TALKING THE TALK

To bring peace and calm to our troubled world, we must first learn to communicate with each other in more or less intelligible terms. That sounds blindingly obvious but it is certainly harder than we suppose to avoid misunderstanding, confusion and comic incomprehension.

I am a native of Aberdeen and in the North East of Scotland rural and proletarian people still speak in the so-called Doric dialect, often quite difficult for even other Scotsmen to penetrate. Our handyman would appear and ask “Shall Ah gie yer carie a wee dicht?” (Shall I give your car a brief washing down?), simple enough once your ear is attuned. I remember a BBC TV interviewer asking a Peterhead trawler-man for his views on a recent EU fisheries edict. The trawler-man launched into a tirade in the broadest Doric for two minutes at the end of which the interviewer mumbled a word of thanks – he and no doubt 99% of viewers had not understood a single word!

My family owned local cinemas and one of the perks was free admission. I recall my eldest brother going to the pictures and on being challenged for his ticket by a recently recruited attendant (do you remember cinema attendants and usherettes?) whispering discreetly “I am Mr Donald’s son” to which the unimpressed attendant replied “Fit aboot it?” (So what? what about it?). My luckless and nonplussed brother did not catch the phrase and thought the young attendant had made some disparaging remark about my rather stout father comparing him to Fat Bob, a comic strip character in the Scottish newspapers. Thus do misunderstandings multiply!

It is not only in Scotland that the dialect or accent can fox others. Yorkshiremen, not least the poet Ted Hughes, can expatiate on the ways of the world with mordant wit, speaking in a richly idiosyncratic dialect. We are mostly familiar with “’Eee by Gum” (Oh, my God!) or even the Yorkshire anthem “On Illkla Moor bar t’at” (on Illkley Moor without a hat) and some will know the Yorkshire motto: “Ear all, see all, say nowt: eat all, sup all, pay nowt: if ever thou does owt for nowt, allus do it fer thissen.” (Hear all, see all, say nothing: eat all, drink all, pay nothing: if ever you do something for nothing, always do it for yourself.) This motto may explain why a Yorkshireman is defined as a Scotsman without the generosity!

Yorkshire' poet, the late Ted Hughes

A visitor to Britain could easily be confounded too by the peculiar accents of the Glaswegian, the Geordie, the Brummie or the Cornishman. He may think a spell in London will restore his belief in cut-glass English oral precision until he encounters Cockney rhyming slang and is floored by: “I ran up the apples to have a butcher’s at my trouble and I was knocked off my plates – she was wearing a syrup!” (I ran up the stairs – apples and pears=Stairs - to have a look – butcher’s hook = look – at my wife – trouble and strife = wife – and I was knocked off my feet – plates of meat = feet – she was wearing a wig – syrup of figs = a wig.) Not easy for the uninitiated, it must be admitted!

It was well said that England and America are two nations divided by a common language. I am going to the US for October (after a 30 year interval) and I expect to be bamboozled by many ordinary words and expressions, let alone by accents, and to be confused especially if I wish to buy some clothes. Thus, with English usage first followed by American we have trousers/pants, waistcoat/vest, braces/suspenders and pullover / sweater. Watching the many sports TV channels, I imagine Americans struggle with cricket terms (silly mid-off, leg breaks, maiden overs, following on et al) or the jargon of rugby union (ruck and maul, line-outs, Garry Owens or penalty tries) just as my eyes will glaze over at talk of home runs, line backers and slam dunks. But Americans are friendly and articulate people and I will do all I can to catch up quickly and try to master the idiom.

Language and communication is a fascinating subject and I have an old friend who leads a Facebook blog with some rather learned discussions on correct English usage and grammatical niceties. I am only a silent observer with nothing much to contribute but I applaud the way his group of expert enthusiasts is not judgemental but insist that language is a constantly evolving and eclectic science where “coining a phrase” is a regular new occurrence.

SMD

4.09.2015

Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015