza

The fish in Florida was superb. Common varieties were grouper and mahi mahi. The latter is also known as dolphin fish, but don’t panic! It is not anything to do with dolphins as we know them. One restaurant we ate in offered a couple of different fish with a selection of sauces and side dishes. A lovely, simple way of offering choice to customers.

On our way back home, having had a rather hot and tiring journey, we ate in one of the airport restaurants at JFK airport; much nicer than sitting around in crowds waiting for the flight. On this occasion, even Jessica was a little defeated by the large ice-cream sundae.

In conclusion I would say that the food in America was enjoyable and rarely disappointed us. If you are not like me and can cope with fewer than 3 meals a day when you need to have every meal in a restaurant, then that is definitely a wise option to take on occasions.