When you're done yelling, would you maybe like to go out for a drink sometime?

[jacktellslies]

It came to my attention on Saint Patrick's Day that my grandmother and some of my aunts and uncles were under the impression that I don't drink. As they've seen me do so at most family gatherings, it is apparent that their definition of abstinence ignores the consumption of three drinks or less. My dear family, I'm terribly sorry. I was not aware that you expect me to be wasted beyond reason every time we see one another. Please trust that I shan't disappoint you again.

My uncle is interested in genealogy. He recently discovered our oldest known ancestors, a family of five siblings living in the South during the Civil War. There was a daughter and four sons, none of whom were mentioned in military records on either side. He couldn't imagine why, until he discovered that all four of the men were deaf. They must have had fascinating lives; I believe sign languages and schools for the deaf existed by that time, but I tend to assume that such things weren't always particularly accessible to the lower classes. But with four of them, I wonder if they created their own language.

It's unrelated, but my own hearing is fairly bad. I get by just fine, but not without worrying that I'm inconveniencing my acquaintances with the frequency with which I'm forced to ask them to repeat themselves. When on my counter, I repeat my customer's requests back to them as a standard practice. It works well, as it isn't particularly obtrusive or even unexpected, and "half a pound" and "have a pound" do sound a great deal alike, however good your hearing might be. Unfortunately, a larger percentage of my customers than one would expect are British. Really, there are a good number of them. As it happens, they pronounce turbot, which is sort of like a buttery flounder, more like it is spelled, the second syllable rhyming with the second in robot, whereas the Americans I know pronounce it more like ter-bow. It may also be worth noting that the American tendency to be a bit loud has its advantages, such as in instances when I'm actually trying to hear what they say. So, on occasion, someone asks me for a fillet and I haven't heard a word they've said. If they have an accent of any kind, I'm unaware of it. In such cases I'm not repeating their request half as much as I'm interpreting the direction of their gaze, reading small gestures, or simply using my amazing psychic powers to venture a guess. "Turbot?" I ask. The icy rage with which they articulate the word when they repeat it again, as if I'd been trying to correct them, is entirely unexpected, if deeply familiar. I'm always so surprised by it that this is the last remaining scenario in which I can't quickly disarm (if not permanently disable) a rude customer. Neither, "I promise that I'm more sorry than you can possibly understand for having learned to speak on this side of the ocean, but please don't hurt me?" or a more likely, "Bitch, please!" ever find their way out of my mouth. It's fast becoming one of the reasons I'm so looking forward to leaving this place for a bit: if I'm going to continue losing this particular battle, could I at least be spared the humiliation of losing it on home ground?

Comments

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

In my experience one of the advantages of living in the wrong country is that people assume you're going to be weird to being with, and you can continue to gratify their expectations from there on if you so please.

Do you not run into problems with the US/UK difference in the pronunciation of "fillet"? It occurs at least once a month in this house.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

Ha! True. I look forward to it.

For some reason it never has. It's only poor turbot. Except today one of my coworkers asked me why you lot pronounce fillet as you do, which is a delightfully absurd question, and also leads me to wonder how I became your cultural ambassador at Whole Foods when most of you seem to want to see me strung up from our complicated lighting system.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that two-syllable French loanwords are usually stressed on the first syllable in UK English and the second in US English. "Turbot" is not at all a recent loanword, though: we've had it for six hundred years, and "fillet" almost as long. Note that the French spell the word "filet", as in "filet mignon", and if you spell it "fillet" I think people should pronounce it as such. I have no wish to see you get strung up from the lighting system except perhaps as some exotic and glowing form of shibari.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

I'll begin the reforms immediately.

The shibari idea is marvellous, and I'll suggest it. Perhaps our demo team could arrange something?

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

You have a demo team?

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

Usually if free samples are just sitting on a tray somewhere, one of us did it. If someone is cooking or otherwise handing out the free samples and possibly yelling a lot, that's our demo team. They're wonderful, and not just because they feed me.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

They have made my life a better life many times, then, but until now I didn't know their name. They join the programmers, the angels, and the sewage workers.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

An effective sewage system is my favourite thing about modernity.

[liath-macha.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why you pronounce fillet fillay, either. Nasty French habit.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's because everything we've ever done is wrong?

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Hanna-Barbera! The IWW! Packet-switched networking!

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

The writings of Emily Post and the refrigerator are two of my favourites.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

Oh! And superheroes!

[cynical-ghost.livejournal.com]

I find genealogy quite interesting and have done a little research myself, though I haven't turned up anything fascinating. I did have a relative named "Louisiana Visitation" though and I would imagine anyone with such a name would have to be quite a character. And it was interesting to find out just when people with my surname arrived here from Spain and how long it took before they were thoroughly subjugated by the French (approximately 10 years, thanks to love and marriage.)

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

That is the single most magnificent name I've ever heard...

Love and marriage ruin everything. Your ancestors ought to be proud of themselves; ten years is far longer than most of us last.

[cynical-ghost.livejournal.com]

Isn't it though? I feel slightly miffed that my parents could not have thought up something nearly as wonderful for me. I must settle with being named after a character from "Planet of the Apes." Surely that gives me geek points..!

That is all too true. I must be impressed that my ancestor held out as long as he did! French women (so I have been told) are irresistible.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

It does! Geek points are very important.

[chronographia.livejournal.com]

Most of the culinary and gustatory terms in the English language originated from the French (think, we eat poultry and veal, not hens and calves). The British, as far as I can tell, pronounce it non-Frenchly to irritate differentiate themselves from the French. That 1066 grudge is by no means buried.

Do not let them get you down, you have the right of things.

[earlofgrey.livejournal.com]

One of my coworkers suggested that yesterday, and I thought it was hilarious. And also correct.

[brni.livejournal.com]

i apologize (yet again) for coming so late to the party. i do so only to remind you that people from the UK behave in this manner only because they have as yet failed to properly learn how to speak Mercan.

this has not stopped them from hijacking the presses and rewriting the history books to make it look like we are the uncivilized colonists.