Many of the people we encounter at CAJ are Americans or use American English. So I find myself checking what I say in English before I put it out there. This is our 9th year overseas and our 5th year at CAJ but even now I get it wrong. This week I've used "tick" and "gum boots" and gotten a blank response. Then, just to confuse matters I spent time with a Finnish lady who speaks British English, but "footpath" meant something different to her - a path in the woods. If she'd been American I'd have used "sidewalk"...I also have to remember to say "I going to the bathroom" even if there is no bath in the room..."faucet", "parking lot" and "counter" they are all coming into use again as we struggle to communicate clearly with our north American fellow English speakers!
Then I find my kids coming home and saying "mom" and "Zeelot" (for Zealot in Jewish history). Saying "read 1 through 10 please" or "one fourth please mom" or "in math today we...". Arrrrggghh.
My husband tells me not to worry. But it grates on my ears like fingernails on a blackboard.
8 comments:
Living on the other side of Tokyo with the other batch of people from our mission, I have always incorporated British terms in my speech, to the point that when I go home I have to work on changing back from "pavement" to "sidewalk" and "bench" to "counter". I emailed my sister one day and said I wasn't "too keen" on something or other and her reply contained American alternatives for me to remember.
Funny. The tricky thing is Australian English has some British, but not all. Neither "pavement" nor "sidewalk" works in Australia. We have "footpaths".
I've heard similar things to your story from other Americans in OMF. We end up with some kind of international language!
My aunt whilst in Canada told apologised to her pastor for "pinching his seat". (She hadn't realised that she was sitting in his chair until he came back.) It was met with great hilarity, because those words have a slightly different meaning over there.
Just don't use the "r*****" word for eraser with your American friends/colleagues/etc. The meaning for them is something unmentionable, as are those things we wear on our feet in the summer that we call "t****s". I learned to change my terminology rather quickly. I love that the school I'm at now has a much broader blend of nationalities, which can present challenges at time, but it also makes for interesting conversation.
Yes, Karen, usually manage to avoid those words as well as the t***** word we use for the little lady's/men's room.
Hi Wendy,
I hate to say this, but it seems that you've been picking up the Americanisms just like your boys -my Australian Oxford Dictionary says: "except in the adjective ill-gotten, the past participle gotten is non-standard in Australian English." It's not surprising though, it would be more surprising if you hadn't picked up a few.
When my missionary auntie came home in the late 1980's, after spending a lot of time with Americans, the two American-sounding things I remember her saying were "sweater" and "bread rolls" with the emphasis on the word bread. But she seemed to go back to Aussie expressions fairly quickly. Though with children it might be a bit more deeply ingrained.
Hmmm. Thanks for that Caroline. I didn't know that! How would you say, "This week I've used "tick" and "gum boots" and gotten a blank response." in an Australian way?
But you're right, the longer we stay here, the harder it is going to be to determine the differences. As a writer, that is a challenge, because sometimes I'm writing for an Australian/British market, sometimes for an American market!
Hi Wendy,
I thought about this a bit, then asked my husband, and we both think it's probably more standard Australian to just use "got", but the interesting thing is that both of us also changed the tense a little, from "I've" to just "I" (i.e. removing the "have".)
Of course it's possible that there are regional variations as well. And Americanisms are coming in here too, so people might not notice it anyway. We had a birthday party at our place on Saturday and my kids all thought that one of their cousins must have been watching too many American TV programs (though that was mainly because of the accent he was using much of the time).
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