Language and understanding.

Yesterday the small town of Darvel in Ayrshire were celebrating their football team’s defeating Aberdeen, 56 places above them in the Scottish league tables, and knocking them out of the Scottish cup. As the goalkeeper said when interviewed by the BBC that the couldn’t go out and celebrate because he had to get some sleep to be ready to go to work as a maths teacher this morning, I was reminded of my teenage years when I used to babysit for a few of the players on Southport’s football team. They too were teachers at local schools and weren’t earning the fabulous wages of the top footballers. 

Here is a link to some info about the plucky Darvel team.

I listened to one of the people interviewed. He might have been the manager or trainer of the team. What struck me was how strongly accented and almost totally incomprehensible his “English” was - impenetrable, I would say! 

And then, some time this morning on The Language Nerds’ post, I found a thing with a flag of the USA and the statement:

“Driving for 4 hours and still in the same part of the country”

followed by the Union Jack and the statement:

“Driving for 2 hours, the local accent has changed twice and the bread rolls have new names”.

That about sums it up.

That’s just one of the differences. I read yesterday that Biden wants to introduce laws to ban the sale of assault rifles to the public. Well, I quite agree. Even if you believe in the citizens’ right to bear arms (a debatable right at the best of times!) quite how do you justify pwning an assault rifle?

And I found this odd post:

“At customs in LAX (Los Angeles Airport)

Customs Agent: Where are you from?

Me: Denmark.

Customs Agent: Sir, please don’t lie about your nationality.

Me: Excuse me?

Customs Agent: Denmark isn’t a real country; now please tell me your country of origin.

Me: Sir, you are literally holding my passport, which is from Denmark, in your hand. How can you sit there and tell me my country doesn’t exist?!

Customs Agent: Sir, Denmark is a region of Sweden, and not a recognised  independent nation.

The Swedes would be fond of this encounter.”

The mind truly boggles!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!