The British Are Coming (in the form of technology)

On my new GPS unit, the voice instructions were quite harsh so I toyed around with the menus a bit. Yes, my switching the language setting to "British English" had a lot to do with my being an Anglo-nerd. But it also just sounded better (click video above, depicting a sample maneuver very near my house). We have a long tradition of British-sounding robots, from C3PO to auto-callers hawking all kinds of products. The English accent, to American ears sounds authoritative, yet helpful. It's sort of like when BBC1 radio uses that same American announcer that we get on our classic rock stations announcing the frequency. He just sounds like a rock station announcer.

But what really surprised me was during a trip to mall yesterday, at the pay station (yeah, the Westchester Mall make you pay for parking), the voice instructing you when to put in your money, etc. had a decidedly cockney accent. Not quite Eliza Doolittle, but definitely an extra "ay" in "staytion." Can it be that *any* British accent makes us like technology more -- and accept having to pay 3 bucks so that you can spend money for an hour?

Maybe it's a new version of our own economic imperialism, but going the other way. The Brits already have the best entertainment, and now they're beginning to own technology too. Earlier this week, The Guardian have bought the American business blog paidContent.org for around 15 million quid. Rockstar Games are already in millions of American homes with their Grand Theft Auto series.

Something tells me that with the plunging price of the dollar, our cousins in the UK are just starting their shopping spree.

Divided by a Common Language

I have this idea for a project (more details later, perhaps) and it's made me a nutter. It'll require that I learn an incredible amount of British English and it's going to be even harder than I thought.

Language has to be one of my main passions when it comes to my particular brand of Anglophelia. I love language for a start and when you add on top of it the fact that I already understand about 75 percent of it ... but it's that other 25 percent.

The most common words, like jumper for instance, can really send you screaming. (It means sweater.) Why jumper? Why sweater is a better question. I guess you can jump in them, or sweat in them ... jumper seems more civilized to me.

So I've been pouring through books like British English A to Zed. The Introduction has my new favorite story about the differences between the two dialects. It seems that during the preparations for D-Day, the members of the "special relationship" had a huge row over the word "table." It seems that both parties felt that a certain issue should be dealt with immediately. But in American, to "table" a topic means to put it aside for some more convenient time. In British, if means to address it right away, like to put it right out there on the table for everyone to deal with. Apparently a lot of frustration ensued.

As for me, I'll be glad when I don't have to think so hard when I hear something like, "Let's have pizza for tea."

Conversely, it would be pretty tough to shake Americanisms. On one of the breakfast shows I listen to on my iPod, they were having a go at someone because they were visiting the States. They kept saying things like, "Are you going to stand *on line* when you get there? Are you going to use a faucet?" I didn't even realize that the word faucet was virtually unknown there. To them it's strictly a "tap." They never heard of a spigot either.

I love it all -- and I'm sort of sad when I hear how common the word "guys" has become. Where ones there were blokes, claps and "Hey you lot," it's often been replaced by the less vivid "guys." Okay. I'm done sounding like William Safire.