by Drew Lyness
Daily Lobo
As the well-known saying goes: Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language.
Even after two months in Albuquerque, I still encounter new words that provide communication problems on a daily basis. Confusing accents aside, the actual use of English and the phrases the British are accustomed to quite often don't translate too well across the Atlantic.
For the most part, British slang can be translated relatively easily and only proves
to be a minor stumbling block in a conversation. However, the odd sentence or expression can occasionally creep in that attracts nothing but a blank look and a slightly confused silence from whomever you are talking too.
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Probably our most-used word is "cheers," which can pretty much mean anything from hello to thank you to goodbye and is said a lot in England. A common phrase would be, "All right, mate?" to which the answer could be, "not so bad," "can't complain,"
or just a simple "all right" in return.
If I were to list the number of words that cause problems, I could probably fill the rest of this newspaper. But some that seem to cause the most difficulty in a trans-Atlantic conversation are as follows: A jumper is a sweater, and trousers are pants, in the same way pants in Britain are your underwear. We tend to just call tennis shoes "trainers." We don't have either pop or soda but just "fizzy drinks." French fries are called chips, and potato chips are known as crisps. If I were to say I was "knackered," it would mean I was very tired.
The multitude of euphemisms our two countries have for being drunk will never cease to amuse me. Recently the BBC counted 141. Among my favorites are: plastered, hammered, trolleyed, sloshed, twisted, battered, blitzed, leathered, lashed, mashed, monged, mullered, ruined, wrecked - the list is very long even without the more offensive ones.
Then, as with any cultural differences, there are the slightly more embarrassing linguistic differences I think deserve a mention. As everyone knows, if a Brit is "popping out for a fag" they are merely going outside for a cigarette. If you were to "knock somebody up" in the morning you would just be waking the person and not impregnating him or her.
On a personal note, I have never heard a class laugh as loud as when, as an exchange student in high school in Montana, I put my hand up and innocently asked if I could "borrow a rubber off anyone." A rubber is just an eraser in Britain.
There are also American words I have inevitably picked up after two months here. Whether they are just more infectious than others I am not sure, but I find myself putting gas instead of petrol in the car, walking on the sidewalk and not the pavement, putting items in the trunk and not the boot, and attending class instead of seminars.
I am sure by the end of the year, I will have picked up many more Americanisms and no doubt they will be a great source of amusement to my mates when I return home.
Drew Lyness is on exchange from Shropshire, on the border of Wales and England.
