British Abroad

I've been chortling recently over this article. It's obviously meant to be funny, so please don't take the following too seriously. By the way, I'm going to conflate the astonishingly nebulous `Britishness' with the slightly-less-so `Englishness'. And anyway, talking about all of this is quite awfully un-English, so take it with a pinch of salt.

The author mentions the unreality and artifice of the behaviour of too many Britons when abroad. He mentions it disparagingly, of course. But it is my opinion that this charade is forced on traveling Brits.

The problem is that most-of-the-world's stereotypes of Britons were formed in the days of the Empire. They don't pertain especially to Britain; they pertain, rather, to elites anywhere. The British stereotype is educated, equanimous, self-deprecating, and well-dressed.

These qualities equally derive from, and lead to, power and authority. Since the end of the Empire, there is no reason to suppose that these qualities should predominate in Britain, and indeed, in my experience, they don't any more than elsewhere.

But a Brit abroad is measured against this fantastic yardstick, and I think it's not at all surprising that most of us attempt to match it, at least in some, perhaps farcical, sense. Other nations' stereotypes are a mix of the good and the bad, and they therefore have less to worry about if they don't measure up.

The Weather

There's an old joke that the English talk about the weather too much. Someone once said that wit is humour with a grain of truth. The joke I led with is entirely true, but not humorous. Does that make it witty?

Anyway, the point is that it is undoubtedly, instantly verifiably, true. The astonishing thing is that the weather in this country is flamboyantly uniform. A balmy summer day might reach 77F, while a cold winter will see people shivering at 45F. Why people should spend so much time discussing weather that is so very nearly unchanging is a mystery to me. Many, many people have asked why over many, many years, and I've never really been entirely convinced by any of the explanations I've heard.

There are psychological explanations. People might claim, for example, that the English are generally self-deprecating and so love to talk happily about their weather, which is clearly awful by almost any standards. But the English penchant for self-deprecation seems to have decreased markedly even during my lifetime without manifesting a corresponding decline in discussions of the weather. Furthermore, the Scots, for example, have never exhibited this very English degree of morbid humility, and yet they seem to talk about the weather at least as much.

There are practical explanations too. For example, one might suppose that the average Englishmen uses public transport more than people in many other countries, so he is more affected by tiny changes in the weather. But in the many countries that use public transport more, this obsession with the weather is not shared.

The fact that such an enduring and ubiquitous phenomenon has avoided explanation seems bizarre to me. Of course, it often happens to physical phenomena, but this is a sociological phenomenon, and thus one on which almost anyone ought to be able to comment.

Perhaps there are some things that Man was simply not meant to understand. By the way, good comedians never lead with their best material.

Indian (English) and American (English)

Welcome back. I would like to talk to you this evening about two languages that I know and ... well, perhaps love is a little too strong, so let us say, in which I take more than a passing interest.

They are American English and Indian English. I make some claim to impartiality in this discussion because I was raised in England. I can make some claim to knowledge too, because I have frequently visited India, and currently live in the USA. Objectivity and knowledge are essential when analysing a topic. Alas, they are also often illusory.

Let's start at the beginning, which is a very good place to start. We consider the development of these two languages. The vast majority of the (modern-era) settlers of this country were native English speakers. They arrived, however, before the modern fad for widespread literacy had truly taken off. They therefore arrived knowing how to speak, but not how to spell, the English language. This had the following two consequences.

Firstly, the standard American accent is, objectively, somewhat similar to the standard English accent. (These are both, of course, entirely fictitious beasts; but this is not a sholarly article, only a pretentious blog aping the mien of one. We proceed, then, free from the possibility of serious scholarly scrutiny.) One could argue that the American accents one hears today are descended directly from accents once heard in England, as people learnt English from their parents and grew up in a society where English was spoken.

Yet American English exhibits drastically different spelling conventions from English. Furthermore, where these differences appear, the American spelling is almost invariablysimpler or more natural. Standard examples include flavour becoming flavor; skilful becoming skillful; analogue becoming analog; and (my perennial favourite) plough being transmogrified into plow.

Indian English is somewhat widespread in India today. Yet even a generation ago it was far less common, something of an achievement. Those who spoke it several generations ago would mostly have been well educated and extremely well read.

However, the number of native speakers of English English in India was never high enough to teach all, or even most, of those learning English in India. Thus most Indians learning English have, for generations, been very carefully how to read and write, but not at all how to speak, English. Again, this may have had two consequences.

Indinan speakers of English would have grown up in a society where other languages were much more common, and this would undoubtedly have affected the development of the Indian English accent.

Hence an objective judge (probably another fiction, but ably substitued for by the author) would probably judge the Indian English accent to be further from English than is American English. And yet variations in spelling are remarkably few.

Aside from the radically different pronunciation, an interesting difference between Indian English and English is created by a certain ruthless Indian logic. The English appear willing, and even happy, to accept irregularities in their language, but the Indians do not. For example, the English word 'postpone' dates back to at least 1496 (according to the OED). It lived a happy life for many centuries. When it moved to India, however, Indians seem to have become unhappy that such a word has no opposite, and very soon created 'prepone'. It was an entirely logical, and thouroughly welcome addition, but very un-English.

A final, comical, example is provided by the word 'pyjamas'. In English the word is spelt with a 'y', but pronounced as if it were an 'a'.

In American English, it is thus pronounced 'pajamas', and, this being so, it is only reasonable for it to be also spelt with an 'a'.

The word probably reached India in written form, so it is still spelt with a 'y', but it is now pronounced 'pie-jamas'. I find that rather funny.