A bit parky

A few days ago Sarah was commenting that it was a bit parky in Oklahoma. I was feeling quite happy that it was warmer here up north. Not any more. It was -10 degrees Fahrenheit at 9 a.m. this morning. Brrrr! And just look at the forecast for the next week - ooh, look, it's going to be much warmer on Tuesday :-)

In Fahrenheit

In Celsius

I'm very glad I don't live somewhere that gets REALLY cold in the winter - the kind of place where you have to plug an engine block heater in to make sure your car's engine will start in the morning!

P.S. Did you notice the inconsistency in those screen shots -  the temp. was minus 10, but the weather forecast was still for a low for the day of 17. My maths is bad, but isn't that a 27 degree difference? Quite an error margin!

This is really quite good

(Photo borrowed from Miss Chicago.)

When I was training as a language teacher we were told that, very often, students have more difficulty not with a feature of a language that is very different from their own but with one that is only a little different. The words that don't sound anything like English ones are easier to get right than the ones that sound somewhat like English but actually have a different meaning. English and American English are just different enough to cause problems in that way.

NFAH commented recently on the phrase "Every little helps" and how she feels it really should have the word "bit" added to the phrase - "Every little bit helps." After reading on another blog how the German phrase "jedes bisschen hilft" translates as "Every little helps", I wonder if this is a phrase that has lingered on in our language since the days of the Vikings. These kinds of phrases can stop you in your tracks a moment, but when push comes to shove they are still comprehensible.

Miss Chicago, on the other hand, just commented on British understatement, specifically in regard to Marks & Spencers Rich Tea Cream Fingers (whatever they are!) which are advertised as "Really rather good." No missing words here. However, the statement "really rather good" sounds far less enthusiastic to an American than to a Brit.

When I was applying to graduate school in the United States, I went back to my alma mater and asked my tutor if she would mind writing me a reference, (knowing full well that she would NEVER have written me a recommendation for a place on a Master's degree course in the UK.) I explained where I wanted to go and why, and she assured me that she would write me a good reference. In fact, she explained, she had learned through bitter experience exactly how to write references for American universities.

She had once been asked to write a reference for someone for a position at an Ivy League college. The candidate was over qualified for the position, but wanted the opportunity to work at an American university for a while, and particularly an Ivy League one. She not only did not get the post but discovered that the man who was hired had vastly inferior qualifications and experience. So she did the American thing and sued. She won her case and was awarded compensation, but not the job. It turned out that the American hiring committee had interpreted what would have been considered a glowing reference in the UK as somewhat cool and not very enthusiastic. So my tutor assured me that she knew exactly what to write to get me accepted, hinting that by her standards it would be not exactly a work of fiction but certainly one-sided.

There are people like Lynneguist who base their profession on the fact that English and American are not really the same language. Most of the time the differences are insignificant, or easily understood. Occasionally however, phrases like "Every little helps", remind me that even though I've been here 25 years and feel very American I did not grow up here

The real Magic Roundabout

Lynneguist posted about Sesame Street and other kids' TV shows this week and started me thinking. She commented that "From the Flower Pot Men to Clangers to the Teletubbies, there are many British children's television characters who don't speak in discernible language." Hmm - I'd not really thought of that as a cultural difference before, but I suppose perhaps it is. I'm sure American kids like Trixie's "Aggle flaggle" in the book Knuffle Bunny though*, and incomprehensible language does provide parents with the opportunity to discuss the philosophy of language with their children. Yeah, right! [sarcasm] Of course I used Teletubbies as an opportunity to introduce my kids to the philosophy of language! [/sarcasm]

One of the things about living other than where I grew up is not being able to use catch phrases from TV shows or share memories of the strange shows I grew up with. I remember Listen With Mother ("Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin!") on the radio in the afternoons, and Watch With Mother which was a time slot rather than a specific show on TV.

The Magic Roundabout was on right before the 6 o'clock news. In our house (when I was little at least) as soon as it ended, it was time to go and get ready for bed.

This appears to be an entire episode, except where's Zebedee saying "Goodnight! Time for bed!" Was that not in every show after all? And what is with that awful music?


I can't imagine why as a kid I thought this was interesting. Looking through the videos on YouTube, I'm amazed how bad so many of the the kids' TV shows were! I remember bits and pieces of a few of them.

Can you name the shows that go with these memories?

1. "Little weeeeed!"
2. Spotty Dog (who walked in a really weird way).
3. "Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
4. "Hugh, Pugh, Barney, McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub!"
5. "A house. With a door. One. Two. Three. Four."
6. The soup dragon
7. "Making good use of the things that we find, things that the everyday folks leave behind."

I think I've arranged them in roughly chronological order, though my memory may very well be faulty. 1 & 2 are the definitely the oldest - I think they debuted even before my time, in the 1950's. (Answers in a couple of days.)

*My favorite phrase from Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny is not "aggle flaggle" but "going boneless" to describe a toddler who does not want to be picked up!

Americans only speak English

We went out for dinner tonight to a local bar that has a good deal on beer and a burger so long as you eat before 5:30 p.m. It was a little early for dinner, but it was easier than cooking.

It was a family-friendly establishment with a kids menu, but still definitely a bar-ish kind of place. As we were waiting for our food to arrive, DS commented on how loud the group of people at the bar were. I said, "Well, that's because they're Americans and Americans are loud."
DS: "We're not loud!"
DH and AA: "Oh yes you are!"
DS: "Well mommy's not loud and she's half American."
DD: "Mommy's not American!"
DH: "Right, she's Almost American!"
AA: "Why am I not American?"
DD: "You were born in England."
DS: "But you've been to other countries and speak other languages."
AA: [to DD] "How about you sweetheart? Are you American or British?"
DS: "She's half Chinese."
AA and DH: "Huh?!!!"
DD: "No, I'm not!"
DS: "Yes, you are, you're learning to speak Chinese!"
AA: [to DS] "Well are you half Chinese then, 'cos you're learning Chinese too?"
DS: "Yes."
AA: "So if you speak another language you're not American?"
DS: "That's right!"
AA: "And if you speak English you're American?"
DS: "Yes."
AA: "Well they speak English in England don't they?"
DD: "No they don't. It's a different language. Cookies are biscuits over there."

At bedtime, DS was still insisting that real Americans don't speak other languages. Sadly, how right he is! I had an email conversation this week with someone (who should know better) who commented on my "impressive array of language learning experiences." I had only told her about my French and (not even really minimal) Chinese, and had not mentioned German and Spanish at all! Hmm - I'm thinking maybe the kids need Muzzy for Christmas!

Learn to speak English, why doncha?

As evidenced by my blogroll, I love to read about other people's ex-pat experiences. I have a lot of ex-pat Brits listed here, but that's mostly only because I followed links from one to the next, to the next . . . However, most of the ex-pats I encounter in my 'real' life are not Brits. In fact, most of them do not speak English as their first language. Some speak almost no English at all. I remember being in that situation when I was in Asia - the foreigner who doesn't speak the language. The grownup who is treated as a child. The college-educated adult who is treated like an idiot. It's frustrating, and it's not a situation you can remedy quickly. It takes time (and a lot of effort) to learn a language, and some languages are harder to learn than others. Even when I lived in France and spoke the language well, I was always an outsider.

When I think of what new immigrants with children have to deal with in terms of language - specifically communications from their kids' schools - it makes me really angry when I hear people complaining "Why don't they learn English?" "Why should we have to provide interpreters and translations?" "They should just go home if they don't want to learn English!" These are all legal immigrants, and the United States government did not require a language test of them. They are hard-working members of society and the reality is that many of the parents are so busy working in menial jobs that people born here won't do that they have no time now to take English classes.

I met a teacher last year who has been in the US as long as I have - over 20 years. Originally from Germany, her English is excellent. (In fact, she teaches English to new immigrants.) Yet even she - a fluent English speaker, familiar with the public school system - said she felt discombobulated trying to navigate the system trying to get support for her special needs child. The people who are complaining that parents in our school system should make more effort to learn English clearly have no experience themselves of having to navigate real daily life (not just tourist life) in a second language and culture. I'd love to drop some of those complainers off somewhere like China or Russia for a year and see how they fare! Sadly, the experience would probably do nothing for them except to 'prove' to their blinkered satisfaction that the United States is the best place in the world to live.

How not to sound American

The BBC has an article today on how to sound American. Apparently I've been doing it all wrong for the last 23 years. People in the UK seem to be fooled though as they always think I'm American, even when I'm doing my best to sound English again. Americans aren't so sure, as they often ask me if I'm from Australia or New Zealand. I suppose, given my job, I really should work at perfecting my American accent - teaching newcomers to the United States how to speak English! (Of course, I always joke that they had to hire a Brit to teach 'proper' English!)

In the comments on the BBC article, someone noted that English people trying to do an American accent often put on a Southern American accent. For some reason my Dear Daughter often sounds like a Southerner. I have never particularly noticed her sounding English in the first place though - after all, she was born here and has spent relatively little time in the UK. Maybe the Southern accent is her overcompensating in trying to make sure she sounds really American? Is she imitating my accent?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Philadelphia
The South
The West
The Inland North
Boston
The Northeast
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

No, apparently not, so she's probably just imitating some character on TV!

How hard is this to read?

Hmm - I tried this test on some of the blogs that I read and most are apparently written at an elementary school reading level, with a few at the junior high level. I did finally find one though that the test said is written at the 'Genius' level and one at the University level. Perhaps that explains why I haven't read either of them in several weeks - I'm too lazy to expend that much reading effort. They both happen to be academic blogs, so the reading level is appropriate. I guess I have to wonder if the writing (reading) level of my blog is appropriate to the subject matter? If I'm not writing something academic, should it be written at an easier reading level? Can I make myself write like that? Would I want to? And as for my reading, 'should' I be reading more sites that are 'harder' to read? (Not that I'm sure how they've determined the readability anyway.)

I'm not going to obsess over it. I'm going to keep reading the blogs I find interesting, and writing what I feel like talking about.

Accident-prone

The little people in the house claim to be accident-prone today. This morning they were "accidentally" watching TV. This afternoon the larger one bit the smaller one "By accident!" Huh?

Well, at least the littler one has finally learned to say "By accident" instead of "On accident". Now we just have to work on the definition of 'accidental'!

I may 'accidentally' have the TV on tomorrow evening when today's rugby game is finally shown on a TV channel I can get without having to pay any extra for.

Lingering memories of last Christmas

The Littlest American was asking recently if we can go to see the baby penguins and the house where Father Christmas lives again this year. I had to think for a moment to realize that effectively what he was asking for was another trip to the UK for Christmas - we spent Christmas there last year and went to see Father Christmas at the zoo. There are a host of reasons why we can't do that this year so he is going to be sorely disappointed.

Meanwhile the Little American is proving herself to be surprisingly bilingual. On our trip last December we'd only been in London 24 hours or so before she started sounding like her cousins. Even now when she really wants something she switches to calling me 'Mummy' instead of 'Mommy'. This morning she commented that Daddy didn't buy her any of the sweeties she saw at Stop & Shop. Upon questioning her, I discovered that she did indeed mean 'sweeties' and not 'candy' - she'd seen some Smarties on the shelves of imported foods. Smarties are from England and therefore are 'sweeties' whereas M&Ms are 'candy'! Rats - I knew I should have been speaking to her in French all along so she could be truly bilingual! I guess it's not too late, though Spanish might prove more useful to her in the long run around here.