Do You Understand The Words That Are Coming Out Of My Mouth?

When I first came to live in the UK, I had to learn to communicate with the locals. You’d think that would be an easy task - we all speak the Queen’s English, right? Wrong! Regional accents, different slang words and inflections in totally different places only served to confound me almost daily.

“You talk funny!” my first UK boss informed me (in his broad Leeds accent) on my first day at work. He then spent the next two years “correcting” my pronunciation at every opportunity.

Typical conversation with my boss:
Boss: “You have a good weekend?”
Me (trying to quickly recover from the shock of actually being spoken to and not just sworn at): “Yes, thank you....we visited the city of Bath.”
Boss: “I think you mean Baaaatttthhhhhh!”
Me: “No. Bath... as in BARth....the way people who live in BARth say it.”
Boss: “Do some f*cking work!”

For the first three months in London, I was convinced that people around me were politely commenting that they couldn’t be asked to do such and such, when they were rather more rudely saying that they couldn’t be arsed. In other words, they couldn’t be bothered (pronounced bovvered in some circles).

I quickly learnt that the response to All right? is in fact another All right?... and that this means “Hello, how are you?”, much like the southern African, all encompassing Howzit? People you have never set eyes on before that moment will call you their mate, sometimes even going as far as to claim you as their luv or pet if you wander far enough north. Someone calling you a chav (or in my case a chavette) on the other hand is not a good thing, and it means you may want to stop wearing so much knock-off designer sportswear and vulgar jewellery.

Littering conversations with know what I mean? is common practice....but it does not in fact require any formal response, such as "Yes, I do know what you mean" or "No, I am not quite sure what you mean....please elaborate." Similarly, the term innit!... though sounding suspiciously like a question along the lines of “Is that not so?”....is merely a statement to generate emphasis and requires no further action on your part. Further north, a variation on this is the frequent use of the query Right? I once worked with a bloke who wore this word out, leading to some logistical confusion in the lab..."So what you need to do, right?, is take this one on the right, right?, and feed it through the right slot on the left, right?" Luckily he was not a driving instructor....."Turn left, right? Then right, right?....."

I’d always known bollocks to mean testicles, but it turned out to be a multitasking word...it can be used to describe something that is no good (“That's bollocks!” or “A load of bollocks!” or “He's talking bollocks!”). Surprisingly it can also be used in a positive manner to describe something that is the best as being the dog's bollocks.

Traffic lights are not "robots" in the UK and trousers are not "pants"...in particular, the term pant is never, ever used in the singular, a common southern African trait (“I wore my jean pant”). Another Saffa phrase best avoided is the classic (buying time before responding) “Ja, no, well, fine, but...”. The Brits have their own version of this tactic (“No but yeah, but no, but yeah....”), but by using it you run the danger of being labelled a Vicky Pollard (see chav).

Cheers! is most typically used to say “Thank you!”....but it can also be said on leaving, in which case you may favour Laters!, a shortened version of “See you later!” Actually there is no time frame for this “later” business and it could be in a few minutes, next week or even a few months’ time....a bit like the Saffa trick of saying “I’ll do that just now” or maybe “now-now”, when you really have no intention of even looking into the task for the next week.

After 8 years, I think I'm sorted! on the language front and could easily blend in with the locals, were it not for my accent, which I will probably never lose....it will just become slightly more diluted with every year spent here. Friends back in South Africa claim I sound English, but most people in the UK think I’m a Kiwi(!)

Maybe I should take elocution lessons from these lads...