Many years ago I laughed with a friend over the comic genius of Shakespeare, because it was not. To have a semblance of understanding of rhyming couplet comic genius was to stand up as both old and wrong. We pupils knew Shakespeare did not cut edges. Shakespeare was a punishment that was akin to to writing lines - a "legal academic low", if you like. It was read as a chore whose rhyming couplet was bore. A Shakesperean play that was so full of so-called humour it required an explanation that doubled the book by half with a series of footnotes. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Need I say more.
Shakespeare was read as a requirement borne from necessity of an O-level English literature grade, it was a price to pay. Shakespeare was ultimately a joined-up handwritten end-of-term lie that we wrote on examination papers because we wrote the words the English teacher said as if it was an history paper- we said it was funny because that got marks. And an English teacher were categorised as not going down the pub material, if you wanted a laugh.
A phone call home, a long-distance connection, a connection to the past, an affirmation of the present, that we are still friends. Our humour, our joint shared link that certain things are funny, hilarious to us. My friend makes a recommendation - "You will love it"....."Youtube, just write...."
Later I am taken up by the internet challenge to laugh as much as my mate has laughed at. A brief tapping of digits as dextrous as an old-school typing-pool typist - the computer awakes.
I am connected to a wider world, from my foreign home, that shares my mother tongue too. "Youtube" brings all stars-for-fifteen-minutes into my life and I am shown the bright new crop of top, on-the-edge, left-of-centre stand-up comics that barely registers a who? Whilst Great Britain has rocked in mirth over recent years, I have politely smiled at the jokes of my foreign friends that I do not understand but I may or may not have been the butt of. Now these new Brit generation of comedians famous to my friend, but I am not tuned into the character, the subtlety of the irony, the metaphor of comic revelation that makes something topical and comical. References are made, apparently genuinely laughed at and I am only bemused in a state of should I be laughing. I am not understanding a world that I once knew and took for granted. It is a world away. My friend's world. A lost World. A recommended world. A world I do not understand. And I am losing it. A smiling politely straw to break the camel's back.
These modern Youtube clips are not funny, not rubbing the Pryce funny bone. I have crossed the line and I am adrift, not just lost in translation of a common language. I am losing the slang, the cross references to local heroes that have not crossed the Channel, the oceans; just like Shakespeare was lost on me so many years ago - a joke is not funny if it needs an explanation.
And I did not notice that with each passing year the distance was not only physical but human. Skype can only meet the sense of sight and sound, smell and touch has gone and even sight and sound is pixelled and sound bytes. The Modern world globalised and the umbilical cord to home was strained - not localised.
I am out of sync with the homeland, becoming detached, knowledgeable of a different locality. Its the pryce one pays. Now I am the english teacher lost in the comic genius of the past, that no-one would go down the pub with.
I play piano of sorts on the laptop keyboard to a different beat and age. Forgotten characters, vintage comedy is revisited on Youtube.
A skype connection is made. Another phone-call, a shared recollection, a remembered character and how we laughed, a common point, a moment in the past, a time when our lines not only crossed they inter-twined and I wish now a simple wish. A simple wish for lives to cross once more.
Knowing for now, conversations with home-based friends are trapped in a time warp of shared recollected laugh at former times. But it is a laugh, a common honest laugh. A side-splitting thread to hold onto.
I know to break the chains of salaried wealth, mortgaged debt, medical insurance poverty and a family to feed will not be broken yet. Time to dream upon a fifteen minute star.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Monday, 31 May 2010
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Comfort Zones
Planes, trains and automobiles and taxis and shanks pony and leaves on tracks.....and delays, so international travellers need to seize the moment, seize the delayed moment, the non-executive stress moment to chill. Chilling and airports may not be natural bedfellows but needs must. Executive business travellers morph the airport into a comfort zone preferably courtesy of silver, gold and platinum cards.
The VIP lounge, the free biscuits, newspaper, a sandwich and perhaps a bitter shandy. A chair that is soft on the executive behind. There is a thousand languages and here there is a mix of some dozen with a prevalence to the local tongue and English. Speaking English - the great advantage except at the Business Meeting when the Brit side of the table whisper their secrets whilst the other side spark off a diatribe of sounds each other in their own code, their own language brazenly proving their are better than us. Industrial strageies are divulged openly, compromises withdrawn in front of our faces, we tweek our ears and believe we understand an odd word that gives no clue. These meetings have no comfort zone.
The VIP lounge, the free biscuits, newspaper, a sandwich and perhaps a bitter shandy. A chair that is soft on the executive behind. There is a thousand languages and here there is a mix of some dozen with a prevalence to the local tongue and English. Speaking English - the great advantage except at the Business Meeting when the Brit side of the table whisper their secrets whilst the other side spark off a diatribe of sounds each other in their own code, their own language brazenly proving their are better than us. Industrial strageies are divulged openly, compromises withdrawn in front of our faces, we tweek our ears and believe we understand an odd word that gives no clue. These meetings have no comfort zone.
Friday, 2 April 2010
Eastern
Mayor or major - its the big Ex-pat question.
In the first ex-pat years I was the Grand Educator, if a correction was called for, I corrected....."I think my non-speaker-of-English colleague, when you said, er-her, "maJor" I think you meant, were referring to the local chief of community that we British call "Mare", spelt "MaY-or", its the beauty of the English language, my non-native friends". I learnt that my education was not always welcomed...some were happy in majoring in the universal tongue of making english simpler. They may or may not have wanted to thump me as their secret dream.
By some years later of ex-pat cultural integration of Shutting up, Bearing it and eating the Bumble Pie, my corrections of the natives minor errors was reduced to one German word "ostern" which roughly translates as 'Eastern', but this word was also the word in reference to and commemorates that holiday time of eggs and bunnies and March hares. So Fool as I am I broke the learning curve of those hard earned ex-pat years ~ The Great Educator returned ~ "My Deutsche friend when you said EasterN... I think..... if I may correct my ....my dear native speaking person trying gallantly to speak my mother tongue, er-hum...it is pronounced 'Easter with no N' ". I continue for the full, unadulterated full extent of me, myself, I effect.... "As in EasteR rhyming with ....with ...with feasteR...yes of course feaster is a word...... its a , thirteenth century tribute to king Henry, or Harry to the locals, ...look it up in Wiki."
And my foreign friend says to me "Is that why Joe calls you half-cut with or without an N".
I believe the natives have been taught a tad too well.
In the first ex-pat years I was the Grand Educator, if a correction was called for, I corrected....."I think my non-speaker-of-English colleague, when you said, er-her, "maJor" I think you meant, were referring to the local chief of community that we British call "Mare", spelt "MaY-or", its the beauty of the English language, my non-native friends". I learnt that my education was not always welcomed...some were happy in majoring in the universal tongue of making english simpler. They may or may not have wanted to thump me as their secret dream.
By some years later of ex-pat cultural integration of Shutting up, Bearing it and eating the Bumble Pie, my corrections of the natives minor errors was reduced to one German word "ostern" which roughly translates as 'Eastern', but this word was also the word in reference to and commemorates that holiday time of eggs and bunnies and March hares. So Fool as I am I broke the learning curve of those hard earned ex-pat years ~ The Great Educator returned ~ "My Deutsche friend when you said EasterN... I think..... if I may correct my ....my dear native speaking person trying gallantly to speak my mother tongue, er-hum...it is pronounced 'Easter with no N' ". I continue for the full, unadulterated full extent of me, myself, I effect.... "As in EasteR rhyming with ....with ...with feasteR...yes of course feaster is a word...... its a , thirteenth century tribute to king Henry, or Harry to the locals, ...look it up in Wiki."
And my foreign friend says to me "Is that why Joe calls you half-cut with or without an N".
I believe the natives have been taught a tad too well.
Friday, 5 March 2010
The Universal Dictionary
And what did the Romans give us? straight roads, a dead language and probably an inferiority complex, not that I am a psychiatrist. The straight roads at least have ups and downs which I can verify from my 800ccc Mini days, them were the days when I could admire an open road as thousands admired my rear bumper. The Romans gave us a dead language and contaminated a fair few other languages with their conquering and pillaging. Being on the pillaged side allowed the natives to be gracious losers and so accept a lot in life as a butt-end of inferiority complex. It is humbling.
And the good news from this language of lawyers and medical students is ....
So with a good stab at an accent pronouncing a 'w' as 'v' or a 'll' as 'y', depending on where the airport leaves your hat. I can say 'introduction', 'reduction', 'production', 'such and such-tion' and be cheered as a natural in a European tongue. 'Et tu-ing' with the best of them, or did I just say "did you just ate two". Sadly I have a feeling my ribcage now looks like a rack looking for a knife to the hungry neighnourhood canibal who would have been satisfied with a porkchop. The local Brutuses are apparently not taken in by my easy charm and dyed-in-the-wool dialect. May be my 'how to speak a foreign language' theory needs some iteration, before the "Learn Freutschish in 9 days" Book deal is signed. Maybe I need to shrug a bit more, stare wildly and make garruff noises. I believe the Book deal may be superseded by the DVD package.
Or perhaps my theory in practice on the streets of Freutschishland may prove me wrong as a Brit throaty noises may not translate without spitting, the next post may involve hospitals or hospitalisation as I should say.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Divorce as a Cultural Necessity
Somehow in learning the local lingo I have fallen behind the learning curve, the expat fraternity advise a mantra to get a girlfriend, however the divorce papers may be somewhat unorthodox and probably unauthorised if reasons for divorce are cited as ~Needed to reach Level B2 in the national language~ please sign the papers.
Classes for foreign langauges have faces of a young generation hardly out of nappies, bumfluff beards hardly hide a scab free complexion. The boys appear to have geographically inspired tattoos as a zit formation maps Italy, as supercharged hormones join the dots with surrounding hills. And like the usual suspect in a police identity parade, the old bloke who shifts uncomfortably in a plastic chair as my colleagues chat about the latest zit cream that does not work, there is an old bloke called me.
The newcomer foreign youngsters pair up, gang up, party up and surpass expectations in exchanging swear words within one weekend party. I am left behind as a brain fails to grasp the simple single future super preterite tense. I still stutter over varying gender of the 'table', 'window', 'curtains', having reflective moments of consciousness on how can things have a gender as if contemplating the theory of relativity. This is not likely to get me a Nobel prize, even if somebody did a translation for me.
Out of the classroom and under instruction to engage the mother tongue community, I am stuttering over guessing what gender a lemonade might be as a waiter stands by the international village idiot, is it a male or a female or by damn a neuter.....and the "Get-by book" index is only an all-fingers-and-thumbs turn page away, but then the waiter puts me out of my misery, misery out of my life by telling me in English that I should be asking for a neutral lemonade and in his impatience, wrapped in sympathy, he puts me off my language learning curve for another decade.
Practise put on the backburner by a waiter needing to earn more than one tip in a night and demonstrating that here they are clever enough to speak a mother tongue and my tongue. Although as my tip to this waiter is sadly short of financial gain, but fill of wordly goodness - "Have a little patience".
As a compensation the the iced-chocolate- crumble-delight cake is ordered in sign language with a cheery eye test for my impatient waiter - "How many middle fingers am I holding up".
Classes for foreign langauges have faces of a young generation hardly out of nappies, bumfluff beards hardly hide a scab free complexion. The boys appear to have geographically inspired tattoos as a zit formation maps Italy, as supercharged hormones join the dots with surrounding hills. And like the usual suspect in a police identity parade, the old bloke who shifts uncomfortably in a plastic chair as my colleagues chat about the latest zit cream that does not work, there is an old bloke called me.
The newcomer foreign youngsters pair up, gang up, party up and surpass expectations in exchanging swear words within one weekend party. I am left behind as a brain fails to grasp the simple single future super preterite tense. I still stutter over varying gender of the 'table', 'window', 'curtains', having reflective moments of consciousness on how can things have a gender as if contemplating the theory of relativity. This is not likely to get me a Nobel prize, even if somebody did a translation for me.
Out of the classroom and under instruction to engage the mother tongue community, I am stuttering over guessing what gender a lemonade might be as a waiter stands by the international village idiot, is it a male or a female or by damn a neuter.....and the "Get-by book" index is only an all-fingers-and-thumbs turn page away, but then the waiter puts me out of my misery, misery out of my life by telling me in English that I should be asking for a neutral lemonade and in his impatience, wrapped in sympathy, he puts me off my language learning curve for another decade.
Practise put on the backburner by a waiter needing to earn more than one tip in a night and demonstrating that here they are clever enough to speak a mother tongue and my tongue. Although as my tip to this waiter is sadly short of financial gain, but fill of wordly goodness - "Have a little patience".
As a compensation the the iced-chocolate- crumble-delight cake is ordered in sign language with a cheery eye test for my impatient waiter - "How many middle fingers am I holding up".
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Return of the Village Idiot
I sit watching 'Sky News' as a remembrance......a lingering link..... a comfy chair look to the Homeland and as a non-link to the Fatherland in which residency papers remain un read and unreadable in this foreign tongue. So I watch TV in a language that makes me feel human, a conduit to intelligent a part of a world that understands me as intelligent. I am alone, the family is on a recky raiding local shops and hopefully using credit cards with a common sense; that there is so many shoes one needs; as unless the radioactive alarm bell has not rung in the last twenty or thirty years we all have only two feet....and shoes come in pairs aswell. I fear I may be wrong and they may be some time.
A phone rings. A phone speaks in tongues to me. I understand. I speak in tongues back. This could be a religious experience and I may need to write a Biblical Apostle in the near future. It is a miracle of understanding. My tongues and her tongues have a common ground in that certain words are common, my tongues and her tongues are different that other certain words are different, possibly wrong in context, possibly incorrect in pronounciation, very probably completely stupid in word order. It is a miracle ....I have regressed.... I st..stut...stut...ter.... I ra...amble..... I am a child......I speak in the equivalent of joined up writing. A psychiatrist could dredge up a significant repressed memories at this point, if only I was not sweating profusely, cursing the fact I could not swear in her tongue and in my own adds to the melee, and I am rumamging the brain for the local word for 'out'. I am an idiot. My partner in speaking tongues is patient and understands I am stupid, she knows this will be some time, but she probably needs to buy some shoes as ladies do.
I speak as if I need to know why the red rectangular block does not fit into the blue circular hole. I have regressed from a Business Executive to a Village Idiot, courtesy of trying to say a simple sentence 'my family is out and please ring later'. She hangs up.
Where is my collection of Learn Alespaneek in 5 days.
Sky News is switched off. A dictionary comes out of the closet.
A phone rings. A phone speaks in tongues to me. I understand. I speak in tongues back. This could be a religious experience and I may need to write a Biblical Apostle in the near future. It is a miracle of understanding. My tongues and her tongues have a common ground in that certain words are common, my tongues and her tongues are different that other certain words are different, possibly wrong in context, possibly incorrect in pronounciation, very probably completely stupid in word order. It is a miracle ....I have regressed.... I st..stut...stut...ter.... I ra...amble..... I am a child......I speak in the equivalent of joined up writing. A psychiatrist could dredge up a significant repressed memories at this point, if only I was not sweating profusely, cursing the fact I could not swear in her tongue and in my own adds to the melee, and I am rumamging the brain for the local word for 'out'. I am an idiot. My partner in speaking tongues is patient and understands I am stupid, she knows this will be some time, but she probably needs to buy some shoes as ladies do.
I speak as if I need to know why the red rectangular block does not fit into the blue circular hole. I have regressed from a Business Executive to a Village Idiot, courtesy of trying to say a simple sentence 'my family is out and please ring later'. She hangs up.
Where is my collection of Learn Alespaneek in 5 days.
Sky News is switched off. A dictionary comes out of the closet.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Me speak English
Langauge as a means to communicate is a good thing, I have theoretically have an advantage. English. The language of commerce even if it favours sidewalks, realizations and honors, rather than pavements, realisations and honours. However language, the English language which offers a multitiude of various nuances of emotion, colour and general dialect, can be a barrier. Business wants and expects an English of plain, simples, get-the-point-across understanding. So words are resticted to a base of recognisable words taught in the national standard text book and chat is slowed to resemble a 'slowmo' version of reality. Towcester is pronounced tow-cest-er in this not-quite-parallel universe.
I once, fool that I am, corected some foreign colleagues intent on pronouncing 'mayor' as 'major', it was pronounced 'mayre', I pontificated from my pulpit of leather-look chair, as their eyes rolled upwards to my holy verbal eliteness. It was instead digging a verbalistic hole. I was right in all tests that academia may wish to embarass me with, but I was so wrong in all other fields of social acceptance.
In my early days I flowered languages with analogies that had people scratching heads, why was Johnny Foreigner talking about dinner at 10 o'clock, as why else would I be talking of taking a "pinch of the salt". I D'oh.
Business English is not the Queen's English, it is a second language, it is not a mother tongue.
I once, fool that I am, corected some foreign colleagues intent on pronouncing 'mayor' as 'major', it was pronounced 'mayre', I pontificated from my pulpit of leather-look chair, as their eyes rolled upwards to my holy verbal eliteness. It was instead digging a verbalistic hole. I was right in all tests that academia may wish to embarass me with, but I was so wrong in all other fields of social acceptance.
In my early days I flowered languages with analogies that had people scratching heads, why was Johnny Foreigner talking about dinner at 10 o'clock, as why else would I be talking of taking a "pinch of the salt". I D'oh.
Business English is not the Queen's English, it is a second language, it is not a mother tongue.
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