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: