Learning a Foreign Language

I've been helping out by collecting customer satisfaction feedback at a business that my Dad has been associated with. This has been interesting, partly because I'm learning a lot about the business, but even more because phoning people all over the country means I get to hear an amazing number and variety of American accents. They are incredible! I spoke to a very nice man from Tennessee on my first day and I swear I thought he was kidding. That accent can't have been for real.

Australians know what Americans sound like. We've been watching mostly American television for decades. But until you're surrounded by it, until it's every voice you hear, the Australian ear doesn't really appreciate just how differently these people speak. It's more than an accent, it's a dialect that's approaching the status of an independent language.

Now that I've been back here for a fortnight (two weeks), I am learning to say vacation when I mean holiday and trash when I mean garbage. The Mailman puts mail in the mailbox, instead of the Postie putting letters in the letterbox. At the supermarket, I push a cart instead of a trolley and wait in the line instead of the queue.

To check the oil I now pop the hood instead of the bonnet and I fill up with gas instead of petrol. The spare tyre (tire) is in the trunk, not the boot. Yobbos (rednecks) drive pickups instead of utes and four wheel drives are known as SUVs.

I am learning to ask for a cookie if I want a biscuit and candy if I want chocolate. Jam is jelly, jelly is jello and chips are french fries. Entrees are called appetizers and the main course is called the entree. Then, at the end of the meal you ask for the check and pay it with a bill instead of asking for the bill and paying with a cheque.

When it gets cooler in the autumn (fall) people put on sweaters instead of jumpers. A track suit is a sweat suit, tracky daks are sweat pants. What is it with the clothing evoking sweat? Clothes pegs are called clothes pins, but it doesn't matter because they haven't discovered the hills hoist here yet and have to put everything in the dryer.

I am learning (with considerable difficulty) to accept the most appalling grammatical crimes. Every day I hear people say broke when they mean broken. I can't even remember the last time I heard someone use the suffix "ly" correct(ly). Desperate to make myself understood, I have even surrendered one of my most vigorously defended points and started saying reference when I mean referee.

Trying to keep it all straight is a pain in the arse (ass). Every time I produce a document I have to run a spell check and accept all the US spellings, which mainly seems to consist of deleting three out of every four instances of the letter "u". I can't even spit the dummy, because here dummies are called pacifiers, and the phrase doesn't seem to translate even if you make the substitution.