You Say Tomato...

Hello, all! Thank you for the lovely supportive comments on last week's blog post!

It's a Bank Holiday Monday here, the 'hood is alive with the sounds (and rubbish) of Notting Hill Carnival, and I'm on my way out the door. So I'm pleased to hand over the blog to the wonderful Laura Pepper Wu today. Take it away, Laura!

You say tomato, I say tomato. You say eggplant, I say WTH?!

 As a Brit living in Seattle, I love reading Talli’s blog and hearing all about the happenings “back home”, and of course her perspective on them as a Canadian in the UK!

When you move to a country other than the one you grew up in, you expect culture and language differences to hit you almost immediately. And they do; I say rocket, you say arugula, I say duvet you say comforter, and so on.

There are plenty of subtle things that creep up on you only as time goes by however. The longer I’m here in the US, the more I realise that there are a myriad of social and cultural differences that are harder to spot. Though we speak a common language, the US and UK have different ways of socialising, making friends, interacting, humour, and what’s ok - and what’s not ok to talk about or do can be contrasting, too.

It takes some analysis to understand why a conversation bombed, why you felt totally misunderstood, or why you were left feeling as though you just did something utterly inappropriate and awkward! But it’s all part of the fun of traveling or living overseas, right? Entering my fourth year living in North America, here are the language differences that I’ve come to understand of late!

The British use of negatives to describe something positive

-       The other day the nice man at the smoothie bar asked me how my day was going - in typical West Coast friendliness – and I replied cheerfully “Not bad, thanks!” This was met with lots of laughter. As he filtered strawberries and banana into the blender, he periodically threw his head back to giggle, saying under his breath, “not bad, not bad!” I felt a little flummoxed by this until I read recently that Brits are infamous for using a negative to describe something positive. Case in point: That Talli is awfully nice, isn’t she?

Calling me out

-       A few years ago, I asked a new acquaintance “What is your son called?” She asked me to repeat the question several times, and then looked a little peeved as she responded, with a wee bit of attitude, “you mean his name?”

I sort of forgot about this incident until a couple of weeks ago when a friend asked me where I had just come from. “Oh I was just having coffee with this woman called Liz…” I started. “What did you just say?!” she laughed, going on to explain that in US English, using the term “to call someone” is pretty rude. Rather, Americans might say  “I was having coffee with this woman named Liz…” I cannot tell you how many times I must have said or written this over the last few years. Holy shitake.

What’s in a name?

-       In the UK, you could have a lengthy conversation with a strange in a pub, or sit next to someone on a train or plane for hours without ever exchanging names. You might know the man down the street as ‘the bloke with the red car’, even though you say hi to him every morning!

In the US, names seem to be much more important – people often introduce themselves as soon as you meet them, even if you’re likely only to be talking for a few minutes and may never see them again. It’s just not that important to us Brits to be so name-aware – or at least we have a different sense of privacy than in the US where greetings are often accompanied by revealing your identity.

I know that readers of Talli’s blog are from the US, Canada, UK, Oz… and we speak all kinds of le English! I’d love to hear your stories about times you felt completely awkward or embarrassed when using a kind of English that wasn’t familiar to the other person… and the consequences of course! Leave a comment J

Laura Pepper Wu is Editor at The Write Life Magazine. She grew up in the UK before spending 3.5 years in Japan, and the last 3.5 years in the US. She loves culture, travel, and exploring Seattle’s best coffee shops! Find out more about her and the lifestyle magazine for writers – The Write Life Magazine – at www.thewritelifemagazine.com. The digital magazine is available for free download from the App Store now.  Say hi on Twitter @LauraPepWu!

Thank you, Laura. Have a great week, all!