It was while sitting watching The Great British Bake Off that I realized my husband and I weren’t on the same page.
Six years together, two of them based in the USA, and still our two versions of English were causing confusion.
“He’s making a pig’s ear of it!” I exclaimed at the TV. (As a Brit and lover of all things sweet, I get very invested in the ups and downs of the Bake Off, not to mention hungry).
“He’s making a what?” My husband already jokes he needs subtitles for watching British TV, but this time it was me he didn’t understand.
“Making a pig’s ear of it….”
To make pig’s ear of something is to do it very badly, to make a mess of it – as this contestant on the Bake Off was demonstrating.
This wasn’t the first time my husband and I had come across a linguistic misunderstanding.
A few years ago, when looking for apartments (sorry, flats), he sent me a link to one he liked the look of. “Ooh, that’s not bad!” I wrote back, assuming my enthusiasm would translate.
It did not. In America, the traditional British habit of understatement does not come through: to my husband, I was saying this place was just short of bad, and most certainly not good. It took a while for us to realise where the conflict was, and it’s an anecdote we come back to a lot when explaining cultural differences to our friends.
Try explaining what “Digestives” are to a non-Brit – it can get confusing.
We joke that we’re going to start our own English-to-English dictionary, to help other British-American couples in the same situation. To prove the point, I added “washing-up liquid” to our shopping list a few weeks ago and he came home empty-handed from the supermarket (called a “grocery store” on this side of the pond). He thought I meant laundry detergent; I meant what Americans call “dish soap.”
Most of the time, though, we muddle through just fine.
And while Mr. Stories My Suitcase Could Tell does understand the majority of my British words and phrases (and even a few Gaelic ones!), when I leave the apartment it’s another story.
I usually remember to change my vocabulary depending on who I’m speaking to: pants for trousers, sidewalk for pavement, trunk for car boot, chips for crisps. Sometimes, though, I forget, and will be insistently saying something like “I need to put the rubbish in the bin” before I realise no-one has a clue what I’m saying. The American translation? “I need to put the trash out.”
Other words and phrases that cause confusion here include “Away with the fairies” (Mr. Stories My Suitcase Could Tell mistakenly passed this phrase onto his friends as “Sitting with the pixies”); “torch”, which in the US is not a plastic light run by batteries but a piece of wood lit on fire; and “trolley”, which in the UK is used to transport your shopping, but in America is what Brits would call a “tram.”
It’s not only the words themselves that pose problems, but the pronunciation of them too.
Katie seems like a fairly straightforward name to say, right? Wrong. Oh so very wrong, as I’m reminded on almost a weekly basis. In American English, the letter ‘t’ sounds more like a ‘d’. While I’m happy to change the pronunciation of almost anything else, my own name feels like a step too far. Cue people thinking I’m called Casey, Kathy, Kitty – anything but Katie.
(Once, I made the so-very-British mistake of nodding my head in agreement after being misheard for a third time, to avoid any embarrassment. Oh well, I thought, I’ll never see these people again so it doesn’t matter if they think I’m called Casey. It didn’t matter until they started telling me about their niece called Casey, and asked me how I spelled my name. Cue red faces all round…)
My reaction when people understand my accent (only a slight exaggeration!)
I suspect the solution is to put on an American accent – and I have tried on occasion – but that seems to cause even more hassle than constantly repeating “Katie” over and over again. And don’t even get me started on what happens when I talk to people on the phone.
When people can’t see me talk, it’s apparently much harder for them to understand me. Hence the reason why Mr. Stories My Suitcase Could Tell is always the one who phones up to order our takeaways (or takeouts, as you’d say here). With me on the phone, it would probably end up on the other side of town, at the wrong address.
The longer I’m here in the USA, the more I suspect my accent will fade.
It’s done so already, or so my family and friends like to say when they hear me talking to Mr. Stories My Suitcase Could Tell. Put me in a room with my parents, however, and I’m right back to the raw island accent I grew up with. I like to think it will remain, even in some small way; the thought of losing my accent feels a tiny bit like losing a part of my identity.
Trying to hold on to my British accent in Central Park…
But of course, in order to survive in another country you need to adapt, in ways big and small. In China it was learning not to be shy about queue-jumping – a horror for any Brit. Here, it’s learning to say ‘Katie’ in a way people will understand, not getting awkward when I have to call trousers ‘pants’, and going in for the hug, not the handshake, when I meet someone only vaguely new. But let’s not go there yet – differences in non-verbal communication are a whole other story!
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Have you ever had difficulty communicating in another country, or with the differences between British and American English? Are you an expat with a similar story?
Let me know in the comments – I’d love to hear from you!
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Want to read more?
10 British Foods I Miss As An Expat in the USA
How To Make Friends As An Expat (From Someone Who’s Been There)
What Does It Mean To Get A U.S. Green Card?
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haha I’m the same but backwards! The ‘not so bad’ took me a while to understand. Like professors saying things ‘weren’t so bad’ made me cry during my Masters haha, until I saw something on Pinterest that ‘translated british in north american english’ and then I understood! I was told when we went to Ireland that I sounded sort of Scottish, so that was funny!
Oh no! That must have been so stressful until you found out what it meant in British English! And that’s funny that they thought you sounded Scottish in Ireland – you must have been picking up the accent 🙂
YES! I completely agree with this!!! Only yesterday my other half saw a “spotted dick” on Facebook and was like what’s that?!?! I find it tough working in a school, I have to say the ‘correct’ words and it makes me cringe (another word he had no idea about) a bit! The T – D thing as well…I have kids at school trying to spell thirty with a D in it because that’s how it’s pronounced…I guess it must be harder for you having a Scottish accent, most of the time I’m understood when I speak normal, it’s just my funny English words that seem to stump them!
It’s a hilarious part of expat life 🙂 But it must be difficult to remember to speak American English all day at work!
I remember going to a baseball game and the crowd started yelling “badder, badder, badder” “shouldn’t it be worse than?’ I asked to blank stares before realising that the were yelling “batter”!
My American husband very agreeably takes the bins out for us, although I had a total fail trying to explain custard to him, let alone find some to buy for my christmas trifle.
Brolly stumps people, bugger delights them, it’s all very strange!
Oh the confusion when “t” sounds like “d”! And I hadn’t thought of “brolly” – I’m off to ask Mr. Stories My Suitcase Could Tell if he knows what that is 🙂
When I first moved to Germany, work set me up with a German tutor for a few weeks. She pronounced my name “Shi-Ban”… fine. Only a few weeks then I’ll never see her again. Wrong. She’s a good friend now and is actually moving into a flat around the corner from us next week… and she still doesn’t know she is saying my name wrong! It’s gone too far now to correct her!
This made me laugh out loud Siobhan! It’s what I would have done too… such a British reaction 🙂 !
Katie, Very good piece. I can relate to it absolutely. My wife once sent me for ‘dish soap’. I had to ask her to describe it. Also, there is a type of American, typically young-ish and professional, who will never contact you, or phone you, or email you – they will only ‘reach out’ to you. Sounds like a meenister on the pulpit.
Thanks Iain! I’m glad I’m not the only one confused by the dish soap. And I’ve definitely heard the “reach out” phrase a lot since I moved here – I had a good laugh at your minister comment, that’s exactly what it’s like haha!
I can definitely relate to this! My Dad is Canadian and my Mum is British, but I was brought up mainly in the USA and France (although I had more of an English accent). Now I’ve lived in London for 11 years, I’ve lost most of my American lingo, but I’ve always spoken a weird mix of American/British, and I still slip up sometimes (e.g. calling trousers ‘pants’ in England, which always gets some shocked looks!). I find I forget what is English, what’s American a lot too – e.g. sidewalk or pavement? – and tend to use both all the time! xxx
Wow it must have been even more confusing for you Miranda! I’m finding myself mixing the two already, but I suppose that’s to be expected!
My Dad was Scottish, my Mom Canadian and I grew up in Winnipeg about a hundred miles from the US border which explains why I’m bilingual and understood both sides of all your examples. Too bad there’s no job opportunities as a translator!
That must have made conversations easier for you, Peter! (And an English-to-English translator would be quite useful, given my experience here haha!)
I always forget that a lot of English won’t make any sense to those hailing from the other side of the pond! I’ve probably confused many a London tourist that way, now I come to think of it.
I wouldn’t have thought of it either! It hadn’t really crossed my mind until I met my husband – and every so often confusing (and hilarious!) words come up.
interesting:)
Thanks Tanja!
I love this! We actually have our work cut out with a scouse/glaswegian combo in our house. And I work in Manchester which means I spend 8 hours a day talking in my phone voice! Between me and my husband, we’ve shared a few words. I don’t know how I got by without words like ‘oose’ for random fluff and ‘drouth’ for thirst. Can’t get my head round ‘ginger’ for any kind of fizzy drink though. I love language and dialect and accents – they’re so interesting!
Thanks Clare! You’re right, dialect and accents are so interesting. I have to admit I hadn’t ever heard of “oose” or “drouth”! And even though I’m Scottish, there are definitely lots of differences between the dialect of the islands and Glasgow! I think I need to develop a new phone voice for America… 🙂 !
I hadn’t heard of oose until I went to uni in Edinburgh, but it’s such a descriptive word (the bobbly bits you get on a jumper or cardi as it ages). Definitely not a word that gets used on the Rock.
You can almost hear the thirst in someone’s voice with drouth. Another one that we used as students was “stowed out” as in very busy, especially with reference to a busy pub.
Love the use of language
Thanks for your comment – you’ve introduced me to some new words there!
You’ll always have your accent! As an East Coast Canadian I feel like I’m somewhere in between American English and European English. We definitely do the understated and excited, “that’s not bad!” Sometimes when I’m away from home though I feel my accent gets even more pronounced. I’ve nevr sounded as East Coast as I did during my university years in french-speaking Quebec. Just one more thing… MUGGINS!
MUGGINS! That’s going to be used a lot in our apartment from now on, I think! It’s funny how for some of us our accents fade when we’re elsewhere, and for others they get even stronger. I feel like mine is a bit all over the place at the moment, but I hope you’re right and that it will stay Scottish!
I found living in New Zealand similarly confusing. If, in reply to being asked how I was, I replied ‘fine’ I was asked what was wrong. ‘Well’ or ‘good’ did the trick however. I never quite got the hang of calling chips (french fries) ‘potato chips’ and crisps simply ‘chips’. As for American pronunciation, I have an American friend (living in NY too) of Scots extraction with the names Heide Marie. It’s taken me a while to get used to the fact that her second name is pronounced “muh-ree”, accent slightly heavier (but barely) on the “ree”. It all makes for an interesting life.
It really does make for an interesting life! It’s funny you mention the American pronounciation of “Marie” – I have a friend named Marie here, and it wasn’t until I read your comment that I realised I say her name differently to the rest of our group of friends! So interesting to hear that in NZ “fine” came across as a negative reaction… I think I use it all the time in a very general sense of “everything is going well!”
No ‘accent fading’, ok?
We don’t want a maw, Sheena easton
I don’t really have many issues understanding Scottish phrases or English ones that I know of. I guess I’ve finally watched enough films and been there at least a dozen times and it isn’t too much of an issue anymore. Your accent is great and I hope it doesn’t fade.
Thanks for the kind words about my accent Natasha 🙂 ! (I hope it doesn’t fade, either!) I thought I had a pretty good idea of American phrases from TV and movies etc… but there are still some random ones that trip me up!
I so relate to all of this! The level of celebration when people understand me never seems to fade. It’s a weird balance between wanting to get by without too many very personal questions and not wanting to lose ones identity. Which brings me to question: why do Americans think it’s ok to ask me if I miss my family? Are you trying to make me cry?! Other very personal questions are also asked on a fairly regular basis when people find out I’m from the UK. No wonder my accent is fading (except when I’m in the UK and people say ‘wow you haven’t caught the American accent!’ And I think eeeek yes not at all unless I’m in America- haha!)
You’re right – it is a weird balance of wanting to get by normally without causing an avalanche of questions, and keeping part of your identity. I also think people here share personal details far more quickly when they meet someone than we do in the UK – that’s something else I’ve had to adjust to haha!