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Jan. 10th, 2011 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerSome time ago I found this wonderful WW2 US serviceman's A Short Guide to the UK linked from Straight Dope. I dip into it from time to time for a good laugh or a bit of a weep....
Some of the bits that might raise an eyebrow just at the moment are the remark that Great Britain's "absence of snow and crisp cold", or that London has no skyscrapers because it is built on a swamp (and we all know what happens if you build a castle in a swamp...)
What's a little shocking (because no matter how many films about the Blitz one sees,it's hard to imagine) is the reminder that servicemen should avoid suggesting that the British can't "take it" because, among other things, they have lost 60,000 civilian men, women, and children to German bombing. Right now, the US is convulsed by the (horrific) deaths of half a dozen of our citizens, and many of us will never forget the killing of 3,000 people on 9/11/2001. But as a proportion of their population in 1940, those casualties would be over 450,000 people in the US of 2011.
Also very moving (to me) is the observation that "Today's King and Queen stuck with the people through the blitzes and had their house bombed just like anyone else, and the people are proud of them." makes me think of the Queen Mum, saying "I'm glad we've been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face."
On the more lighthearted side (intentionally or not) are strictures not to shout abuse in sporting events at athletes who play poorly because "English crowds at football or cricket matches are ... more polite to the players than American crowds" (hmmmm...) and that whisky isn't drunk much in wartime Britain because "wartime taxes have shot the price of a bottle up to about $4.50". Would that one could get a bottle of whisky for that now! Also typical is the reminder that, yes, OK, maybe Brits can't make (what you would think is) a good cup of coffee, but "you don't know how to make a good cup of tea. It's an even swap."
As entertaining as the traditional explanations of funny dialect are, the American dialect it's written in is even funnier. As one Straight Dope commentor pointed out, today we might not refer as the author does, to mistakes or missteps as "boners" (don't make fun of what you think are British mistakes "because you can make just as many boners in their eyes")! And while someone today might tell a fellow American he's "off base", I can't recall the last time I heard someone suggest that, as a result, someone should "pull in his ears"! And did Americans really refer to touring buses as "rubberneck wagons"? That's listed in the glossary as the US term for a char-a-banc.
Most interesting of all is the (all too brief) quotation included from the British equivalent, the British Army Bureau of Public Affairs' "Meet the Americans". Apart from anything else, it's written in language that's much more sophisticated than the American guide. Whether that reflects the difference between British servicemen and their American counterpart or just the difference between British military press officers and their Yank brethren is a matter for speculation.
(I also have the original copies of the similar guides to India and Burma issued to my dad in the USAAC...)
Some of the bits that might raise an eyebrow just at the moment are the remark that Great Britain's "absence of snow and crisp cold", or that London has no skyscrapers because it is built on a swamp (and we all know what happens if you build a castle in a swamp...)
What's a little shocking (because no matter how many films about the Blitz one sees,it's hard to imagine) is the reminder that servicemen should avoid suggesting that the British can't "take it" because, among other things, they have lost 60,000 civilian men, women, and children to German bombing. Right now, the US is convulsed by the (horrific) deaths of half a dozen of our citizens, and many of us will never forget the killing of 3,000 people on 9/11/2001. But as a proportion of their population in 1940, those casualties would be over 450,000 people in the US of 2011.
Also very moving (to me) is the observation that "Today's King and Queen stuck with the people through the blitzes and had their house bombed just like anyone else, and the people are proud of them." makes me think of the Queen Mum, saying "I'm glad we've been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face."
On the more lighthearted side (intentionally or not) are strictures not to shout abuse in sporting events at athletes who play poorly because "English crowds at football or cricket matches are ... more polite to the players than American crowds" (hmmmm...) and that whisky isn't drunk much in wartime Britain because "wartime taxes have shot the price of a bottle up to about $4.50". Would that one could get a bottle of whisky for that now! Also typical is the reminder that, yes, OK, maybe Brits can't make (what you would think is) a good cup of coffee, but "you don't know how to make a good cup of tea. It's an even swap."
As entertaining as the traditional explanations of funny dialect are, the American dialect it's written in is even funnier. As one Straight Dope commentor pointed out, today we might not refer as the author does, to mistakes or missteps as "boners" (don't make fun of what you think are British mistakes "because you can make just as many boners in their eyes")! And while someone today might tell a fellow American he's "off base", I can't recall the last time I heard someone suggest that, as a result, someone should "pull in his ears"! And did Americans really refer to touring buses as "rubberneck wagons"? That's listed in the glossary as the US term for a char-a-banc.
Most interesting of all is the (all too brief) quotation included from the British equivalent, the British Army Bureau of Public Affairs' "Meet the Americans". Apart from anything else, it's written in language that's much more sophisticated than the American guide. Whether that reflects the difference between British servicemen and their American counterpart or just the difference between British military press officers and their Yank brethren is a matter for speculation.
(I also have the original copies of the similar guides to India and Burma issued to my dad in the USAAC...)
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Date: 2011-01-13 12:58 pm (UTC)