Arguing over the famously distinct pronunciation of words like tomato has pretty quickly become a reflex action in my life, and not something said seriously. One person says “tomato,” the other says “do you mean tomato?” there’s a quick scowl or a “no, I mean tomato,” and the conversation carries on. A brief moment to recognize that the other person in the room was raised in a different culture, and then we move along. I’d say things like “pecan” and “basil” fall into this category as well. It’s not terribly important, and no one actually cares that much. (Until someone mistakenly picks up the other person’s pronunciation just one time, then all hell breaks loose.)
The bigger problems are the words that don’t come up so often, or don’t tend to appear on TV. The first time I heard an American pronounce “oregano,” I honestly thought they were deliberately saying words wrong to mess with me. I assured them it should be “o-re-gar-no,” and we got into a depressingly long debate about it.
Around half way through I had a moment of crisis—what if it’s just me? Are my family the crazy ones? Had I ever heard anyone outside my immediate family say oregano? What if the whole world says it the other way and I’m the one that’s wrong??? I checked. It’s an English vs. American thing. But I had to check.
Similarly, I work at a place that sells Lego kits. On a daily basis, I’m subjected to Americans talking about all the “Legos” we have. And they, in return, are subjected to a daily rant from me about how the plural of Lego is “Lego.” It’s a Danish word, and I’m not going let America mess up another one. Fight me. Listening to people talk about “Legos” is on par with people saying “look at all the sheeps!”
As long as we’re on the topic. Aluminium. Sorry America, you’re wrong on this one. We don’t just say it differently, we spell it differently. There’s an extra “i” in there. And when I say “we” I mean everyone else in the world that isn’t you or Canada. If you want to call it aluminum, I’m going to have to insist that you rename some other elements to “magnesum,” “titanum,” and “potassum.”
Pronunciation is an issue that can cause arguments, but people tend to understand what you mean fairly quickly: “ohhh, you’re saying pecans. You’re saying it wrong, but they’re over there.” But there’s a difference of terms that can cause bigger issues. Some of this is just more successful branding in one country versus the other. I’ll call a pen a Biro and a vacuum cleaner a Hoover and get told I’m weird by someone who then turns around and calls a plaster a Band-Aid. Annoying, but the confusion works itself out with only brief political debate.
But, after a meandering path to get here, here’s the real issue I have: there are plenty of things that have a whole host of terms and descriptors in the UK, and then a different series of terms in the US, for a reason that I have yet to fathom. It’s something that frequently makes me look like an idiot who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Which I take offense to.
I first came across this when I wanted a piece of meat to make a roast dinner with (semi-related: one of the worst culture shocks I’ve had stateside was the discovery that the concept of a Sunday roast was bizarre and nearly unheard of). Imagine this, I walk into the butcher’s and say: “I’d like a 4-5 pound piece of top-round please.” I’m overjoyed. This country has a different term for its weight to its currency! I don’t have to clarify I want 4 or 5 pounds of beef, not 4 or 5 pounds worth. I’m happy, and then puzzled by why the butcher is looking at me as if I’ve just asked him for a box of cat litter and the latest John Grisham novel. We stare at each other for a moment. I glance down at the meat counter. Lots of different meats with their signs, but the words on the signs are all foreign to me. What is a chuck roast? Why is there something called a London Broil? I’ve never even heard of someone in London broiling meat. Pull out my phone and frantically Google things. Give up and go home. To my knowledge cows in the US are largely the same as those in the UK. How is this not something that we’ve standardized yet?
The butcher was bad, and there are some other places that I’ve felt a similar level of frustration. Trying to buy things to do Christmas baking has more than once stressed me out so much that I’ve had to take a break and go and think about something else for a while. But buying a house has thrown this problem into a whole new light. I’ve actually become angry at Home Depot.
There are some design differences between British and American houses, but they’re all built in fairly similar ways with the same key components. But someone apparently felt it necessary to name all of those components different things. I’ve done a fair amount of DIY work on houses, redecorated a lot on a very old house that required repairs along the way, and helped remodel most of a house. So when I bought a house that needed some things doing and a fresh coat of paint, I wasn’t too worried.
First of all, this brings up the old problem of saying I need something, say, filler, and being stared at like I’m crazy for a few minutes. After a sufficient amount of wild gesturing and slow explanation of what filler is, someone says “oh, you mean spackle?” (No, I don’t mean spackle, I mean… you know what, never mind. Sure, spackle. Dumb word.)
But it’s just as bad when it goes the other way. The first time someone tried to talk to me about drywall we had one of the stupidest conversations I’ve ever been party to, with such gems as:
- “Aren’t all walls intended to be dry?”
- “It’s the stuff on the wall.” “You mean paint?”
- “So wait, is it behind or in front of the plaster board?”
Eventually, the pair of us were able to figure out that drywall and plaster board were the same damn thing. Some things are down to the old brand name game still (wall plugs in the UK are known for the company that invented them, Rawlplugs, which is an objectively better name for them).
Even gardening tools get confusing, especially when Americans can’t decide on what they should be called: I said I needed to get a strimmer, one American said (after some more flailing and description of what it does) “do you mean a weed whacker?” and at the same time another says “do you mean a string trimmer?” (again, no, I meant a strimmer, but….never mind). Turns out that all three of these terms mean the same thing! Even shopping for paint became a massively stressful enterprise as apparently the same terms for finishes, bases, and applications refer to subtly different things in the States.
I don’t even understand how we ended up with different terms for the same parts of animals, or the same inventions and building materials. If America, as a vast melting pot, had taken on words of different etymologies from other cultures for these things, I could understand, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. My guess is that it was out of an ill-conceived, bloody-minded desire to be different, just like when some fool decided to take all the “u”s out of words like “colour.” The internet tells me that it was George Bernard Shaw that said “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” I can see plenty of arguments against homogeny between cultures, but I think sharing some terms for things might make life a little easier (at least for me).
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Of course, in the U.S. we also have a ton of regional linguistic differences to add to the confusion.
Yeah, it’s the same problem in the UK, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
Reverse culture shock: my college roommate moves to London, and causes the butcher there to convulse and turn red when she asks for “chicken parts.”
?????
I personally would have thought chicken parts would be rather small…
Also, who would call anything “chicken parts”….???
Apparently one can be lost in their own country too. I’ve personally never heard the term “string trimmer.”
Also, don’t y’all call duct tape “sticky tape?” ALL TAPE IS STICKY. “Sticky tape” does not specify the use (i. e. for ducts).
No, we call duct tape duct tape. Sticky tape is what you use when wrapping gifts.
I am willing to die on the hill of my brightly colored aluminum weed whacker.
Hmm, but if you were to die on that hill, the account would be written by the British.