Letter from London

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Letter from London

June 1, 2010

I’ve always been very susceptible to other people’s slang. If I make a new friend, a month later, I’ll have picked up at least one of their turns of phrase. This is more about my sponge-like love for language than any sort of Single White Female behavior, but I still try to keep it in check so as not to creep anyone out. This is why I was a bit nervous before moving to London. I can’t even watch Gosford Park without thinking in a British accent for a few hours afterwards; how was I going to keep myself from mimicking and offending everyone I met while immersed in it?

I had a friend in New York who lived in London for a few years during grad school. When I visited her in London, I noticed a definite change in the way she spoke. She wasn’t affecting any Madonna-like accent, but her cadence was different. Her sentences went up at the end; she’d finished questions with “yeah?” instead of “okay?” I knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose because when we overheard some fellow Americans in a restaurant, she rolled her eyes and said, “It’s so funny when people move here and suddenly sound like Gwyneth.”

My fiancé is English, and after living with him in New York for just a few months, I’d already picked up some of his slang. Not his accent; just certain words or phrases. If he’d been American, no one would have noticed, but since he was English, friends would tease me for saying “fuck all” instead of “nothing” or “I’m not too fussed about it” instead of “I don’t really care.” So when we moved to London last fall, I was hyper-vigilant about not sliding down that slope any further. To be fair, I can do a much better British accent than my fiancé can do an American one. I actually sound like the recorded female voice on the Underground, while he sounds a lot like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.

When I first moved from Oklahoma to New York seven years ago, people would ask me, “Where are you from again?” and when I’d answer, they’d say, “Oh yeah, I can tell by your Oklahoma accent.” This was always funny to me, because I don’t have an Oklahoma accent at all. My father was born in California, and my mother was born in Texas but raised in Canada. Neither my brother nor I have an accent, although we do both drop our Gs in -ing words. No one in my immediate family says y’all. Although once, when I was preparing to be on ABC Nightline, my mother warned me, “I don’t want to hear that Okie yeaaah come out of your mouth on national television!”

My first job in New York was a temp job at a construction company. My first week there, I was waiting at the copier with a man with fancy cufflinks and a crewcut.

“Where do you live?” he asked in a thick Jersey accent.

“Brooklyn,” I said.

“Nah ah ah,” he shook his head and wagged his finger. “Where are you from?”

I answered, “Oklahoma,” and he said, “Yeah, I thought you sounded like a hillbilly. No offense intended.” And I honestly don’t think he meant it rudely; I quickly learned that people who’ve always lived in New York can only differentiate between From Here and Not From Here. Now that I’m in England, no one could pick out my hometown in 100 guesses if I gave them a running headstart, and sometimes I wish I had a Sopranos extra to baffle again.

I’ve been in London for seven months now, and I’m proud to say I’ve held fast to my American English, much to my fiancé ‘s frustration. We have a lot of disagreements about spelling and pronunciation. His argument is always, “But my way is correct.” And often it is, but the rest of the time I have to explain to him that only moody, flowery poetry-writing American teenagers spell it colour or favourite. At the same time, I don’t want to go out of my way to be difficult while in a foreign country. If I’m ordering in a restaurant in England, I’ll ask the waitress for chips, but I’ll eat fries. If I’m helping our friends’ toddler get dressed, I’ll call her underwear pants and her pants trousers, but my sweater is never a jumper.

I’ve noticed recently that now when I’m asked where I’m from, I answer “New York.” Maybe this is because I know that if New Yorkers can’t find Oklahoma on a map, there’s no use trying with Londoners. Maybe it’s because I know I’ll get immediate cool points with whoever’s asking. Or maybe it’s because I’m missing my home of the past seven years, the place where I carved out my adult life all by myself. I think of New York as home now, but Oklahoma will always be where I was born and raised, and supported and encouraged enough to set out on my own. It’s a good place to come from.

Photo by Ferdi

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Sheilah Bright

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http://oklahomansread.blogspot.com Dawn

When we visited England shortly after the Murrah Building bombing way back when, EVERYONE knew where Oklahoma was. But I don’t think we need another disaster to get people acquainted with our location!
http://petty.me.uk Matt P

I completely agree about not losing your own words, but just being reasonable and trying not to be difficult. I do the same here in SF, asking for fries, saying “zee”, and trying not to giggle when seeing a big sign in a clothing store that says PANTS.
I know people back in England who would accuse me of “going native”, but it’s just easier that way. When I write emails, I let the US spellchecker change stuff. Why bother fiddling about?
http://www.johannawrites.com Johanna

This is so well-written and funny, and after 7 years of living abroad, I can totally relate. Most of my fellow expat friends are English and my 5-year old has started talking with a slight English accent from being around all their kids. He also says things like jelly instead of jello and sweetie instead of candy. Luckily a cookie is still a cookie. I always say I’m from nyc too- much easier than saying I´m from Utah and then having them ask how many wives my dad has.
Jo-Anne

I’m a Canadian gal in Vancouver with a sweetie from Cornwall. She lives here about 9 months out of the year and I recently went to visit her for three weeks. I constantly find myself copying her accent and all the lovely slang! I’ll send a letter by post, not mail. It’s half-six, not 6:30. She loves how when I say “warm” it sounds like worm, and I love that when she says “what” she drops the t. Swoon!
http://www.absquatulate.com K

Many people think they don’t have an accent, but in reality we all do! Accents only exist compared to something else, if you think about it.

Just think of it this way: you’re picking up another ‘code’ and engaging in code switching (or code mixing, depending on your school of thought.)
http://powderedsugar.wordpress.com Lisa

“Favourite” and “Colour” are also what we use in Canada and I think I quite like being grouped with moody, flowery, poetry-writing American teenagers and the English!
http://commatheory.com Alice Jane E

I’m a Canadian English-language editor living and working in Amsterdam. I work with, and sometimes edit English for, adamant users of different Englishes. Oh, gawd, it gets complicated. Add to that, the European Union now has its own rules of English usage. So there is a lot to keep track of.

Knowing English-language dialects well enough to edit them professionally is a skill. A great many people cannot do it, even though they might work as editors of written English in America, or Canada, or England.

British English is not right or wrong, it’s a dialect. Canadian English? Indian English? New Zealand English? There is even a very distinct Dutch English.

Keep in mind that the differences between Englishes is more than spelling. There are distinct grammatical differences, nuances of word meaning that do not translate from dialect to dialect, syntax, spelling, and more.
http://commatheory.com Alice Jane E

Gads! Spot my grammatical failing in my own comment. I hate when that happens. *whimper*
Dan C

This might form the beginnings of a middle way, for you and yer groom-elect..?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2010/may/20/language-usa
Kristi

Well, when I briefly lived in New York, native New Yorkers insisted I sounded British, or “European”. I…am from California. No one from anywhere I’ve ever lived has ever told me I use a British accent, or talk funny, or am a pretentious asshole, so…yeah. Not really sure about New Yorkers’ ability to gauge accents.
http://www.flickr.com/dscott28604 Daniel

I’m from Tulsa and lived in New York City briefly a few years ago for school. When people asked where I was from, I made them try to guess based on my accent. Their response? “But you don’t have one!” After I told them I was from Tulsa, they responded in one of three ways: 1) They wouldn’t believe me, because all Oklahomans have an accent, 2) They would ask if Tulsa was in Arizona (confusing Tulsa and Tucson) or 3) Ask if I had cowboy boots or a teepee.

I’ve found that most New Yorkers can’t find anything on a map that doesn’t involve a subway map, much in the same way people from the largest city in a metro can’t tell you where the suburbs are. Conversely, and perhaps from necessity, people from the suburbs can tell you where most things in the city are. They’re forced to know their own community and another because they have to visit for any number of reasons (hospitals, shopping, work, air travel, etc.). In that regard, people from the suburbs or so-called “fly-over states” are more enlightened than the so-called Cultural Capitals.

Perhaps the New Yorkers couldn’t guess my origin because I make it a point to practice non-regional diction, but I think Kristi and Sarah (Brown) are correct: “…people who’ve always lived in New York can only differentiate between From Here and Not From Here”.

Excellent post!
http://queserasera.org Sarah Brown

To be fair, most Oklahomans (or just Americans) probably assume most New Yorkers speak like DeNiro in Taxi Driver, which they don’t. Most New Yorkers speak like Californians and Ohioans and Washingtonians, since most New Yorkers I know aren’t actually from New York.

I don’t think it necessarily boils down to an enlightened-off, but yeah, there are differences.