What's that you're saying?

One of the most interesting aspects of living in Israel is the melting pot of native English speakers that one can encounter. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of spending time with Scots, Welsh, English, South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and many, many Americans. As a result of this, my English has become a bastard mix of words from around the globe, to a point where I’m no longer certain as to what is proper for my own American English. It affects my speaking, my spelling, and my general writing style (would you put a comma after the word “spelling” as I have?), and consequently, I am often forced to consider my words and punctuation very carefully. It makes life wonderfully interesting, and I enjoy expanding my vocabulary this way.

While in university (which the Americans usually refer to as college, and in most countries outside the US, there is a difference between the two), I even wrote a paper on the subject, garnering an “A” for noting terms like “lorry” vs. “truck”, “lift” vs. “elevator”, and “eraser” vs. “rubber”, with the last of these generating an embarrassing mistake for a friend when he was in high school. This friend was born in Israel, living here until age 9. He then moved to England, where he lived until age 15. At that point, he was transplanted to Long Island. His accent was positively indescribable, though absolutely charming. Anyway, Guy was taking an exam in his American high school, writing in pencil. Upon making a mistake, he turned to a classmate and asked to borrow a rubber. As you can imagine, his request went down a treat, given that in the US (and perhaps elsewhere, I just don’t know), a rubber is not an eraser, but a condom. Poor Guy!

Being named Guy was no picnic in the US. It certainly didn’t help that when he moved to England, the officials spelled his given name of “Haggai” as “Chagay”, leading to endless pronunciation issues. But Guy is not a popular name in the US, despite its popularity in the UK. Interestingly enough, there are quite a few names that don’t work if you are hopping between English-speaking countries. What Brit hasn’t chuckled when meeting an American (male or female) named Randy? If my name happened to be Fanny (I swear it’s not!), I’d definitely be using a nickname when traveling around the UK. And of course, let us not forget the names that don’t transfer well to Israeli culture. I knew an American Jewish woman named Sheva once, many years ago. On the face of things, it sounds like a beautiful name, no? At least, if you don’t know what it means, it sounds beautiful. In Hebrew, “sheva” is “seven”. Yep. The number seven. And given that I met poor Sheva as we were participating in a year program together in Israel, you can only imagine what it must have been like to spend an entire year having people ask you why your name is seven. Less fun than you might think.

What caused me to dedicate a blog entry to this subject? Well, recently I learned a new word from a colleague who grew up in South Africa. Before I share the new word with you, I’d like to point out that South Africans, bless ‘em, use some very bizarre terms. For instance, did you know that in South Africa, a traffic light is known as a robot? I swear! Or when a South African tells you that he will be taking care of something “just now”, it means that he will be taking care of it at any time between now and, say, any old indefinite time period. Neat concept, eh? It took me a while to catch on to that one, when my South African colleagues would tell me that they would get to whatever it was that I was waiting for just now, and I couldn’t imagine what was taking so long. Do you know what a “braai” is? Why, it’s a barbecue, of course! If a South African invites you over for a braai, consider yourself lucky indeed, as these folks are unquestionable masters of meat, and you’re sure to leave quite sated. Which brings me to today’s new word. Brinjal. That’s right, brinjal. I can just see you, scratching your heads, quietly asking yourselves, “what the hell is a brinjal?” Well, depending on which English speaking country you’re from, it’s either an eggplant or an aubergine (probably good that I didn’t only use the term “aubergine”, as you’d probably start scratching your head with wonder again). I thought I’d heard it all. To be quite honest, I actually thought she was making it up, until she popped it into Babylon and showed me that it was a real word.

I seem to recall a quote that Steve Martin once gave. “Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything!” After the “brinjal” incident, I’m thinking it’s not only the French who are guilty here. Hey, what other “strange” words can you come up with?