Damozel: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:28:21 GMT

I am relocating my blog to the following address:

http://theflatlandalmanack.typepad.com/ (THE FLATLAND ALMANACK)

I will continue to maintain this site and everything posted here but will do all my further posting there!

Do stop by for a visit!

English food: a note to American tourists

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 09:42:07 GMT

Hi! I've changed addresses. Please jump to the updated version of this posting by clicking here.

English food, here and in England: A note to American tourists visiting England* (Part 1).

* CAVEAT: not designed for foodies.

[1] The myth.

Years ago, when I was first a bride and was trying to choose a china pattern for my gift registry, I saw an advertisement in one of those bride-directed magazines that made a tremendous impression on me. It was an ad for Royal Doulton china. The ad featured a surpassingly beautiful plate with bits of unappetizing glop on it. I can't remember what the food looked like, other than that it was mainly brown or brownish; and there may have been some extremely bright green beans or peas as well. Underneath it said: WE PUT THE WORLD'S WORST FOOD ON THE WORLD'S BEST CHINA (or perhaps it was "the world's finest" or "most beautiful" china). The thing that stuck with me was the description of the food.

I spent my life hearing jokes about English food and the poor quality of English dentistry; but whatever was true back when those myths gained currency, it isn't true anymore. English people have delicious food and perfectly fine teeth. Americans who want to mock them for something are nowadays in a bit of a jam. There just isn't anything for me to feel superior about these days.

I don't know what the food in England was like back in the Seventies. When I married Don in the Nineties we went to a lot of places that purported to serve English or English-style food. And most of it, to my surprise, was pretty good. I didn't try any of the ones with amusing names---I doubt that there are any circumstances in which I could ever bring myself to order any food called "spotted dick"---but I did have other things that according to Don were reasonably authentic and which I quite liked.

Most of what I had was pretty basic fare---the sort of food, I imagine---that Don had eaten when he lived in England fifteen years before: yorkshire pudding, bangers and mash, black pudding, those dark brown pickles, digestive biscuits, and similar fare.

He also used to prepare sandwiches in what I thought were pretty odd combinations: cheese and pickle, tomato and egg, cheese and onion---that sort of thing. He bought things from time to time from a grocery store in Kissimmee Florida that carried British food (mostly sweets, but a few things in cans). A local restaurant which Rumcove while visiting from Southend-on-Sea dubbed "The Fake Limey Pub" served fish and chips with malt vinegar, but both he and Don stated that the fish wasn't really the proper English cod cooked in proper English fashion. Still, I thought it was okay.

But I believed---because Rumcove and Don seemed to believe---that whatever our deficiencies in history or comedy, we at least had better food than the average English person can buy at the local supermarket. Furthermore, Americans have many more reasonably priced restaurants serving decent fare. This was an article of faith for both of them.

As it turns out, food in England is indeed expensive. And we do have more restaurants that are reasonably priced. Dining out there is very expensive.

Everything else you can forget. Walking through the English supermarkets I visited---and during my trips, I visited Tesco, Sainsbury's, and Morrison's, I saw a much greater variety of different foods. Whereas here you can look in the frozen food display and see eight different brands of frozen pizza, in England your basic supermarket offers a variety of Indian, West Indian, Thai, French, Italian, and Chinese foods. The supermarkets are generally larger. They have a much greater variety of wines, fresh meat, and fresh fish.

I haven't a clue what the average English person eats, but I must say I had a variety of foods while I was there that I've never seen or heard of over here---and almost all of it was good. It certainly was not as I'd always imagined (bad American food in scanty portions or else stuff made of or cooked in lard).

And I need a whole separate posting to talk about the candy.

[2] Dining out in England for the truly average American.

Rumcove went with me once to our local (beloved) Publix Grocery store, but we didn't stay long, and he didn't really spend much time assessing the items on offer. Whenever he visited, he wanted to eat out as much as possible because of what he considered the absurd cheapness of restaurant meals, and certainly he developed an appreciation for the variety of (relatively) inexpensive "dining experiences" available in various Florida towns.

As to restaurant dining, an American visiting England will find a dearth of the inexpensive chain restaurants of which we are wont to say "at least you know what you're getting when you eat there" and a large number of places offering food of very---as far as I could ascertain---unpredictable quality. There were a lot of pubs, small cafes, and little restaurants---even supermarkets have cafeterias in them---but you aren't necessarily going to get the sort of smiling service and predictable quality you get here. You sort of have to know in advance which places are good. Nick's parents live in a tiny village called Hempton, near the town of Banbury. "We don't eat out much," they said when we inquired. We just had to wing it. Since my mother-in-law is an expert in both French and English cookery, and since the meals she prepared were relentlessly five-star, we had little incentive to eat out at all. We did it anyway because I was curious about what the restaurants there were like.

Nick and I have gone through phases of eating out a lot here. It isn't cheap; it adds up; but a single meal isn't that expensive. We did experience a bit of sticker shock if we let ourselves do the math necessary to calculate the exchange rate. And we spent a lot more money than we had intended. We aren't wealthy; and neither of us can distinguish really good food from fine food, so we weren't tempted to try anything prestigious. We just aimed for middle of the road places with decent fare. And finding good food wasn't hard at all.

We generally had pretty good luck finding places to eat that were pretty good, once we got past the price differential. We found a wonderful Italian place in Banbury called Fabio's where we had an anniversary party for our family and where we ate several times.

There was also a delightful Greek place in Edgeware (London) where we went to celebrate Nick's birthday where we had a lovely meal that unfortunately I can't remember at all (except that it was lovely) due to having imbibed a bit too much wine with my dinner. I don't remember the name, but it was on Station Road in Edgeware.

Otherwise, we took most of our meals in London at a pleasantly informal Greek-owned place where we had quite good (relatively) cheap meals in London. Furthermore, the service was exemplary.

What these places had in common, of course, was that they weren't owned or operated or staffed by English people.

I've often heard English tourists exclaim over---and sometimes mock---the happy, smiley, "hello-my-name-is-Daniel-I'll-be-your-server-tonight" service that Americans are used to. It's quite true that you don't get that in English places that are staffed by English people. You don't even get it in places that are run by English people who have immigrated here. By American standards, English service can seem unfriendly and---say it---insufficiently servile. They definitely aren't as bothered about making you feel welcome or at home.

I had several experiences when I went into perfectly beautiful pubs in the sort of towns you don't dare imagine still exist and ended up with the distinct impression that the landlords/managers would have much rather not have had my custom. I don't think this was so, mind you; it's just that I am used to having restaurant staff make a fuss over me, and English restaurant staff aren't so much about making the customer feel wanted.

As for the food we got in pubs, cafeterias, and cafes ("caffs"), it was quite a bit more variable. I was a bit at a loss, not being able to find my favorite sort of restaurant meal: a dinner salad containing exotic ingredients you wouldn't put in at home. A salad in most casual dining places is what I call a 1960's salad here: a bowl of pallid lettuce with a tomato in it and a cold white preparation called "salad cream" on. Maybe we just didn't find the places that serve lavish dinner salads, but I'm thinking this is because that isn't a big feature at English restaurants.

But don't get me wrong; the food even in tiny places was usually passable to very good. Nick, who hates salads or vegetables of any kind, was as happy as a sandboy (I don't know what a sandboy is, but this is something the English say) eating the sort of food you get if you eat in an English restaurant serving English food: roast beef and yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie; sausage rolls; veal and ham pie. The English have a lot of foods that consist of savory meats nestled in pastry. All of them are good. So are their [french fried potato] chips. With malt vinegar, they are outstanding.

The presentation in those places was what I'd call "homecooked." In other words, it wasn't generally as pretty as the food you're used to seeing here. On the plus side, it usually tasted like food as opposed to airplane food; the meat in particular sometimes seemed overcooked and tough, but it wasn't rubbery the way some of the microwaved concoctions on offer at some places here always are. There just wasn't a lot of emphasis on presentation. It was just, you know, food plopped down on a plate. Like your Mum would have made if she'd been English. That sort of thing. And some places give you chutney (mmm, chutney) and mustard and other condiments with your food, which dresses it up considerably, I must say.

I did have one really amazing meal in what I'm told is a traditional English restaurant in a perfectly beautiful setting. It was called The Dun Cow and it was located in Dunchurch at the edge of the Cotswolds. It was a lovely place with lovely food. I had something called a vegetable tartlet (another pastry-shell-containing-savory-food food) that was absolutely delicious.

A meal that would cost you $20-$30 here is likely to cost you the equivalent of $60 or $70 there. Compared to American restaurants, the portions are blessedly manageable---it's the college-boy-sized portions they serve at restaurants, and the choice between overeating or wasting food, that has put me off eating out here---but really hungry American tourists might not feel that they've had their money's worth. As I said, I really don't like the sickeningly large portions that we get here (except for salads!). There was enough and just a little more; but you didn't end up with leftover portions that made you feel wasteful if you didn't take it home.

[3] Random recommendations.

I rarely drink, and I don't like beer, but English cider is fantasticL. Try some. Just bear in mind that it is much more potent than American beer; otherwise, you might end up passed out in the car the way I did when I first had cider. It was in an English bar in Orlando; and Don convinced me---because he thought the outcome would be amusing---that it was perfectly harmless, hardly alcoholic at all. Since a friend of mine who was a health food freak had ordered a bottle, I fell for it. Over the course of a long, hot July 4 afternoon I had three pints.

Do not have three pints of English apple cider on a hot July afternoon unless you're actually English.

English lemonade is fizzy and they mix it with beer. I prefer it without.

English tea is nothing like what you're used to and is seriously addictive. If Americans were given enough properly prepared English tea, Starbucks would soon be out of business. The water must be boiling. It must be real tea. You can have it with lemon, but you really shouldn't pollute it with sugar substitutes.

Cream teas are scones with cream and jam. Do not be fooled by their innocuous appearance. They are not large; and they are delicious, but they are lethal. If you have one at teatime, you will not want your dinner or your breakfast either.

English candy is so much better than American candy that I need a whole separate posting to deal with it. At first I didn't know why, but now I do. "American candy is too sweet," said my sister-in-law, Sarah. "All you taste is sugar." To be honest, this had never occurred to me---but since she said this, it's really all I can taste when I try to eat American candy. In fact, all American sweets. There is really a huge difference and that's what it is. I'm quite sure that it's the reason why Americans tend to overeat candy: trying to get the taste of the thing you wanted (chocolate or fruit flavor or whatever) you eat much more than you want or need because it's masked by the sugar.

I thought of Sarah the other day when I bought a brownie from a grocery store bakery and the entire bottom of this frosted chocolate concoction was coated with sugar crystals. I had to cut it off to eat it.

More later about the joy of English candy, especially Topics, and about Nick's distressing encounter with American Christmas nougat.

RELATED POSTINGS

(I Know All There is To Know) About the Glaring Game

The Glaring Game Part 2: Nature or Nurture?

God is an Englishman. He Lives Upstairs and He’s Never Mentioned.

English Placenames: The Cirencester Problem.

An Update on the Cirencester Problem

XXX (Of a Sort) from the Mother Country: Mr. Rumcove & the Very Cruel Poll

Estuary Englishman

Wandering Scribe?

Drawn by Tenniel; painted by Damozel!

Update on the Cirencester Problem

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 09:09:26 GMT

Hi, I've changed addresses. Please jump to the updated version of this posting by clicking here.

An update on the Cirencester Problem.

Hmph. If the Cirencester town council thinks they can shut down the debate over the correct pronunciation of their town name with this, they have another think coming. I will never give in.

I get far more hits from queries as to "Cirencester pronunciation" than I do my other topics. Almost every day some poor soul ends up at my site trying to find out the right way to pronounce the name of this beautiful and historic city. Doesn't that tell you something, people of Cirencester?

I think all foreigners would agree that it is a bit much to expect tourists to accept the correct pronunication of Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Bicester, Leominster, and Towcester, only to be tripped up by having Cirencester turn out to be pronounced exactly as spelled. I note that Cirencester is listed in Wikipedia as one of the English placenames with a nonintuitive pronunciation. While I'm guessing that the writer was assuming that it was the older pronunciation (Sisseter) that is nonintuive, I maintain that pronouncing the name of this -cester town exactly as it looks is completely counter to the average tourist's hard-won understanding of the whole -cester/running-syllables-together Leicester/Worcestershire/Bicester/Leominster/Towcester school of misleading innocent tourists. It is therefore unfair.

I'm sorry, but the English simply cannot be allowed to have it both ways.. Since it would not be fair to make the people in those five towns change the pronunciation when there are five of them and only one, Siren-sester, Cirencester should gracefully concede the point and start calling itself Cirnster. If they will not see reason then the rest of the population must intervene.

I will accept the pronunciation "Sissester" only if they go back to spelling the name Cisetur or Sisator. Otherwise, Cirnster is the only pronunciation that makes any sense.

I have a lot of patience with English placenames because of their historical and cultural associations and long history, but for the people of Cirencester to insist, against all other precedent, on pronouncing the name of the city exactly as it is spelled is going too far and it is time that someone called them on it. Though Rumcove and my husband Nick, Englishmen both, have flatly and treachorously (as ill befits gallant Britons) refused to support me in this campaign, I have made a decision to "step up," as we say over here, and am taking my stand. Though I've no one at my back, I intend to lead the charge in favor of keeping the pronunciation of English placenames inconsistent with their spelling. If they are going to be inconsistent, they need to be consistent about it.

I hope English people from other towns and tourists everywhere will support me in this too long deferred drive for consistent inconsistency in the pronunciation of English placenames!

RELATED POSTINGS

(I Know All There is To Know) About the Glaring Game

The Glaring Game Part 2: Nature or Nurture?

God is an Englishman. He Lives Upstairs and He’s Never Mentioned.

English Placenames: The Cirencester Problem.

An Update on the Cirencester Problem

XXX (Of a Sort) from the Mother Country: Mr. Rumcove & the Very Cruel Poll

Estuary Englishman

Wandering Scribe?

The Office UK—Accept No Substitutes [television review]

A Proper Gallows Laugh Requires A Stiff Upper Lip (British Comedy)

Tea. How It Happened to an American.

No Ordinary Profile: The Talented Mr. Rumcove

The Two Floridas

Drawn by Tenniel; painted by Damozel!

Wandering Scribe?

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:09:18 GMT

Hi! I've changed addresses. Please jump to the updated version of this posting by clicking here.

Wandering Scribe?

In a posting on 15 July, I talked a bit about homeless bloggers who had used blogging as a means to re-connect with the world.

One of the bloggers I discussed was "Wandering Scribe," an Englishwoman whose account of her life on the street has led to the sort of success story that an American loves. I found her blog particularly painful to read poignant reading because of its gentility, restraint, and quiet despair. You know: stiff upper lip, "hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way," and so forth. But the real appeal of the blog to me was the writing. "Wandering Scribe," whoever she is, is clearly an educated person with a gift for encapsulating an immense span of experience in a few words.

So my first response, when I read this entry in "Grumpy Old Bookman", was to be embarrassed by my American naivety. Grumpy Old Bookman is a literary blog that I have only recently begun reading. Listed by The Guardian as one of England's top ten literary blogs, the blog is authored by publisher Michael Allen. I was interested in the site because Nick has written a novel that has been well received in certain circles and I wanted to know more about the publishing industry in Great Britain; but I continued reading the blog because, frankly, it's good reading even for a non-writer and non-publisher like me.

I hadn't actually taken any note of the entry concerning "Wandering Scribe" because it was posted on June 27, and I haven't started working my way backward yet. I actually found the posting when I was looking at the results of someone else's google search for 'Wandering Scribe." In it, and in an earlier posting, Michael Allen speculates that WS might, just possibly, be a ploy by an aspiring writer looking for a hook with which to reel in a prestigious publisher.

I suppose that the story is something that should make you go "hmmm," if not "huh." So when I read the two postings (not to mention the comments) at Grumpy Old Bookman, I most definitely felt the blush of the gullible mantling my cheek. Maybe it's an American thing. I have noticed that the Brits I know don't share my willingness to believe in miraculous escapes or fairy tale endings.

Case in point: Rumcove. Rumcove ought to have been a writer. Back in the days when I thought I could talk people into doing things for their own good, I used to try to persuade Rumcove to write. He's an amazingly funny writer, I think; and he has a good friend who has achieved literary success in GB by being exactly the same level of funny, mordant, trenchant, and the rest of the things that Brits do so well.

But Rumcove couldn't bring himself to believe that success as a professional writer was possible to him, or at least not sufficiently to make the pain of actually going through the loathsome task of writing and marketing a work. "But why won't you just try?" I used to moan. It took me a long time to realize that he and I were coming at the whole issue of "achieving success" from completely different angles.

While---being the opposite of "sucessful" as the word is defined here---I tend to turn up my nose at what I choose to believe is the American concept of success, I clearly still harbor a vague belief that success is within everyone's grasp, provided the person has some talent, sufficient perseverance/stubbornness, and the will to achieve it.

Rumcove was coming at it from an entirely different angle. He definitely doesn't have the 'everyone can do anything' mind-set; to him, success is an arbitrary and capricious entity that has little to do with qualities such as perseverance and even less with talent. He has a sort of chaos theory of success, involving complicated vectors between various unchartable events and criteria that can't be controlled or predicted. For him, it's not something you can decide to be or work at being. His idea of success resembles the 'happiness' that according to a stupid poster from back in the seventies eludes you if you chase it down, but that 'lights like a butterfly on your shoulder' if you ignore it (and don't inadvertently squash it on arrival, thinking it's a mosquito.)

I don't think he'd be particularly surprised by the Wandering Scribe story, but it occurs to me that he'd probably react very much like the author of The Grumpy Old Bookman: with skepticism. His first thought might well be that it's probably a ruse.

The English, eh? Wonderkillers, every one.

My own reaction was different. It was an American reaction. My first thought when I came across a note at Blogger Buzz about homeless blogger was, "Okay, that'll end up on the Oprah booklist." There is nothing an American likes better than a rags-to-riches struggle against great odds. I didn't so much think, "Hey, good ploy" as "somebody is going to want to exploit this story." So the idea of an authentically homeless writer ending up with a book deal with a major British publisher doesn't really strain my American credulity.

Furthermore, as is the case for many Americans, I feel personally threatened and anxious when I consider the general issue of homelessness. I'm not kidding myself; if I or Nick ever get really sick, the costs of health care could sink us. I don't own my house. I have family, but I'd rather die (I think) than ask them for help. If I can't work, I could end up out on the streets myself. To keep a roof over my head and to maintain even my present fairly modest standard of living, I pretty much need to work right up till I die. To cover health care for my spouse and me, I have to keep working till we're old enough to qualify for health care benefits.

I really believe that a lot of people are in the same position as I am---i.e., the feckless types who went into jobs such as teaching or running small community foundations that do critical work but aren't as well remunerated as others. There are a lot of risks involved in choosing a vocation rather than a profession, and one of them is that you won't ever accumulate enough back-up resources to allow you to stop working. I think a lot of people my age and younger are in the same boat: one that they can keep afloat just fine as long as they are able to keep paddling.

The idea of someone talented, even very talented, ending up sleeping in her car just doesn't strike me as particularly far-fetched. One of my friends is very involved in working with the local homeless (and Florida has a LOT of them; people come here during the winter because of the milder climate). He and some other people operate a van which drives out to little colonies of them that are set up out in the woods.

While a lot of them are deranged or alcoholic or otherwise impaired, a few of them are just like you and me, except for being homeless. As Michael Brown's blog View from the Sidewalk shows, many people who are doing all right can end up out on the street if they get fired or laid off. And a LOT of people have insufficient connections in their community to shore them up if they go down. I have talked to a lot of people in that position.

I just sent $200 to a young friend of mine who is $200 away from getting evicted from her apartment with her two children. She has money due to her, but unfortunately she's involved in a dispute with the other party, and if she gets evicted in the meantime, she'll lose a sizable chunk of the money she put down on her rental house. And it's very hard to find work or a place to live if you're homeless; it's hard to find a place to live if your credit isn't good.

I don't know if it's different in GB. I know that the social welfare net is knitted a good bit tighter there; for example, people don't get bills for $25,000 (after insurance) for their spouse's week in the Intensive Care Unit the way one woman I encountered during my volunteer work did. There seem to be provisions for finding housing for people who lose their jobs and for making sure they have access to resources to see them through.

Maybe it's just very unlikely that someone there would end up having to live in her car and take showers and iron her clothes at hospitals (wouldn't work here) and so forth. It could definitely happen here.

So I don't know: I suppose it could be a ploy. I guess there is a part of me that needs to believe that someone who can tell the story can not only find the way out, but discover the keys to the kingdom, as it were. I want to believe that talent and perseverance can help someone climb back out of Hell; perhaps I just need to tell myself that one should never abandon hope no matter how low the fall.

So I'll be attentively watching Wandering Scribe's progress. In the meantime, I am choosing to believe that she is the genuine article. I have certainly chosen to believe much more improbable things.

In some ways, Michael Brown's story as presented in View from the Sidewalk gives a clearer picture of the slow grind that results when a professional loses his or her livelihood. As I commented in my earlier note, Brown is an engaging writer with solid skills and a feel for the telling anecdote, but his prose doesn't have the poetry of Wandering Scribe's; he's all about the day to day reality of trying to get a foothold back in the world.

Brown is both more fortunate than Wandering Scribe and less fortunate. When the rug got yanked out from under his feet, he had his family and his friends in the community to help him fall all the way through, but he hasn't (yet) received the sort of attention that WS has received.

I suppose I want to believe in the sudden transformation from homeless poet to published writer. Brown's tale is less desperate, but his struggle is ongoing, mundane, painful, a matter of making do, doing without, keeping on. It's the real thing, the raw American story, but that's not the one we want to believe. Even---or especially---in these times, we go on hoping for the rags-to-riches exception to the 'this-is-your-lot-mate-now-live-with-it' sort of story that most of us are living out.

So, Wandering Scribe, wherever you are, and to Michael Brown in Greensboro, here's to you both!

Estuary Englishman

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:48:45 GMT

Hi! I've changed addresses. To jump to the updated version of this posting, click on this link.

Estuary Englishman

For Rumcove's amendment, click here.

1. The Estuary Beat

As I have mentioned elsewhere, Mr. Rumcove and I met over the internet in 1997. We didn't talk on the phone till after we'd been exchanging daily emails for a few months. When we did speak, I was totally unprepared for the trouble I had understanding him. "I have an estuary accent," he'd said in an email. As he is very interested in accents, he went on to explain some of the characteristics of estuary English: the glottal stops, the use of "w" in place of "r" for some words and "f" in place of "th" (e.g., "Orwite" = "All right"), and a highly arbitrary tendency to drop H's. [For details, see the delightful Gary's Estuary Homepage by another native speaker].

He DIDN'T explain, because I imagine he and other English people don't notice, that another characteristic is talking at high speed and often lowering rather than raising the voice for emphasis. Though maybe that is just Mr R.

At any rate, one of the first things I had to do when I met Mr. Rumcove is learn to understand his accent. As it turns out, my training has been very useful to me; I don't think I'd have been able to make much of quite a lot of English comedy if I hadn't spent quite a lot of hours listening to his high-speed mumbling over the telephone lines.

2. Which is better: 'Street' or 'Right'?

But I don't mean to denigrate his accent. I really like it. I'd say it's my favorite British accent. It's also an accent that seems to turn up with increasing frequency on BBC America and in British films and so forth. According to this page at the Department of Phonetics at UCL ("London's Global University"), the Rumcove accent is presently quite trendy though still considered infra dig by those from England's upper echelons.

Young English people prefer the estuary sound to the "received pronunciation" or "ruling class" accent of Oxford, the royal family, and people such as, for example, my husband Nick and his family. Young English people (including my stepdaughter Emma) would rather sound 'street' than refined (or as Nick puts it, "correct"). [He keeps quiet about her accent most of the time with the odd occasional outburst over a glottal stop. "Could you pass me that bottle (BAH-al), Dad?" she said the last time she was visiting. "BOT-TLE!" Nick shouted wildly. "BOTT-ULL!]

I'm with Emma. I do really appreciate the way Nick talks and am quite happy to be married to someone who sounds like that, since I have a milltown Carolina accent I have failed to outlive. (I grew up in a place where "All right" is pronounced "Ah ite.") It helps that Nick has a British public school accent. When people meet us together, they assume that I can't be as Republican as I sound.

But while recognizing the posh effect of a public school accent and some of the social benefits, I personally like the sound of estuary English or cockney best (which is similar but different, as explained here). Maybe it's because so many of my favorite English TV characters have that accent or reconstructed versions of it. Or maybe, given my own accent, I have built up a certain amount of resistance to the notion that there is a particular pronunciation that is more correct, better, more educated, more refined, etc. After all, if Nick's way of talking is the right way of pronouncing English, where does that leave me and mine?

Also I am just plain interested in accents. As kids growing up in South Carolina (the no account northern part called 'the up country') we used to make cruel fun of my mom's low country brogue, but I was secretly intrigued by and deeply attracted to the very different sounds produced by people from the Low Country: "air" for 'ear," "bear" for "beer," "steeyet" for "state," "winda" for "window," and "hoese" or "hoose" for house. I wanted to talk that way too, even though we used to mock it (ironic since her accent is considered the more refined).

Nick, originally from London, can do a very credible cockney accent. He has learned that when he puts on a cockney accent much younger women (who are otherwise inclined to treat him with respectful deference) suddenly become giggly and flirtatious.

When I mentioned this to Rumcove, he remarked sadly that HE hadn't noticed anything of the kind when he was visiting here, but I think he probably failed to factor in his tendency to glower at strangers, or at best to stare at them expressionlessly, including young and pretty women. That's an English thing, or maybe just an English-tourist-in-America thing.

To me, a characteristic of both estuary and cockney is, as noted above, a tendency to mumble words and to talk at top speed. There's a sort of ACK-ACK-ACK gunfire effect: words just keep coming at you. When Rumcove and I first started talking on the phone, he had to slow down to a crawl for me to understand him at all and there are still times when---as Alan Partridge said to his Geordie mate---it's just a noise.

The emphasis also turns up in funny places (at least to an American) ear. "This...is...RUMcove," my answering machine announces slowly. Then: "IjustGOTyourremailcouldyouGIVEmeacallBACKpleaseIwasWONDERINGwhetheryoudseenmumblemeumblemumble. I'lltalktoyoulaterbye."

But though I am frequently puzzled by the noises Rumcove produces, I always like listening to them.

3. Deadpan all the Time

I'd maintain that much of the appeal of estuary English is in its intonation and cadence.

quote from the Estuary English page begins]

There also appears to be a narrower pitch of intonation patterns in Estuary English than in RP. This is especially true where rises do not reach as high a pitch as they would in R[eceived] P[ronunciation], Rosewarne sees the overall effect as being interpreted as one of "deliberateness" and possibly an "apparent lack of enthusiasm." (Rosewarne 1994)

[quote from the Estuary English page ends]

I know what the person who wrote this means, but I'd characterize it a little differently. Whether or not the speaker is enthusiastic, depressed, elated, grief-stricken, bored, furious, or out of his (or her) head, an estuary accent sounds pretty much the same. It's got an in-your-face wryness. It sounds the way deadpan looks.

I once attended an event where a guy---not Rumcove---was doing a presentation concerning a certain aspect of, let's say, English literature. The guy in question had a faint cockney (RUMCOVE: They're completely DIFFERENT and you KNOW it") accent that his Oxbridge education had suppressed; but his cockney intonation was still very firmly in place. I attended the event with a guy I was dating who was a British comedy fanatic. Throughout this whole PERFECTLY DAMN SERIOUS presentation, he laughed and laughed.

"This poem elaborates on the same theme of frustration and impotence. Though generally considered greatly inferior to its predecessor, it uses a similar---though not identical---metre and rhyme scheme. The poet even employs the same overwrought imagery."

My friend: "HAHAHA"

"Though it is not generally known, the [first poem], universally considered one of the great poems of the English language, was written almost five years after [the second]. In 1895, [Prominent Critic], seemingly unaware that [second poem] had actually antedated [the first], remarked that "[second poem] is but a feeble emulation of [first poem], to which it stands in the same relation as a leaking tap to Niagara."

My friend: "HAHAHAHAHA"

"[Literary Maven] in 1901 summed up the general critical opinion of [second poem] thus: "Fevered or febrile--- yet feeble."

My friend: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Given the similarity of the two poems, we can only ask ourselves: Why? Why is one work considered to be a great poetic achievement and the other a watered-down imitation?"

My friend: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

This went on the whole time. All around us, other people---people who (as was quite possible in those days) had never heard of Monty Python---were looking puzzled and also worried. The circumstances were such that everyone wanted the presenter to feel welcomed and appreciated. They assumed that my friend was laughing because the presenter was trying to be funny. And though they didn't see the humor themselves, they evidently decided it that politeness required them to join in the laughter. As the lecture continued, more and more people began laughing along with my friend.

Naturally, the presenter was surprised and dismayed. Discomfited by the unexpected reaction, he would pause at the end of each sentence and look with consternation at the audience---who must have thought he was pausing to allow time for the expected laugh. The tittering increased; people began to feel that they were 'getting' it after all. Oh, those comical English and their deadpan delivery! There was even some sporadic applause.

I couldn't take it; I eventually got up and left. The paper was a raging success, but I am sure the presenter was scarred forever. I doubt he worked out that it was his DELIVERY that had them rolling in the aisles. I knew from having talked to him a couple of times that it was just the way he talked.

Cockney English AND estuary English lend themselves particularly well to the comic device the Brits treasure above all others (and say we Yanks don't understand): irony. The above-cited 'absence of enthusiasm' reads as the auditory equivalent of sarcastic, trenchant, wry, self-deprecating, or ironic depending on context. It's a comic effect that the English particularly prize (as well as anyone with an appreciation of English comedy), though obviously---as in the case of the unfortunate presenter--- there are drawbacks.

I imagine that the extent to which estuary English and the 'absence of enthusiasm' and "impression of deliberateness" suggested by estuary intonation lends itself to deadpan statements has something to do with its trendiness. It also has a hard edge that creates (at minimal outlay) a 'hard man' impression. Mildly funny statements come across as aggressive, in-your-face, mordant. Cf. the film "Essex Boys," starring Tom Wilkinson, Alex Kingston, and Sean Bean.

4. Accent-Related Stress Disorder.

My stepdaughter is a lovely girl but her way of talking makes her sound tough and street-wise beyond her years. I wouldn't want to go one on one with her that's for certain. And that's probably a good thing for a young girl living on her own.

I have sometimes managed that my life might be very different if I could talk with an estuary or cockney accent. [RUMCOVE: "They're COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and YOU KNOW IT."] It's not an accent that an American can easily imitate. God knows both Rumcove and Nick have tried. I might have managed to get a bit further if both didn't practice the 'teaching by ridicule' method, but I think the problem is less one of pronunciation than of things that are harder to control consciously. When Rumcove speaks, or when Nick speaks with a cockney accent, both of them move their mouths around much more than the average American and their jaws a lot less. There's also a speaking-out-of-one-side-of-the-mouth-sort-of component that I can't quite describe, even to myself. Plus there is a nasal aspect....

A few Americans can do and---much more difficult---sustain credible English accents (Renee Zellweger and Gwynneth Paltrow come to mind) but I've never heard an American do credible cockney or estuary. An ordinary English accent really just requires heightened attention to diction, awareness of when and when not to use the broad A, and projection of the voice forward instead of upward. An estuary or cockney accent requires a reconfiguration of your entire speaking/vocalization apparatus and a completely different conception of the relationship between consonants and vowels. I had to take aspirin after my attempts and then cry myself to sleep afterwards, confirmed in the knowledge that that I don't have what it takes to talk like Guy Ritchie, Madonna.

Rumcove doesn't write with an estuary accent, but something of that deadpan character infuses his work. I suppose that talking like that makes it easier to be funny if you want to be. On the other hand, it makes it harder NOT to be funny when you don't want to be. I am thinking in particular a certain expression Rumcove uses that we don't have here: "I'm not being funny!"---meaning something like "saying this for the purpose of getting at you." It's a disclaimer I'd never have to issue. I usually am not funny even when I'm trying my best to be.

For those reasons, I imagine the estuary mystique might be hard to maintain. I've noticed that with all the weight and value that the British assign to humor, and the claim of the English that they don't take themselves too seriously, many INDIVIDUAL Brits tend to take themselves very seriously indeed and to be (relative to Americans) thin-skinned, emotional (though inexpressive), and rather easily embarrassed. To be dry, deadpan, ironic, trenchant, mordant, and hard-edged would take it out of you. I think of my favorite performer in life, Ian Dury. A true poet, I think, but not for a great deal of his life a happy man.

I said as much to Rumcove, who is often morose and prone to suffer from the effects of Sunlight Affective Disorder. Despite his actual personality, he is frequently mistaken for a hard guy. Twice when he was visiting the US, the immigration officer asked him if he was a cop. He was never a cop, but he does give off a sort of hard guy vibe. How does it feel to be to be taken for a hard guy when you're just tired and hung-over?

"Living up to an estuary accent takes a strong constitution," he wrote. "Sometimes it is hard to cope with all the pressure. But those of us who live in Essex know that Essex is God's country and that when God said, "Let there be light," he said it with an estuary accent. So there you are. The answer is: we manage."

RELATED POSTINGS:

God is an Englishman. He Lives Upstairs and He’s Never Mentioned. [English manners; English culture]

English Placenames: The Cirencester Problem. [English culture]

XXX (Of a Sort) from the Mother Country: Mr. Rumcove & the Very Cruel Poll [English culture]

Estuary Englishman [English culture]

No Ordinary Profile: The Talented Mr. Rumcove [English culture; English viewpoint]

Communities & Their Souls: The Two Floridas [English viewpoint]

The Dialing Dream

A Note from Mr. Rumcove

Toxic Love 101---The Perils of Present-Giving

XXX (Of a Sort) from the Mother Country: Mr. Rumcove & the Very Cruel Poll [English culture]

Mr Rumcove's 4th of July

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:43:55 GMT

Hi! I've moved to a new address! To jump to the updated version of this posting, please click on this link.

The Very Cruel Poll & Mr. Rumcove's 4th of July

Actually the title of the Yahoo.com article from which I am preparing to quote says it all: "Britons Tire of Cruel, Vulgar US: poll." The results of the poll, published in the Daily Telegraph, include (but are not limited to) the following:

[quote begins here]:

As Americans prepared to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence on Tuesday, the poll found that only 12 percent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.

A massive 83 percent of those questioned said that the United States doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks.

With much of the worst criticism aimed at the US adminstration, the poll showed that 70 percent of Britons like Americans a lot or a little.

President George W. Bush [link in the original] fared significantly worse, with just one percent rating him a "great leader" against 77 percent who deemed him a "pretty poor" or "terrible" leader.

More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests.

US policy in Iraq was similarly derided, with only 24 percent saying they felt that the US military action there was helping to bring democracy to the country.

[quote ends]

Jesus. When this is what your main (and possibly only) ally is saying about you, you got trouble, my friend.

But in case you think the Brits are ONLY pissed off with the Bush administration, think again:

[quote begins]

In answer to other questions, a majority of the Britons questions described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured and in the most overwhelming result (90 percent of respondents) dominated by big business.

Huh? Hey! Damn! HEY! Uh---

"HEY! I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT ARE WE?"

What else can I say, but "say it ain't so." Okay, I know that we Yanks are pretty harsh on ourselves but---but---it's different when we do it!!

I mean, some of this didn't surprise me, since I have a lot of British friends and family members---"awash in violent crime; ignorant of the outside world"; those are standard criticisms.

However: vulgar? divided by class? uncultured? This from the land of Millwall fans, soccer hooligans, and skinheads? (We are 'divided by class'?)

<<<Sniff>>>> That is COLD, man.

I am not really consoled by the remarks of a 'spokesman for the US embassy' implying that the Brits are actually mistaken about what they think; the embassy's surveys show otherwise. Furthermore---according to this same spokesman---they wouldn't think they think what they said they think if the embassy hadn't failed at "successfully communicating America's extraordinary dynamism." Finally, it is also the fault of the British press for not communicating America's extraordinary dynamism.

Who in the what now? If there is one thing the Brits didn't criticize us for in that poll, it is for lack of 'dynamism.' It seems to me that they find us dynamic to a fault.

This reminds me of my conversation last year with my friend Rumcove of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. I remember it quite clearly. "I suppose tomorrow you will be celebrating American independence," he remarked.

"Yes," I said. Having described my plans (St Augustine to see the fireworks and so on), I asked him what he was up to.

"Celebrating American Independence, of course," he said.

RELATED POSTINGS

Don’t Put Out More Flags (A Reprise!)

Image drawn by Mr. Tenniel; painted by Damozel!