That is so right, In America, they : Drive in the Parkway And Park in the Driveway Thursday, March 13, 2003 NEW YORK: An English friend of mine says that he nearly had a heart attack on a flight in the United States when the American pilot announced that the plane would be airborne momentarily. In British English, the language my friend speaks, momentarily means for a moment, and he thought the pilot was suggesting an imminent crash soon after takeoff. In American English, however, momentarily means in a moment, and the pilot was merely appeasing the impatient passengers. The plane took off, stayed aloft, my friends heart stopped thudding, and he lived to tell the tale. But he understood better than ever before the old adage that Britain and the United States are two countries divided by a common language. Anecdotes abound about the misunderstandings that arise when foreigners come to the United States thinking that they know the language. In one anecdote, a young man, in the course of a passionate courtship, tells his American girlfriend, Ill give you a ring tomorrow. All he meant was that he would call her by telephone. But she understood him to have offered betrothal, and the relationship didnt survive the misunderstanding. Then theres the hotel that failed to understand an English guest who called to say he had left his trousers in the wardrobe. Translators had to be summoned before the hotel staff finally cottoned on: Oh, youve left your pants in the closet. Why didnt you say so in the first place? Sometimes you can get the right word but the wrong concept. Indias former foreign minister, M. C. Chagla, once ruefully recounted the time he wanted to order a modest bite from room service in a New York hotel and requested sandwiches. How many do you want? Chagla was asked. Imagining delicate little triangles of thinly-sliced bread, he replied: Oh, half-a-dozen should be enough. Six sandwiches duly arrived, each about a foot long (30 centimeters) and four inches high. In my first week on a U.S. university campus, I asked an American where I could post a letter to my parents. Theres a bulletin board at the Student Center, he replied, but are you sure you want to post something so personal? I soon learned that I needed to mail letters, not post them (even though in the United States you mail them at the post office). In Britain, one concludes a restaurant meal by asking for the bill, and conceivably paying by cheque; in America, one asks for the check and pays with bills. The language of politics is also not exempt from the politics of language. When a member of Parliament in Britain tables a resolution, he puts it forward for debate and passage; when an American Congressman tables a resolution, he kills it off. A moot point is one the Englishman wants to argue; but if its moot, the American considers it null and void. Such differences of usage reveal something of the nature of American society. It is no wonder, after all, that while the British stand for election, Americans run for office. U.S. statesmen from Alexander Haig to Donald Rumsfeld have delighted global audiences with their own variants of the Queens tongue. The American form is usually the more vigorous, and American usage stretches the possibility of the language in more inventive ways. A British linguist once told a New York audience that whereas a double negative could make a positive, there was no language in the world in which a double positive made a negative. A heckler put paid to his thesis in forthright American: Yeah, right. Yeah, right, indeed. With the universality of English largely a result of U.S. global dominance, its time for other English speakers to stop quibbling about whether the American usage is right or wrong. It simply is. And as the Americans have taught the rest of us to say: thats O.K. Though not even they can tell us what those two initials are meant to represent. The writer grapples regularly with the differences between British English and American English, both as a novelist and as undersecretary-general for communications and public information at the United Nations. This is a personal comment. I PREFER ola kala THE GRECIAN WORD all is fine . Im sure it was used by an American Greek IMMIGRANT to pass his goods with a OK . GEEP of course stands for General Purpose vehicle used by the US Army ... https://youtube/watch?v=o7FfWq5zCkQ
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 14:58:16 +0000
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