Speaking “English”
Posted on:: October 5th, 2005
When I was in London a couple of days ago, I went to a hole-in-the-wall place — a counter upstairs, some tables in the basement — for breakfast. The menu outside identified an “omelette breakfast”: omelette, bake beans, grilled tomatoes. Here’s roughly my conversation with the man behind the counter:
Me: Omelette breakfast, please.
Man: Wha’?
Me: An omelette.
Man: Marmelade toast?
Me: (Thinking he was asking if I want marmelade toast with it) Yes, please.
Man: Right.
Me: That’s meatless, isn’t it?
Man: Marmelade toast?
Me: No, the omelette.
Man: Marmelade?
Me: Om-e-lette. The omelette breakfast. Omelette, beans, tomato…
Man: Oh, omelette.
My omelette breakfast came with a side of marmelade toast. Delicious.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I trust the scare-quotes around ‘English’ are there to attest to your own difficulties in communicating with us English folk, rather than casting any aspersions on the native language of our country (viz. England[1]).
[1] Where English people[2] live.
[2] Who speak English[3].
[3] And have an English[4] sense of humour, internationally renowned for its subtlety, sophistication and avoidance of such crude approaches as pounding jokes into the ground with a sledgehammer.
[4] [That’s enough footnotes – Ed.]
Mais oui! I talk American, buddy.
Yes, you’re so fucking cosmopolitian.
American comes from Africa, doesn’t it?