I have already mentioned that "San José" and "downtown" start me humming Dionne Warwick and Petula Clarke respectively, and that is hardly surprising to anybody who knows me and the way my mind makes connections to random song lyrics. But there is so much other weird stuff hidden in my sub-conscious that is being released by the words I see and hear in America.
For instance the first time I saw a car labelled "California Highway Patrol" I was immediately taken back to my earliest childhood. I don't think I ever watched an entire episode of CHiPs, I was about 3, but I do remember the plastic action figures, although I am sure I never had one. I expect Michael Macari over the road had one, what with his Dad being a famous footballer (back in the days when famous footballers lived in normal 1930s houses in Sale instead of Alderley Edge.)
There are several words that take me straight back to Sesame Street: "trash can" because of Oscar the grouch, "mailman" and "neighborhood" (when pronounced in an American accent) because of that ridiculous song "Who are the people in the neighborhood?", and of course uevos rancheros, because Maria made it for Big Bird. Am I the only person who remembers this kind of stuff and files it away to be triggered by the sound of US English?
Even the names of some of the States themselves, and some US cities trigger weird and random mental pictures. Some don't of course, California, DC, Florida, New York appear so frequently in popular culture that I had a slightly more nuanced view even before I came. But some of the others trigger a single association:
Oklahoma - the musical (obviously)
Kansas - Judy Garland in black and white (unlike Oz)
Maine - Stephen King and Jessica Fletcher
Arkansas - Hilary Clinton, and Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell singing "A Little Girl from Little Rock"
Ohio - Glee club
Idaho -narcolepsy
Dallas - Dallas
Denver - Dynasty
Dakota - Doris Day singing about the Black Hills
(Rereading that list, it is probably the gayest list of US State associations ever. Thank goodness Stephen King's in there.) Chicago, perhaps suprisingly, doesn't make me think of Chicago the musical, the mental picture that comes to mind more readily is the car chase at the end of the Blues Brothers. The weirdest association of all is Tulsa: I don't even know where it is, but I know Gene Pitney was 24 hours away from it. (Which probably covers a huge area, I wonder if anybody has ever drawn a circle on a map showing all the places that are 24 hours from Tulsa?)
One final observation about the whole "you say tomato but I say tomato" debate (other than the fact that everybody, everywhere, as far as I am aware, pronounces potato to rhyme with an American tomato, even Dan Quayle who famously couldn't spell it.) You don't necessarily know what is peculiarly British until you say it and an American comments (or misunderstands). For example, Americans consider "bits and bobs" to be a quaint British expression, only use "diary" to mean a journal (like Adrian Mole) but not a calendar of appointments, only rent cars, never hire them, etc. I had a pretty good idea of some of the things they said, but I never knew all the things they didn't. I could be saying all kinds of weird stuff, and they might just be too polite to mention it.
Dallas - Dallas
Denver - Dynasty
Dakota - Doris Day singing about the Black Hills
(Rereading that list, it is probably the gayest list of US State associations ever. Thank goodness Stephen King's in there.) Chicago, perhaps suprisingly, doesn't make me think of Chicago the musical, the mental picture that comes to mind more readily is the car chase at the end of the Blues Brothers. The weirdest association of all is Tulsa: I don't even know where it is, but I know Gene Pitney was 24 hours away from it. (Which probably covers a huge area, I wonder if anybody has ever drawn a circle on a map showing all the places that are 24 hours from Tulsa?)
One final observation about the whole "you say tomato but I say tomato" debate (other than the fact that everybody, everywhere, as far as I am aware, pronounces potato to rhyme with an American tomato, even Dan Quayle who famously couldn't spell it.) You don't necessarily know what is peculiarly British until you say it and an American comments (or misunderstands). For example, Americans consider "bits and bobs" to be a quaint British expression, only use "diary" to mean a journal (like Adrian Mole) but not a calendar of appointments, only rent cars, never hire them, etc. I had a pretty good idea of some of the things they said, but I never knew all the things they didn't. I could be saying all kinds of weird stuff, and they might just be too polite to mention it.
No comments:
Post a Comment