It's Better Across the Pond: Volume I

Welcome to a new series of posts on this blog, entitled "It's Better Across the Pond," in which I will delineate the many ways I admire/envy/worship/applaud/appreciate/analyze the way they do things in jolly ol' England.

Volume I: In Praise of British Etymology

Mark Twain famously said that England and America are two nations separated by a common language. It couldn't be more true. I grew up in India, which, as you know, is a former British colony, and the English I was accustomed to speaking/writing was vastly different from that used in the U.S. There are little differences - 'u' in 'color' and 'neighborhood' - which just seem nit-picky, but there are more significant differences which are emblematic of British sociopolitical philosophy.

For example, the word 'drunk' isn't used very often in England, nor is 'hammered'; even 'plastered' is somewhat rare. But the words they do use are very onomatopoeic: 'sozzled,' 'pissed,' (which means something very different here), and my favorite, 'happy.' You read that correctly - drunk people are referred to as 'happy.' This is symbolic of how drinking culture is perceived in England: when people get on the bus after a night in the pub (the tube stops operating just after midnight), and sing and shout, people just smile and say they're a little 'extra happy.' The Brits are relaxed about drunken behavior because a) drinking is natural, and frequent; b) the drinking age is 16, so the attractiveness of illegality is not as bright as it is here, and c) it's an activity associated with levity, spending time with mates, ending a long day at work. It's a tradition, everywhere from the High Streets in villages, to the depths of major cities like London and Manchester.

American English slants its words heavily - e.g., 'aunt' pronounced like 'ant' instead of 'ah-nt' - and it also moves at a much faster speed. 'Letter' in British English is 'let-turr' with each syllable pronounced evenly. But in America the t's run over themselves, and the word sounds like 'letr.' In England, language is more relaxed, and even vulgarity has more breathing room. One of my favorite British English words of all is 'bugger.' And 'bugger' has many forms - 'bugger' as a verb, 'buggery' is a sort noun-plus-adjective, bugger as 'noun.' And it's fantastic because you can replace pretty much any swear word with it. 'Bloody' works that way too but 'bugger' is much simpler - 'bloody' has a very distinct image, obviously, and is acknowledged as a curse word. But 'bugger' isn't like that. And if you use it you immediately liberate your sentiment from outright vulgarity - at least in America, where the word is rarely used. ('Sod' is like this too - but here it just means the brown stuff your dad putters about with on weekend mornings.)

American English is so much more brash - 'hell' is a horrible word and if you're from south of the Mason-Dixon Line people will berate you for blaspheming god. (They will also do that if you blaspheme god in general.) Replacement words in American English are tame, and inelegant, because, I theorize, they were invented by teenagers and children who wanted to avoid punishment for swearing, e.g., 'dang' for 'damn' and 'heck' for 'hell.'

Simpler examples (first word/phrase is ours, second theirs):

Pharmacist = chemist

Ad = advert

Dear Abby = agony aunt

Broad/dame = bint/bird

Secretary of Defense = MOD (Minister of Defense)

Secretary of State = Home Secretary

Government employee = civil servant

Projects = council estates (I love this one - the former automatically denotes a grim, giant, run-down building infested with bugs, drug-dealers - very much 'The Wire' - and the latter sounds so pleasant but is an even greater euphemism.)

I still use 'thrice,' 'moppet,' 'kerfuffle,' and 'nicked' - because they make sense and are extremely effective. 'Kerfuffle' even looks a bit like a skirmish - the f's fighting with the short u, and the K lording over them all. 'Nicked' makes the sound you'd associate with stealing - something quicksilver, almost unnoticeable. 'Nutter' and 'off-license' and 'NHS' are like that too - they correspond to what they're describing. 

Have some more:

Snob = toff

Slut = slag

Cheap wine = plonk

Ball-point pen = biro

Unsafe city block = fag end (this usage arises from the last bitter shard of a lit cigarette, which is a 'fag end')
Cookies = biscuits (I still say the latter when I'm talking about tea)

'Community': Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) is dealing with a race "kerfuffle" in his school's parking lot.

Jelly = jam (I still say jam. 'Jelly' is the stuff you slather on during an ultrasound.)

Mint jelly = mint sauce

I would buy jam with this label. Wouldn't you?

Apartment = flat

Balcony = veranda (the latter is actually an Anglicization of the Hindi word for balcony)

It's my theory that American English is flashier, less elegant, more accented, because it's a younger language. Changes to spellings and usage were initially a rebellion against the British empire, and vast amounts of immigration have mixed words in with each other. (There is also no American Shakespeare, which makes a huge difference.) Everything in America is designed to be more - more expensive, more grandiose, louder, bigger, faster. British English is the elegant, relaxed, sophisticated opposite, and this must be due in part to the bad weather, and having a monarch. "Well, it rains all the time and we have these inbred idiots who wear funny dresses and sit in the House of Commons and blow feathers into the air, so, well, let's write about it!" And they did.

I leave you with a wonderful and lyrical video from the brilliant Stephen Fry - no one writes (or speaks) more beautifully about the joy of words than he:

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: My Return to Blogging

I always thought my return to blogging would herald some sort of self-actualized breakthrough - holy cow, I'm cured! I don't feel sad anymore! My opinions are once more valid! - but this was an erroneous assumption in two ways. One, there's no such thing as a breakthrough in therapy. And two, it's way, way funnier to scrawl daily observations about life, in and/or outside of New York City, as witnessed by myself and others. (My therapist and psychiatrist would add that my opinions are valid if I think that they are, but that's a different post. Quite possibly a whole series of them.)

So, without further ado, I'm returning to blogging with a series of posts I'm titling "Stuck on Repeat: Greatest Hits from the Dating Profiles of Straight Men in New York City, Circa 2013". I don't want to spend too much time on how I have this information - it's a very new and fragile interpersonal cannonball dive for me, to put up an online dating profile, and to acknowledge that I too, am human and have needs - but I have definitely noticed a pattern/horrifying similarities among the tastes and activities of straight men within five square miles of Manhattan County.

Observations starting June 17, at which point I'd been on Dating-Site-Which-Shall-Remain-Unnamed for a week:
1. Selfies - of you unsmiling and/or shirtless - do not inspire confidence.

Selfies: a non-good reflection of yourself.

2. In the "About Me" section, please do not list any of the following: "I just had my heart broken" or "I'm just looking for fun." If you feel that either/both reflect your state in life, I recommend pets for the former, Craigslist for the latter.

3. The pendulum swing between normal profile photographs, and head shots which make you look like a prospective UFC contestant, is massive. I don't want to date a morbidly obese person with a heart condition, but come on!

By the numbers, at the end of Week 1:
1. Attractive men who've written me back: 0.
2. Messages I've received which I can neither see nor respond to, because I refuse to pay for communication: 2.
3. Messages I've received which I can neither see nor respond to, because I refuse to pay for communication, from attractive men: 0.
4. Average age of (allegedly) single men: 28.
5. Number of men who have children: 3.
6. Number of men whose children live with them: 1.
7. Number of men who have children and are attractive: 0.

That's all for today, folks, but I enjoyed doing this enough that I think I'll write tomorrow too. Till then, thanks for reading, and I hope these adventures in non-dating are as funny to you as they are to me.