Threatened by your menu?

The English language can be a dangerous weapon when it gets into the wrong hands! This is nowhere more evident than in the world of catering, where restaurant menus that make perfect sense in their native language are translated for the benefit of their English-speaking customers.

Many years ago a work colleague told me that she had been alarmed at being offered “Cheese threatened by ham”. 

I have been on the lookout for similar mistranslations ever since, and here are a few that seem to be in a similar vein (although not seen by me personally):

• Fried chicken babies, fungus cream and grill cattle bowels
• Chicken Gordon blue, pork shops, eggs scrambling
• Buttered saucepans and fried hormones
• Fried milk, children sandwiches, roast cattle and boiled sheep
• Steamed fillet of new zeal and orange roughy
• Chopped cow with a wire through it
• Dreaded veal cutlet with potatoes in dream
• Pork with fresh garbage

Then there was the Chinese takeaway I drove past in Worcestershire that declared that it offered China Meals to Take Away – you could see what they meant, but it just didn’t sound quite right!

© John Welford

The rise and fall of Received Pronunciation

For many years, especially during the late 19^th century and the 20^th century up to about 1980 or so, there was a “right” way and a “wrong” way to speak English. At least, this was what many “educated” people believed, particularly those living in south-east England. The “Received Pronunciation” of English was exported to the Empire via civil servants who had been to the best English schools, and it was reinforced when the BBC began broadcasting to the nation and the Empire, recruiting announcers and others whose voices fitted a standard that became known as “BBC English”.

Received Pronunciation (or RP) is therefore English without an appreciable regional accent and which abides by certain stylistic rules. It is therefore a standardised form of English. But how did it come about?

It was very largely a social phenomenon, in that people who had been educated to a certain level tended to consider themselves superior to those who had not. This generally meant a split along class lines, with the upper and middle classes forming the educated echelon and the working class being the semi-literate underclass whose communication was almost exclusively with others of their own class who spoke in the same way that they did. They also tended not to travel much, so they had no need to adapt their speech to suit the needs of anyone from outside their region.

The Education Act of 1870 threw open many of the great schools of the country, such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester, to the general public, which is why they are still known as “public schools”, although the term is confusing to American readers because it does not equate to “free”. Indeed, it was only the better-off members of the middle class who could afford the fees. However, for those who were able to attend these schools, and the “preparatory” schools that prepared boys (and it was mostly boys, not girls) for the exams that would gain them entry to the senior schools, a cultural clash took place between the sons of the aristocracy and the “nouveau riche” social climbers of the middle class.

Before this change, it was quite normal for upper class people to speak with regional accents. Gladstone and Peel, for example, despite their Eton/Harrow and Oxford University educations, never lost their Northern English accents. However, from about 1890 onwards it became a stigma to have a regional accent, and schoolmasters who had themselves been through the new educational mill passed on their prejudices to their middle class pupils.

The social climbers also appreciated the advantage of copying the manners and accents of those above them in the social hierarchy, and so Received Pronunciation was born. It spread via the Army and the colonial service throughout the Empire and therefore became a symbol of authority for those who used it. You were unlikely to gain advancement, whether British or “native”, if your accent did not match that of those with the power to make or break you in career terms.

When the BBC began broadcasting in 1921, its recruits came from the same educated middle class that had been either to public schools or the new tranche of “grammar schools” that in many ways sought to imitate the public schools. There were strenuous efforts to standardise broadcast speech, including a committee that decided how certain words were to be pronounced on the BBC. The early BBC form of RP sounds to a modern ear to be almost comical, with its “far back” renditions of words and phrases. If you can imagine “rolling stones” pronounced as “railing stains” you will get a good idea!

However, RP has had a much worse press in more recent years. It is now regarded by many as symptomatic of elitism and snobbery, and it is noticeable how few “far back” voices you will hear today, even among people who have no regional accent. A good example is Her Majesty the Queen, of whom many recordings exist of broadcasts made when she was much younger, such as during the 1950s. Half a century later, although she is still clearly an aristocrat in her speech, there are none of the knife-sharp edges to her vowels that typified RP.

The decline of RP has also had much to do with social attitudes towards people from the regions beyond the south-east of England. It is no longer acceptable for talented people to be denied careers in broadcasting just because of the way they speak, thus many newsreaders and reporters heard today have regional accents from throughout the United Kingdom and beyond.

It is no longer the case that “getting on” depends on conforming to a given pattern of behaviour, whether in speech or anything else. Received Pronunciation has, fortunately, become a thing of the past in our more accepting society.

© John Welford

Sporting terms used more widely in English

Even people who have absolutely no interest in watching or playing sport may use sporting terms in their general everyday speech and writing without realising it. It is also the case that some of these usages cross cultural divides even when the sports in question do not.

Baseball

Baseball is a sport that belongs mainly to the continent of North America. Although it is played elsewhere, it does not occupy anything like as central a place in the cultural realm of, say, the United Kingdom as it does the United States.

When you start a new enterprise, such as in business, you are always pleased to reach “”first base”, and if you succeed at the first attempt you may achieve a “home run”. However, somebody may throw you a “curveball” at some stage.

The term “struck out” is often used to mean a situation in which someone has failed, but this is a bit ambiguous, because the word “strike” means to hit something, and a strike in baseball means precisely the opposite.

Cricket

To a speaker of English in the cricket-playing world, the language is full of “cricketisms”, although only a few of them have become regulars in non-cricketing countries such as the United States.

At the outset, there is the expression “it’s not cricket”, meaning that something is not fair or there is sharp practice going on. This shows the Englishman’s enduring conviction that cricket is a game for gentlemen who would never dream of cheating!

If you cannot solve a problem you may be “stumped”, possibly because the problem was something of a “googly” being delivered on a “sticky wicket”. However, if you do find a solution you may be able to “hit it for six”.

Golf

The words borrowed from golf seem to bear a similar pattern to those from cricket, as you can be “stymied”, “bunkered” or “hit into the long grass” in real life just as often as on the golf course. However, it is always satisfying to score a “hole in one” in any field of life, and to reward yourself with a drink at the “19^th hole”.

Tennis

A tennis racket can be “highly strung”, as can its owner!

It is not often realised that the word “penthouse” comes from tennis, it being the structure with a sloping roof that runs round three sides of the court in “real tennis”, the game that bears more resemblance to modern squash than to lawn tennis.

And I suppose that the phrase “you cannot be serious” would be heard far less frequently had John McEnroe not used it to such great effect when playing at Wimbledon in 1981.

Football

Most of the familiar “sporting” words that are relevant to all codes of football cannot be said to owe their origin to the game, as they derive from ordinary language and have been assimilated into the sport, such as “goal”, “try”, “tackle” and “kick off”. However, some words and phrases do appear to have moved the other way, such as “scrum”, “kicked into touch” and “taken a dive”.

General

The above has only been a cursory glance at a few word and phrase derivations from a small number of sports, although there are also some that apply across a whole range of sporting endeavour. There are “referees” and “umpires” for all sorts of non-sporting activities. We all want to compete on a “level playing field”, from the “starting pistol/gun” to the “chequered flag”.

Thank you for taking a little “time out” to read this piece!

© John Welford

A white elephant - an unwanted gift

We often use the term “white elephant” to describe a publicly funded project that costs a huge amount of money to build and maintain but is generally reckoned to be utterly useless. This is a case of a term being used for something very close to its original meaning, although it rarely applies to real elephants these days.

In old Siam (now known as Thailand) elephants were extremely useful animals when tamed and trained to do all sorts of agricultural work – just about everything that horses would do on western farms, or tractors in more recent times. They were also used to carry heavy goods and on ceremonial occasions.

As we know, elephants are usually grey, but sometimes a white one is born. This is a very rare event, so every time this happened in 18^th century Siam it automatically became the property of the King and therefore highly revered for that reason alone.

The white elephant’s special status meant that it could not be put to work or even ridden, but it had to be looked after and pampered. For someone to have charge of a white elephant but neglect it in any way was a serious offence.

That meant that the King had an excellent means of keeping people in order. If somebody annoyed him, but could not actually be accused of doing something for which he could be punished, the King would give him a present – namely a white elephant.

To be given anything by the King was clearly a great honour, and the recipient had no choice but to treat the gift with every consideration, but nobody who was given that particular gift was likely to be very happy about it. Here was a hulking great beast that was very expensive to maintain, was likely to have a lifespan that equaled or exceeded that of its new owner, but which could never be made to pay its way. Many people who were given white elephants suffered financial ruin as a result.

It is hardly surprising that British travelers to Siam saw the custom of royal gifts that bankrupted the recipients as being an excellent metaphor for the useless and costly buildings and monuments that their own government sought to foist upon the general public. The use of the term “white elephant” is still widespread, even though most people have no idea where it comes from.

© John Welford

How to pronounce 'ough'

How do I pronounce thee? Let me count the ways!

Once upon a time a Frenchman was travelling via the Channel Tunnel from Paris to London (OK, so the time wasn’t all that long ago). As his English was not all that good, he spent the time reading a book of tips on the language, and as the train approached St Pancras he found the page that read:

“tough” proounced tuff

“though” pronounced tho

“through” pronounced throo

“thorough” pronounced thurru

“cough” pronounced coff

“bough” pronounced bow

“lough” pronounced loch

As he got off the train and walked into the London streets he looked up at a theatre billboard and saw “The Sound of Music – Pronounced Success”, and that was when he shot himself!

So that makes seven. For the uninitiated, a lough is to an Irish person what a loch is to a Scot (i.e. a lake or a sea inlet), and is pronounced the same way, that is to say with a slightly guttural sound that is a cross between “lock” and “shhh”.

I have to sympathise with the unfortunate (and mythical) Frenchman, because there are no rules that can help the learner of English to know which pronunciation applies when. You just have to learn these things as you go along.

It is place names that are most likely to trap the unwary. For example, Slough (pictured above) is a town to the west of London that is known to most Brits for only two things. It is the setting for Ricky Gervais’s modern classic “The Office”, and it was once famously pilloried by the poet John Betjeman in the lines:

“Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

It isn’t fit for humans now.

There’s isn’t grass to graze a cow.

Swarm over, Death!”

Unkind maybe, but at least it taught a generation that the place wasn’t called Sluff.

During a visit to Baltimore I once met a young American lady who said that she was about to visit my country for a conference at a town called Lowborow.  It took a while before I realised she was actually going to a place that is only few miles from where I live, called Loughborough. I had never appreciated before that this name would cause anyone a problem, but it actually has two “ough” syllables which are pronounced differently, namely numbers one and four on my list above.

I therefore had a pleasant half hour teaching this delightful person to say “Luffburru”.

As to why English presents such eccentric difficulties, that would take a long and boring time to explain. Suffice it to say that ours is a language that has evolved over many centuries, based on many complex roots, with the sole purpose, it would seem, of baffling those poor benighted ones who have had the misfortune to be born elsewhere.

© John Welford

Cockney rhyming slang

Visitors to London are often puzzled by the strange expressions used by many of its inhabitants in their everyday speech, as in “Hello, me old china, fancy a butchers at me new jam jar? Hey, I like your whistle! How’s the trouble and strife?” These are examples of Cockney rhyming slang, and there are five in the quote just given.

One thing to make clear is that not all Londoners are Cockneys, but their slang has spread far beyond their “zone”, and many examples have become common expressions in the English of people who have never lived anywhere near London. To be strictly accurate, a Cockney is someone who was born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church (pictured), which is just to the east of St Paul’s Cathedral. However, the bells are not heard very often these days, and even when they do sound, the noise of the modern city has limited their range considerably. For practical purposes, a Cockney can be reckoned to be a working-class Londoner who lives in the east end.

Rhyming slang appears to have emerged around the 1840s among the local traders who sold goods from carts or stalls and were known as costermongers. It is possible that the slang developed as a form of private language with a view to confusing anyone who was not local, particularly any “toffs” who might have wandered into their patch. Alternatively, it could have started as a sort of verbal word game, with one person trying to guess what another person meant.

The rhymes are quite basic, and stand for everyday words, so “apples and pears” means “stairs” but some of them have a certain relevance to the intended word, so when a Cockney refers to his wife as the “trouble and strife” he has more than just a rhyme in mind!

What really confuses the uninitiated is the fact that the actual rhyming word is often omitted, as in “whistle” above. Here, the full expression is “whistle and flute” which rhymes with “suit”. Indeed, the rhyme is just as often omitted as spoken, so references to a “syrup”, “china” or “barnet” need a bit of working out (“syrup of figs” for “wig”, “china plate” for “mate” and “Barnet Fair” for “hair”).

Many people use rhyming slang regularly with ever knowing that they are doing so. The common phrase “give us a butchers”, has spread far beyond London to mean “let’s have a look” (from “butcher’s hook”), and many a young man has referred to a woman’s breasts as “bristols” without appreciating the original rhyming slang of “Bristol cities” for “titties”.

Sometimes it is not easy to work out the origin of a slang term, simply because the original “rhyme word” is no longer in common use. An example of this is “kettle” for “watch”. This only makes sense as “kettle on the hob” to rhyme with “fob”, although nobody today uses a pocket watch attached to their waistcoat by a fob chain.

Cockney rhyming slang has often used the names of well-known people, and it is a sign of having really arrived in the public’s consciousness when somebody is featured in the slang vocabulary. Winona Ryder will doubtless be delighted to know that she is rhyming slang for “cider” and Britney Spears is “beers”.

Mind how you go as you walk down the field (of wheat, meaning street). Don’t go Pete Tong (wrong), but always be Isle of Wight. You’d better Adam and Eve it!

© John Welford

British and American spelling

It was George Bernard Shaw who said that Britain and America were “divided by a common language”, and this is brought home quite forcibly when we look at our rules of spelling!

In the UK, the English language has evolved over many centuries, and the way we spell our words today is not always been how our ancestors would have done so. Emigrants to the New World took the English language with them in the state that it was at the time, and there has been a certain degree of divergence since then, although there are many examples that show that it is the British spelling that has changed in the meantime, not the American.

There have also been several deliberate attempts at spelling reform in the United States, most notably by Noah Webster of dictionary fame, and Melville Dewey, who devised the Dewey Decimal Classification for libraries and preferred “catalog” to “catalogue”. Spelling reforms have also been proposed in the UK, but with much less success. However, the constant cross-fertilisation supplied by American books, journals and (especially) web-based materials has led many British people to accept American spellings in daily use.

So what are the differences? One that is now becoming very blurred is “-ise” and “-ize” as a word ending. I would always prefer to see “recognise” rather than “recognize”, as I regard “-ize” as an Americanism, but some British dictionaries now give “recognize” as the preferred form. However, this “rule” - if it is a rule - only applies to words of two or more syllables - for example, don’t confuse “prise” and “prize”, which are words with entirely different meanings.

One very clear difference is the American omission of the “u” in “-our” word endings. So whereas a Brit would write “neighbour”, “harbour” and “colour”, an American would write “neighbor”, “harbor” and “color”. The important thing to remember here is not to use both forms of spelling in the same document - decide which spelling code to adopt and stick with it.

There are some examples where spelling reform has led to confusions that do not occur in British English. For instance, a floor of a building is a “storey” in Britain but a “story” in the USA. However, a “story” is also a tale that is told, on both sides of the Pond. In the plural, both “storeys” and “stories” are correct in the UK, depending on the context.

Another example is “kerb” and “curb”. If you hold something back, you curb it. If that something is the edge of a pavement (or “sidewalk” to an American), a Brit will do so with a “kerb”, but in American English “curb” is used for both meanings, and the special meaning of “kerb” has been lost.

To go beyond spelling, there are many differences that concern word choice and which are not a matter of words being spelled differently. The pavement/sidewalk example mentioned above is one of a huge number of potential sources of confusion. Ask for chips in the States and you do not get fried chipped potatoes but what Brits would call crisps! Make a mistake when writing in pencil and you would reach for a rubber in Great Britain, but ask for one in the US and you would get something very different!

Americans punctuate differently from Brits. The rule in British English is that the full stop (or “period”!) is always the final mark in a sentence, but Americans will happily place closing quotation marks or brackets after one. Americans insist on the opening word after a colon (:) having an upper case initial, which is anathema to grammatical Brits. Write a list of things ending “and …” and an American will place a comma after the last word before the “and”, but a Brit will not except on occasions where this would prevent a misunderstanding. Oddly enough, this inserted comma, despite being an Americanism, is known as the “Oxford comma”. There are plenty of other differences as well.

I am not saying that one way of spelling is correct and the other is wrong, only that these differences exist and it is important to be aware of them, so that when writing in English you are consistent. However, as I said above, things are not completely cut and dried and you can be forgiven for not getting it right every time - very few native-born writers of British English do so anyway!


© John Welford