The Linguistic Turn

As someone who is perpetually interested in language and how it works, living in London has been a delight.  I would like to share a couple of word or usages that I find particularly delightful.  I'm not going to bother describing to you distinctions that everyone basically knows about, like trousers v. pants, lift v. elevator, or biscuits v. cookies (although I did have a difficult time describing what biscuits and gravy is). 

First, on a general, pronunciation point, I find most people easy to understand unless they are from somewhere on the British Isles other than England.  It was pretty easy to get used to and I quickly moved into a stage of recognizing individual voices.  However, there does seem to be much greater variety in the accents here, even within England, and I suppose one could, with experience, much more accurately pinpoint the geographical origin of a speaker than one could in America..  It was a weird and almost self-conscious experience to hear an American speak from a position of authority here, as when Cardinal Levada visited the seminary.  Apparently, there is a resistance to using educational (particularly cathechetical) materials from America, whether written (because the spelling is incorrect) or audio-visual ("it sounds like he's chewing bubble gum while he speaks").  People would be much more receptive to material from anywhere on the British Isles, or even from Australia.  I am told, however, that the younger generations are much more receptive to American things because of all the American pop-culture they consume.  The main time I become aware of my accent is during common prayer, when we are all saying things in unison, but my pronunciation is different.  Words I always notice are 'God,' 'Lord,' and 'hearts.'  Previously, I would typically pronounce the word 'amen' 'ey-men,' but now I am a full-fledged 'ah-men' speaker, which is how everyone says it here.  So enough with pronunciations, and on to words.  These words or phrases are all used rather commonly here.  I think I heard them all within the first couple of days:

British word: dodgy  American equivalent: sketchy or shady  Usage in a sentence: Soho used to be a quite dodgy area of town; it still is in some ways.

British word: nick  American equivalent: steal, typically used of small or intangible things  Usage in a sentence: I'll nick my mum's year-long pass, so we can get into Buckingham palace without paying.

British word: quid  American equivalent: buck or bucks, but said in reference to British Pound Sterling rather than the US Dollar  Usage in a sentence: It's only ten quid for a student Oyster card.

Phrase in question: You're very welcome.  British conversation:  'This is my home.  Come in.  You're very welcome'  'Thank you'  American conversation: 'This is my home.  Come in.'  'Thank you'  'You're very welcome.'  (In America, 'you're welcome' is used mainly in response to a 'thank you' and occasionally as an invitation.  In Britain, it is used where Americans might simply say 'welcome' and much more frequently as an invitation.)

Question: How did you find it?  British answer: It was great.  I really enjoyed it.  American answer: I looked it up on Google maps beforehand.

British word: rubbish  American equivalent: literally, garbage, but is often used to mean nonsense or awful  Usage in a sentence: I'm rubbish at playing football.

British phrase: first floor  American equivalent: second floor  Usage in a sentence: Don't give him a room on the first floor.  He can't walk up and down stairs.

British word: right  American equivalent: left  Usage in a sentence: Traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road.

Wandering about the City

After the longest period of my life (since Kindergarten) without having class, lectures finally began on Monday.  It's about time I actually had academic work to do.  So far the main difference here, as opposed to back home, is that I have one lecture a week for each class and lectures are two hours each.  The net result is that I spend 8 hours a week in class as opposed to 12.5 at ND.



A nice neighborhood on my walking tour



Jumping back in time, last week was a very relaxed week of simply registering for classes and finding the best way to walk to Heythrop College, where my lectures are.  On Friday, a group of us journeyed west of London to Thrope Park.  Thrope Park is an amusement park, with the typical roller coasters, thrill rides, water rides, and food places.  To be sure, it's wasn't as awesome as the amusement parks in America.  But then, the only other park I've ever been to is Cedar Point, home of some of the largest roller coasters in the world.  Perhaps the comparison is a bit unfair.  It proved to be a fun day nonetheless.

On Saturday was a Eucharistic procession through London.  We processed from Westminster Cathedral to Southwark Cathedral, across the River Thames.  There was a cathedral full of people, nearly one thousand, who make the hour long walk.  It didn't seem like there was too much of a reaction either positive or negative, but I wasn't near the rear where the Blessed Sacrament was.  I did overhear one little kid, who was walking in the opposite direction with his mom, say, "There are too much saints."  It was great to be a part of the procession.  This was the first time they had a Eucharistic procession of that distance in London, and hopefully it can grow and become something really special in the future.

St. Mary Abbots

It worth mentioning that the weather was ridiculously good last weekend.  We had clear blue skys and weather in the 80s.  Completely unexpected for London.  It's especially delightful considering it got down to freezing in South Bend.  After the procession on Saturday, I walked around downtown by myself.  I located St. Paul's Cathedral, the theatre that plays the Lion King musical, the Royal Opera house,the South Bank theaters where the Philharmonic Orchestra plays, and the Notre Dame London campus.  There were a number of street performers out and about, including a very cool group of acrobats who were extremely flexible.  There was also a woman who was re-creating Renaissance artwork on a canvas taped to the the sidewalk under a bridge.  It was really good.

On Sunday, finding myself with more free time, I decided to find out where G.K. Chesterton, one of my favorite authors, lived.  Google provided me with a website that had outlined walking tours of London, and one of the places on the walking tour was the birthplace home of Chesterton.  The walk was devised by a Dickens scholar, and the walk was tailored to someone with a interest in Dickension London.  Chesterton was of interest in this context primarily as a critic of Dickens.  I walked to South Kensington Station where it began and followed the directions as it took me past several of the free museums and up the street towards Hyde Park, taking extra time there to walk around.  The tour eventually took me to houses inhabited by all sorts of famous people.  Here in London, most houses that were inhabited by someone famous are indicated with a round blue plaque containing the person's name.  After going past founder of scouting Baden-Powell's house, Heythrop College, which happened to be on the tour, and nice local Anglican church (St. Mary Abbots), I finally found the birthplace of Chesterton.  But there was no blue plaque!  Having walked too much to want to finish the tour, I headed back home.  There I researched to find out where else Chesterton may have lived and where his plaque was.  I found out that the house he moved to when he was five had his plaque, and that the house he lived in briefly once he was married was close by.  Both were close to Heythrop.  The last house he inhabited in London, was part of a row of houses close to Battersea Park, the closest park to the seminary.

 

Determined to make my tribute to Chesterton complete, I found the row of houses close to the park on my Monday morning run.  I didn't (and still don't) know which one was his, but I ran around the block, just to be sure that I had seen it.  Then after my lecture on Monday, I made the fifteen minute walk from Heythrop to find the remaining Chesterton houses.  They were both right off the main road.  I finally had my picture of the blue Chesterton plaque.