A once-popular guidebook called An Anglo-American Interpreter went so far as to suggest that "an American, if taken suddenly ill while on a visit to London, might die in the street through being unable to make himself understood." I very much doubt that-the British don't want us dead after all, merely muddled-but it is certainly true that there are enough differences in vocabulary to make comprehension a constant challenge. According to a linguistic authority who took the trouble to make a tally, some 4,000 words in common usage have different meanings in British English than in American English. That doesn't seem a terribly large number on the face of things, but it is sufficient to cause endless confusion, as an elderly acquaintance discovered when she inquired of a passerby in London's Hyde Park if there was a restroom nearby.
"Oh, I don't think so, love," the passerby replied with sympathetic concern. "But there's a bench just there where you can rest as long as you like," she added helpfully.
The telling feature of all this is that wherever meanings differ between two countries, the American expression is nearly always, in at least some degree, self-explanatory. Even if you had never been in the United States, you could make a game stab at figuring out what was meant by sidewalk, doghouse, ground beef, bedspread, eggplant, baby carriage, and garbage truck. The British equivalents-namely, pavement, kennel, mince, counterpane, aubergine, pram, and dust cart-offer no hint of their meaning.
Added to this is the peculiar British habit of never saying quite what they mean. Benjamin Disraeli once memorably demonstrated this quintessential British gift when, upon receiving an unsolicited manuscript from an aspiring author, he replied with the note: "Thank you so much for the manuscript. I shall lose no time in reading it." This studied ambiguity-what we might call a flight from literalness-remains a characteristic feature in English discourse.
Be advised that when a British acquaintance says to you, "You must come for the weekend sometime. And do bring the children-they are so adorable!" he will be quite appalled if you actually turn up. British speech is full of phrases-"It's no trouble at all," "Of course I don't mind," "No, honestly, I was about to get up anyway"-that mean precisely the opposite of what they say.
Given such pitfalls, it's little wonder that Americans often make gaffes or fail to catch certain nuances. Just consider the example of the simple word tea, which in Britain can signify a hot drink, an afternoon snack, or even a full evening meal, so that when people say to you, "Come for tea," you have no idea when you are expected and what you might hope to be served when you get there. But never mind, because they didn't really mean for you to come in the first place. See how complicated it is?
After I married into this curious island race, I spent years trying to fathom their linguistic ways. I learned that when Britons table a motion they mean shelve it rather than put it forward for discussion, that a courgette is a zucchini and an aubergine an eggplant, that pudding is any kind of dessert, that momentarily means very briefly rather than in a moment (which is why when an American airline pilot announces "We'll be landing at Heathrow momentarily" all the British passengers get a worried look and start packing up their carry-on items). I learned that when someone says to me, "Bill, you're a brick," they are not really likening me to an inert building material but complimenting me on some manifestation of solidity and reliability, that "Bob's your uncle" is roughly equivalent to presto, and "Keep your pecker up" doesn't merit a double take since all it means is "Keep smiling." I learned all this, and it took years, and I still get confused.
If there is one comfort in the matter, it is that the British frequently confuse even themselves. One of the souvenirs of my days as a sub-editor-sorry, copy editor-on a provincial British newspaper is a yellowing and now-tattered dispatch from the Press Association, the British equivalent of the AP. It came two minutes after the transmission of a long report that made no sense at all, and it said in its entirety: "In the previous report, for Crewe Station please read 'crustacean'." I cannot tell you how much comfort that brought me.
If by chance you are planning a trip to Britain, I hope this has been some help-at least you won't now confuse a railroad station in Cheshire with an ocean-dwelling bivalve-but if you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to drop by. We'd love to see you. And do bring the children.
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