Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve we spent at a friend’s house with several others of various nationalities. We got to discussing English as she’s spoken in various places. One lady is from England so I suppose she can be considered the speaker of real and original English! She is teaching kindergarten at an international school with mostly American kids. She commented on some of her frustration when she first came because the children didn’t seem to understand some simple commands! She would tell them to put things in the rubbish and they would stare blankly. She told them to use their rubbers to rub out mistakes and again got blank stares. She didn’t know that here rubbish is referred to as "trash" or "garbage". She didn’t know that here rubbers are called “erasers” and to rub something out is to kill it!

So we got to talking about local English usage. My all time favorite was taking a voltage regulator back to the shop and telling them it didn’t work. All I got was a blank stare. So I described in excruciating detail how every time I plugged it in and plugged something into it, it blew the fuse. Finally the light dawned and the guy said, “Oh, you mean it doesn’t function?” Ah, yes. Only people "work". Things "function".

A friend once noted that her new house helper always swept the floor but never mopped it. So she was trying to explain that the floor should also be washed with water not only swept. To her dismay the girl began throwing buckets of water on the floor. What my friend didn't know is that "wash" means to clean using lots of water, like washing clothes or dishes. What she should have said is "mop" or "clean the floor with water"!

A fun site to vist is www.engrish.com . Also check out http://signslabels.blogspot.com/

And, I hope you had a merry Christmas!