First of the Culture Clashes

Lena is starting to talk quite a bit nowadays and this is great. But is presenting me with an interesting question to ponder.

She spends most of her time with me, so she is learning most of her language from me. And I don't say things always the way the Brits do. I've mentioned before about bilingual baby vocabulary, and now I have a bit of toddler vocabulary. When Lena gets dressed, she wears socks, a shirt, panties and pants. Least she does when I dress her, which is at least 5 out of 7 mornings. G puts socks, a shirt, pants and trousers on her. So Lena says panties and pants.

My word for her outer clothing is G's word for her undergarments which is also what the Brits say. Pants. Not a big deal, but knowing how kids (and adults) are, it will be noticed that Lena talks about pants rather than trousers. And I'm wondering if I should start calling them trousers, just so she doesn't have problems with this later on. Don't misunderstand me, I am more than happy for her to pronounce tomatoes "to-MAY-toes", but I don't want her to be the butt of any toilet humour over pants. I know that it could be an issue, as I've had 1st-hand experience.

On our trip last year to Scotland, I got drawn into a conversation with an eight-year old girl on the ferry back to Oban. She was chatting quite happily to me, telling me that she was off with her parents to buy new clothes. I asked her what she was buying, "Are you getting new pants?" Upon the fit of giggles that burst out of her, I realised my faux pas. Despite saying with much more emphasis, "I mean trousers. TROUSERS," it more or less brought the end to our conversation. God forbid I was a man and someone had happened to overhear that tidbit of conversation; I would have been locked up.

I don't want Lena to have to face teasing over saying that one word differently. Kids can be cruel, and I also know that children can get picked on for any reason, or lack of reason. But I don't think she needs to hand it to them on a platter either.

The (Semi-)Local Cusine

I made a Yorkshire pudding today. It was the first time I ever made one and it was a great success, if I do say so myself. I was a bit worried about it, having tried to make popovers before and failed. As it was my first attempt, i just made it on its own, rather than putting sausages in it to make the very amusingly-named Toad-in-a-Hole meal. They were good sausages from Maceys, so I didn't want to ruin them with my inexperience. I think next time we have sausages for dinner, I will go for it. Just look for yourself:




My pride swelled nearly as much as the pudding when it came out so nice and fluffy.

Keen North American observers will notice that the object in the pictures looks nothing like a pudding. You are correct. The British usually use the term "pudding" as a general term for dessert. This isn't a dessert though. It's more of a simple bread that you eat normally with gravy and roast meat or sausages. So why is it called a pudding when it isn't dessert? Ask those wacky Yorkshire people, because I don't know. What I do know is that the leftovers are pretty nice with honey as a late-night dessert. Yorkshire pudding as pudding.

Right. Absolutely.

This post is about the way English use their language. Two words and the meaning behind them.

Absolutely is a word that some Brits tend to use a lot. Absolutely is a word to back up whatever you were saying or to happily agree with another person. It reminds me of how the Germans use the word genau (meaning - exactly. Read more about the genau phenomenon here). Basically when you hear it, you can take it to mean yes and the person just wants to be a bit more emphatic about it. Be careful, because it can be used to overcompensate for the person actually being not 100% certain of the answer. As an example, there's a good quote in the movie The English Patient. The hero (Lazlo) and heroine (Katharine) have crashed their plane in the desert and Katharine is badly injured.
She asks Lazlo, "Will we be alright?"
He answers, "Yes. Yes, absolutely."
Her reply is "'Yes' is a comfort. 'Absolutely' is not."
A useful thing to remember when you hear the word.

Right is a different story. When a Brit says the word, "right" after you have made some sort of statement, it doesn't mean they agree with you. It means, "I heard you what you said and I understand the words and I'm acknowledging that you said it. However, I'm not convinced that you are correct in what you are saying but I'm too polite to immediately say so, or I need a minute or two to get over the shock of what you told me."
It usually has a certain tone to it as well. The pitch goes up on the long I sound and then comes down quickly to finish on the T. That's more the surprised acknowledgement "right". If it's a longer sound on the R and the pitch goes down the entire way, it's likely that the speaker doesn't believe you for a second or is very unhappy with what you said.

Examples:
Speaker A: "Did you know that Prince Philip is from Vanuatu?"
Speaker B: "R/igh\t" (That's news to me and I'm not quite sure what to say to you now)

Speaker A: "You have done this all wrong and you are going to have to do it again."
Speaker B: "Rrr\ight" (You're my boss so I'm not saying anything else but if I could...)


Of course, this isn't the hard and fast way either word is used. Just something I've noticed over the course of living here that seems to hold true a good part of the time.

Separated by a common language

I had a couple of amusing examples of differences in the local English and my version on the weekend. I've talked about it before, but this wasn't so baby related.

We were watching a movie on the weekend, Robots. One of the female characters in the movie has rather large buttocks. In the American version, this character's name is Aunt Fanny. But as we were watching this in the UK, the name was Aunt Fan. Why the difference? Because in North American English, the word "fanny" is very mild slang for your posterior. Your sweet little grandmother would use the word. But in the UK, "fanny" is a very strong slang word for female genitals. Right up there with the "c-word", if you get my drift. So for a kid's movie, obviously they didn't want to leave in such a strong swear, but it was funny to notice it.

The other one I had recently wasn't necessarily a difference in the languages, it may have just been my lack of knowledge. None the less, I'll share it with you and my faithful readers can let me know.

I read an email from someone who was giving away some "Hardcore". This, it turns out, is what I would call "clean fill". Hardcore is broken bricks and stones that are used in laying foundations. I know this now, but at first, my mind jumped first to the conclusion that someone was giving away a rather personal collection of magazines or videos...

Bank Vacation Weekend

This is the Spring Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK. It's always the last Monday in May. I made my little joke in the post title because it always came up when I was teaching business English in Germany. In German, there is one word for when you take several days off out of your job (Urlaub) and another word for when it's an official public day off (Feiertag). It was confusing for them when I told them that they could call both "holiday" in English. Of course this was normally for the beginners, who really only needed to get their heads around one word. For higher classes I would explain that in Canada, you would take 2 weeks vacation, but that July 1st was a holiday (Canada Day, just so you know for your next pub quiz or trivia night). And then I would explain that in Britain they would take 2 weeks holiday and then Christmas Day is a bank holiday. A very strange concept to someone from the outside; I still have difficulty with it myself, never mind the Germans.

I mean, why is a bank holiday and not a Post Office holiday? The other difficulty the Germans had with the concept is that nearly every holiday is a Monday, rather than the actual day of the commemoration. What I mean is that in Germany, May 1 is a day off and is a holiday and it doesn't move. If May 1 is a Wednesday, that's the day the shops and offices are closed. It doesn't move to the next convenient Monday. If May 1 is a Sunday; too bad no extra day off for you; you miss out that year.

Another tough one for me is that most of the holidays (in England at least) are just days off, there's no basis. This weekend for example is officially called Spring Bank Holiday, although it's apparently originally from Whitsun (aka Pentecost) but you would never know that nowadays. I thought it was originally from Queen Victoria's birthday, but apparently not. Why would I think that? Well, because the 3rd Monday in Canada is actually called Victoria Day. And it's an official (bank) holiday. I find it amusing that the "colony" still has a day off to celebrate the birthdays of a dead monarch and the official one of the current one but the birth country of those monarchs doesn't.

What's in a name?

What's in a name? That which we call my last name would be just as difficult for the English to spell. Which is particularly funny, because it's a very common Scottish surname. Yes, there are many variations of it, and yes, it's not spelled the way it sounds. But honestly, I've had more misspellings of my name here, on this tiny island where the origin of the name is a mere 1000km away, than I ever did in Germany where the name is not well known. I guess it's because in Germany I would spell it out using the German phonetic alphabet so there could be no mistaking how it was spelled. It took me ages to get used to it, as it's totally different from the "Alpha Bravo Charlie" of the English-speaking system. The Germans use German first names (for the most part) instead, so it starts off as "Anton Berta Caesar". So for example, old Tony would say "Berta Ludwig Anton Ida Richard" to spell his last name. Or I live in Caesar Otto Otto Kaufmann Heinrich Anton Martha. When I first heard it, someone would be spelling something to me on the phone and rattling off these words at a million miles a second and I would think they wanted me to write these words, not realising they were using them to spell something. The Germans use this spelling alphabet far more than any English speakers do. It's quite useful, once you finally get used to it. For one, my name was never misspelled after I learnt the system. Maybe I should try the same with the English. Canadians never had trouble with the name either by the way; it's a far more common surname where I came from in Canada than it is around these southern regions of England.

Remembrance of times past

I just was suddenly transplanted back to Germany whilst watching TV. One of the video channels is doing a 90s classic video hour. This alone is enough to bring back memories of Munich, as I lived there for nearly the entire decade, and certainly did my share of dancing to pop music then. It's amazing how a piece of music or a smell can remind you so strongly of another place and time. But what really brought back Germany to me is that they showed an M People video that was filmed in Berlin (Don't Look Any Further if you really want to know). It was out in 1993, the first year I went to Germany. And one specific little shot that transported me back to that year. They had a very short picture of the Ampelmännchen.


Ampel is the German word for traffic light. And Mann is German for man. If you put -chen at the end of a word, it makes it a small version. Like in English when you put a -y sound on something, eg. doggy, kitty. So Ampelmännchen means "little traffic light man", which is exactly what it is. It's the figures on the pedestrian light at an intersection which show you when to walk or to wait. West Germany has the boring normal one, which is just a skinny stick figure, sort of like what they use to illustrate the Olympic sports. But East Germany has/had a much much cooler set of figures:

Aren't they great? Full of character with that stout body and hat. I really like the green one, walking off with purpose and with his hat set at a jaunty angle, ready to face the world. Not to slight the red one, he manages to show that you should wait without making you feel that you are being preached to. And who wouldn't want to wait, to stride across the street with the green man, pretending you are wearing a hat that is set at a jaunty angle?

I first saw them in February 1994, when I went on a week tour of eastern Germany; visiting Leipzig, Halle, Dresden and Berlin. Seeing them again on TV, especially after hearing music from the time period as well, brought that moment in time and place back to me. It was a very Proustian moment.

Bilingual Baby Speak

I thought I would make a short post about the differences in language between Canada and Australia/Britain. Because for whatever reason, the words Aussies use tend to be more similar to the British word than the Canadian word. I could make this a huge post, going on about roundabouts vs traffic circles or to-MAH-toes vs to-MAY-toes, but there are plenty of sites where you can read about those differences. I'm going to stick to the differences when it comes to refering to baby items. I was a bit surprised when I realised how many different words there are. I shall list them as such. Canadian-Australian/British-and just for fun if I remember it, German. Comments in italics if I feel the need.

• soother - dummy(I never understood why it was called this, but just as posting, came to the realisation it probably is from dumb as in mute. So it mutes the baby. Hah, only took 10 years to figure that one out) - Schnüller
• crib - cot - kinderbett
• stroller - pushchair - kinderwagen
• diaper - nappy - Windel (although the brand name "Pampers" also is common in Germany for diapers in general)
• burp the baby - wind the baby - can't remember in German
• pee - wee - pieseln
• bassinet - Moses basket - never used it in Germany, so I don't know the term

7 words on one topic is quite a few in my opinion. Only in food and car references can I think of more different words per topic. In our house, it's a combination of both, with a slight advantage going to the Canadian version. Whether that's because I'm with Lena more or because I've had more practice using them including my year of au-pairing I can't say. G can speak both Canadian and Australian baby terms, but I caught him by surprise when I for some reason asked him if we had the Schnüller for our trip in the car.

Last minute #1

I'm labelling this post last minute #1, as I think there might be another day with lots of last minute things to do. I'm going to keep it short, because of this.

Tomorrow the movers come. So today is the last chance to sort out junk that we don't want anymore from the stuff we do want to take. It's amazing how much stuff you can collect that you just never get around to throwing away. G. had an obsession of keeping the boxes that things originally came in. After throwing out about 20 boxes of various sizes and shapes and keeping 2 to repack in, I think he may be cured of the habit. Of course, I'm not much better, not tossing random bits of photo-copied teaching material, because "I might use this in another class". Well, it either should be filed or chucked, not left on a shelf for 18 months to collect dust.

The painters are coming in a few minutes to give us an estimate of how much it'll cost to repaint the apartment. The Hausverwaltung (the people who look after the building for the landlords) want our two pale yellow rooms painted white of course. I told them that I talked with my renter's association and they said that the yellow is okay because it's not a horrible shade, very decent. Well, the guy didn't agree, but I'll see what the painters say. He said on the phone it would take 2 coats to cover it. If it's 2 coats, I'll do it, but if it's more, too bad, they are getting yellow and we can fight about it. I also need to do all the final cancellation of stuff and faxing today while all the machines are around to use. We aren't taking the phone because the UK doesn't have ISDN, but some of the connecting cables and so on might go missing during the move. I learnt an interesting German saying on Tuesday: "Dreimal umgezogen ist wie einmal ausgebrannt," which means moving three times is the same as burning everything once. Very interesting and applicable in a few different ways. Both for throwing things away, the ensuing chaos, the loss and breakage of possessions, and maybe also the idea of having to start from scratch again.

Tonight is our farewell to the band we play in, The Pullacher Blasmusik. Yes, they are an oom-pah-pah band. I'm busy baking muffins for the occasion. I think that this is going to be the hardest goodbye for me. The band has been part of my life since my third month in Germany - basically I've known them longer than I've known anyone else in Munich, and I've had regular contact with them for 13 years, there's no one else I can say that about. Being in the band made me feel so much more a part of German society, it was proof to myself that I wasn't simply living in a little expat bubble community. Geez, I'm tearing up just writing this, I'm going to be a mess at band tonight.

I had my last OB-GYN appointment here in Germany on Tuesday. Everything is okay, she said I'm okay to fly still, thank god. I don't even want to picture having to take the train. So, if anyone from Cookham is reading the blog, I'm looking for a doctor, midwife and place to give birth, so any personal recommendations you can make will be appreciated!! It'll be only 6-7 weeks until my due date when I get over to England, so the situation is rather urgent. No, I don't have the exact date of when I'm flying out yet, probably mid to late next week. It all depends on how quickly I can organise the flat here.

Hmm, not as short a post as I planned, but lots happening to tell you all.