Friday, July 08, 2005

Words

You gotta hand it to the British. Along with that stiff upper lip, they rock when it comes to gentility. Part of it’s the accent, of course. Even the least educated UK citizen sounds like a Harvard grad to my ears. But it’s more than that. It’s the words.

Here are two memorable examples from yesterday’s news coverage of the tragedy.

Since three of the blasts occurred in trains (subways?), a lot of eyewitness accounts came from passengers. They began by identifying which "carriage” they were in. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “carriage” I think “Central Park” and “horse drawn”, not an overcrowded, smelly tube whisking me through the bowels of Central London.

Next, toward the end of the workday, I saw a London official (maybe the Mayor?) addressing the logistics of getting workers from their jobs in the city to their homes in the suburbs. He kept referring to their “journey”…as in, “tonight, citizens will need to practice patience in their journey homeward.” Again, I don’t know about you, but when I leave work it’s a "commute"…as in, please commute my sentence, release me from prison, and let me get the hell home. The British make it sound like leaving work is a life affirming experience. Well, maybe yesterday it was.

So, do the British use language as a way of putting a smiley face on the ugly stuff?

Hm. Whatta concept.

3 comments:

Brenda said...

That is interesting. Makes it sound more..romantic or something. I'm sure if we heard that kind of talk all the time, though, it'd lose its effectiveness or something.

I thought I had you on my blog roll but I couldn't find it. Why didn't you let me know?? And do you want it just as "Randy" or do you want a last name too? (grin)

John said...

I doubt if the British make any knowing attempt to sound anything but British. And I do know they think we sound as funny as we think they do.

If I wanted a different dialict, I would want to speak English with an Irish, Ethiopian, or French accent. They sound so much neater than I do.

To Brenda in the above post, I like Randy Jean. Makes her sound uniquie, which she is.

Randy said...

Beats the hell out of me :)