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:
- I was expecting to be told frequently ‘I just love your accent.’
- I was anticipating that there would be many differences in vocabulary.
- 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.
- I had ideas that Americans are very warm, welcoming and friendly to tourists.
- 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
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….