the queen's english

After 26 days on the road, I'm finally back in town. My trip went very well, but 26 days is very long. While it was my choice to be gone for that long, I hope I don't have to be gone that long again for quite some time.

For a language/culture nerd like me, my time abroad was great. I had never been to the UK before, and had only been to Turkey as a tourist and had never had the opportunity to spend much time talking to Turks. Here are some of my linguistic and cultural observations from the road:

B.O. - I find that there is a direct correlation between the level of civilization in a country and how bad the body odor of its people is. Without fail, you're going to get some funky smells from Turkish taxi drivers or the sub-Saharan Africans on the plane or whatever. This same correlation is actually true for the countries, in general. You're never going to get the "ripe" smells in London that you find on streets in Beijing or Istanbul.

Accents regardless of color - in the US, where you grow up and what your ethnicity is tend to be the primary determining factors in what your accent is. In the UK, however, I never spoke to a non-white person that sounded like they had a different accent from the white people. In fact, some of them sounded more proper than their white counterparts in some cases.

English in Amsterdam - you've gotta hand it to the Dutch for realizing that outside of the Netherlands, no one learns or cares about Dutch. Walking through the airport during my layover there yesterday, I found that about 95% of the signage in the airport was only in English, and not Dutch. I've never seen anything like this anywhere else in the world.

Chuffed to bits - how the English say "thrilled". Example: I'm chuffed to bits that England won the football match.

Politeness - I visited a few different places in England and Wales, and found the English and Welsh to be far more polite than the average American, which surprised me. The Welsh, in particular, are some of the friendliest, most hospitable people I've ever met in the world. If we looked lost, random people on the street would stop to tell us how to find things or where to go to see something interesting. All that said, I also found the people to be very impersonal. They're friendly to a fault, but share very little emotion or personal background.

Pubs - They're a huge part of British life. They're far more prevalent than in the US, and this is coming from someone who lives in a place that has one of the highest bar densities of anywhere in the US. Some pub thoughts:

- There might be what appear to be waiters walking around, but you actually have to walk up to the counter to order a drink or food. Weird.
- There's a short list of food that you're going to find in almost every pub: fish and chips, shepherd's pie, bangers 'n' mash (sausages with mashed potatoes), steak and ale pie. The quality of these items is hit and miss.
- For a non-drinker like me, lemonade is where it's at when you go to a pub. Ask for a lemonade in the UK, however, and you're not going to get lemonade. You're going to get 7up, Sprite or a homemade concoction that tastes like them. If you want what Americans call lemonade, you have to look for "traditional lemonade". I never once saw this on a menu anywhere.

Chips - as any American knows, fish and chips = fish with french fries. In the UK, however, chips are always french fries. If you ask for chips, that's what you're going to get. Sometimes you'll see "fries" on a menu, but they're never french. And if you want what Americans call "chips", you have to ask for "crisps".

Dual carriageway - If you say this on a sign, it means it's a two-lane road.

Lot - People use this to refer to a group of people, which always sounds funny to me. Example: That decision went over like a lead balloon with my lot (i.e., the group of people I work with).

Bits vs. parts - where Americans might say "parts", the English are more likely to say "bits".

Wealth - My hotel was in a very affluent area of London. Between this area and a nearby area called Knightsbridge (where Harrod's is), I've never seen so many Aston Martins and Ferraris in my life. There were Bentleys, Maseratis and Rolls-Royces thrown in for good measure, too. All these cars were making the myriad Porsches I saw look like your everyday Ford Taurus. I also noticed that the senior management at our London office had no qualms about parking their super-expensive cars right next to the front door in the company parking lot. It's been more than five years since I've seen this kind of ostentatious display at our Minneapolis headquarters. Still, for a lover of 911 Turbos, BMW M5's, Audi R8's, etc. like me, it was fun to see.

Harrod's - the most ridiculous display of exclusive, expensive items I've ever seen under one roof. You really have to go there to see or believe it. It's a department store, but has better representation of high-end brands than any other place I've been in the world. It also has a full grocery store, numerous restaurants and coffee shops, and product categories you wouldn't typically find in an American department store, from furniture to electronics to CDs/DVDs. Harrod's is great for people watching, too. Also notable is the high concentration of Arabs in there, and only there. Apparently Harrod's is where it's at for people with a lot of oil money to blow.

Blow someone off - You can't say this for not meeting up with someone or not showing up to a meeting. If you do say it, everyone is likely to start laughing, because in the UK, "blow off" only refers to oral sex. There is no equivalent phrase for this, either. I learned this quickly and had an opportunity to use this phrase to great comedic effect on my last day in the office in London. I was recounting the story to another Englishman later in the day and he joked that he was surprised no one asked me if I wanted a fag after that. A "fag" is not a derogatory term for a gay person in the UK; it's a cigarette.

Faggots - also not a derogatory term for gay people. You might see this on a pub menu, as in bangers 'n' faggots. It's actually meatballs.

Biscuits - in case you don't know, these are what we call "cookies".

Indian food - these days, curry is more the national food than fish and chips. There are Indian restaurants everywhere, which is great for a curry lover like me. I think I had Indian five or six times while I was there.

Turkish meat - Turkey is a meat lover's paradise. Kebabs, shish, doner and other grilled meats are standard Turkish fare, and I would eat that stuff three times a day if I could. If I were to put the average Turkish meal next to a traditional British one (fish and chips, shepherd's pie, etc.), I would choose the Turkish one 99% of the time.

Service in restaurants - once you get your food, you're not likely to see the waiter again anytime soon, if at all. This is true for both Turkey and the UK, but more so in the UK. The British find frequent waiter visits to a table annoying, whereas Americans interpret the lack thereof as poor service.

Credit cards - in the UK, most credit cards have chips in them that only require you to enter a PIN when you pay for something. Almost no credit cards in the US have this, so I would say we're behind the curve on this. Also, you typically get a wireless credit card machine brought to your table in restaurants when you pay. I've never seen this anywhere but Apple stores in the US.

Takeaway - ask to get your food "to go", and you're likely to get blank stares. This happened to me more than once. You have to ask for it "take away".

Pram - a baby stroller.

People mover - a minivan.

Nappy - a diaper.

Unusual spellings and pronunciations - an all-too-frequent thing. Examples:

- Clerk is pronounced "clark".
- Derby is pronounced "darby".
- Curb is spelled "kerb", but is not pronounced as "carb", like you might expect from the previous two examples.
- Chiswick is pronounced "chizzick".
- Warwick is pronounced "warrick".
- Pickwick is still pronounced "pickwick", rather than "pickick", as you might expect from the preceding examples.
- Gloucestershire is pronounced "gloss-ter-sure". "Leicestershire" is pronouned "lester-sure".
- "-shire" is always pronounced "sure", not "shire".
- The entire Welsh language. Seriously, how in the sam hill are you supposed to pronounce words like "gwyffnd" and such? I haven't a clue.
- Irish Gaelic is much the same. Here's a great example for you - an Irish girl in the office is named "Labhaoise". How do you pronounce that? "Leesha". Go figure...

High street - every town has one. It's what we'd call "main street", but it's usage is far more prevalent than the US equivalent. For example, big retailers are often referred to as "high street retailers". We would never call a retailer a "main street retailer". Also, newer American towns often don't have a main street. Not so in the UK.

Bacon - British bacon is not the same as American bacon. The bacon I had was quite bland and had no smoke flavor, and was more like ham than bacon, although I'm told it really depends on what you get. I have to hand it to the British for not being shy about putting bacon (and nothing else) on sandwiches and stuff. A "bacon buddy" is a popular breakfast bacon sandwich.

Volume - compared to the average volume level at which Americans speak, the British sound like they're mumbling all the time. Between the accents, different words, and low volume, you really have to pay attention when talking to people. By the end of most days, I'd be really tired of listening to British accents and hope to just hear Americans for a while.

Accents - it's amazing how much variety you'll get in such a small geographic area. You can go into a meeting or conference call with 10 people and get 5-6 noticeably different accents. There are varying levels of propriety, quasi-Scottish accents from northern England, working-class Cockney-esque accents, Irish accents, etc. Quite fascinating.

Formality - most Americans find British English to be very formal, and I found that it wasn't just because of the accents. In general, the British are far less likely to say things like "um", "like", "er", "you know" and other fillers that Americans frequently throw into speech. Whether this is cultural or learned in school, I don't know, but it makes Americans sound sloppy by comparison.

There are probably many more things that I'm forgetting, but this is enough for now.