Tag Archives: British Accent

A Cruise to the British Isles

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An affable cruise representative met us at Heathrow Airport, London, and accompanied us to the bus that drove a whole group of passengers to the ship terminal in Southampton, where we boarded the ship, our home away-from-home for the next twelve days. We didn’t visit London where we have previously spent time.

The next morning we docked in Guernsey Island (St. Peter Port), 30 miles west of Normandy,  where the French author Victor Hugo lived in exile for 25 years at Hautevile House and wrote both Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. We were welcomed with a gorgeous sunny weather and 70 oF temperature for our visit of the island, an idyllic paradise with cobbled streets and picturesque seafront marina.

Guernsey is not part of the United Kingdom but it is part of the British Islands. Residents speak English and French, and their money is similar to the English pound. Many of the houses in Guernsey’s west have an unusual strange piece of granite sticking out of them – these are “witches’ seats”. Back when they supposedly ran wild in the western parishes, residents built them onto their houses so that the witches could stop and rest, rather than causing havoc. The world-renowned Guernsey cow produces some of the most rich and delicious dairy products in the world.

St. Peter Port is the main town on the island of Guernsey. It’s full of hills, colors, and super cute shops! The top speed limit in Guernsey is 35 miles/hour. If you drive along the coastline of Guernsey you will hit military fortifications almost every 2 minutes or so. These were built during the Napoleonic wars to protect Guernsey from France.

The Little Chapel is actually the smallest chapel in the world! But the astonishing thing is that the entire chapel, interior and exterior, is covered with broken bits of pottery, glass, and china. 

We sailed to Ireland and stopped in Cork where we visited the romantic ruins of Blarney Castle. In the Blarney garden, the trees were dressed in knitted wool. Many visitors climbed the one-person narrow stairs to the Stone of Eloquence, all the way to the top of the castle (NOT me) and admired the amazing view.

In the Blarney village, we shopped for wool and Waterford crystal, and didn’t buy any, but we enjoyed watching young girls performing an Irish dance for us.

Dublin, capital of the Republic of Ireland is an old city boasting imposing castles and estates. The Druids believe the shamrock could ward off evil and the Christians believe it represent the Holy Trinity. In Dublin, we visited Trinity College and St. Patrick Cathedral.

Trinity College is huge, with several buildings. We were impressed by the crowd of young people and students. A Ford ancestor was autistic, and bullied by his friends. He was shot and fell from the window and died. They say that his ghost roams the University ground. His sibling left and went to the US. His grandson is Henry Ford.

TRINITY COLLEGE founded in 1592

At St. Patrick Cathedral we saw  the tile of Dean Jonathan Swift, who had been the dean of the Cathedral. When someone dozed during his homily, he had a chaplain drag his sermon chair to the culprit and hit him with his cane. My son-in-law’s grandmother had the same name and claimed him as an ancestor.

Our next stop was Liverpool, England, where we visited a very modern and circular church, the Catholic Metropolitan church of Christ the King and the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral that is humongous, of Gothic style in red brick, with gorgeous painted glass.

We strolled along Penny Lane and took pictures of the street where the Beatles lived.

In Belfast, capital of Northern Ireland, we visited the yard of City Hall with Queen Victoria statue and a moratorium for the people who died in the Titanic. The “unsinkable” Titanic was built in Belfast over two years and sailed from Liverpool. After it was built, the engineer said: “Not even God can sink the Titanic.”

In Scotland, we docked in Greenock and drove through Glasgow. Our guide wore a lovely yellow kilt. We passed by George Place, in front of the spectacular City Hall, big square with several statues, among which that of Walter Scott.

After a day at sea, we were still in Scotland. Our next stop was in Inverness and Loch Ness. We woke up at 5:30 am for the long ride by bus. It was rainy and cold but worth it. I stoically waited under the rain with my umbrella while my husband climbed up the old castle.

During my visit to Guernsey, I was greatly impressed by the peaceful island that boasted a tumultuous history. As our guide described the special autonomy and numerous privileges the residents enjoy under the leadership of a Lieutenant Governor, I decided that this Channel Island would become the Principality of Rensy Island, the setting of a new series of romance novels. So far, I have five books relating the stories of the princes/princesses from Rensy Island. I hope you will enjoy reading this series.

A Bride For Prince Paul: She can’t abandon her patients for his crown! A Bodyguard For The Princess: A murder at Harvard in Princess Chloe’s student building. Jingle With My Princess: The doc and the princess… He saves lives but Princess Charlene may save his heart. Prince Philip’s Cinderella: A charming jogger saves her from danger. But he’s a prince… and she comes from nothing. Should she run or risk her heart? A Dance for Prince Eric: A ballerina with a promising career on the run for her brother’s sake. A charismatic prince who saved them both. Do fairytales exist?

Tea and Crumpets with a British Accent by @AngelaStevens13

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Union JackI’m British. Judging by the title of this piece, I probably didn’t need to add that, but I felt compelled to justify myself. It has been sixteen years since I left England (with my British accent), and moved first to Singapore and then to America. Sixteen years is a long time. In that time, my kids went from little children to fully fledged adults, I went from being a teacher to being a full-time author, and my accent went from being British, to being… well, that is debatable.

For sure, my British accent has mellowed. As a kid, I grew up sounding like Cilla Black, and Paul McCartney. I didn’t actually come from Liverpool, but across the River Mersey from there… what they called a ‘wooly back’. My soft Scouse accent was not considered Liverpudlian enough, by those born in Liverpool, but was made fun of for being full-on ‘Scouser’ thirty miles down the road, in Manchester.  One of my earliest memories at college there, was asking for directions at the train station, and the guy on the platform saying, “Bloody hell, you can tell you got off the Liverpool train!” (Except he said it with a Mancunian accent.)

It took me by surprise, as the only time I ever thought I sounded like I was from Liverpool was when I heard myself recorded. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that was a quirk of the tape recorder, butchering my voice. I liked to think, I had a more neutral, ‘posher’ accent than that. You see, in England, northern accents–of which there are many–are not regarded in high esteem.

I should probably put a disclaimer in here somewhere, *by those with southern accents.

Britain Is Regional

Britain is actually full of accents. They are very regional, so regional that twenty or thirty miles down the road there is a completely different one. No kidding. And it’s not just the accents either, it’s words we use for common everyday things that change. For instance, in Norfolk, they call ladybirds (ladybugs to Americans) bishy barnabees. How cute is that? Cute and totally indecipherable if you aren’t from Norfolk, right?

Seriously, if you are born in the UK, you have to be multilingual.

If you go into a store and ask for a barm/ barm cake roll, stottie, cob, bin-lid, teacake, oggie, lardy cake, breadcake, rowie, bap, muffin, or batch you will essentially be given the same thing, a bread roll. However, the way you ask for it says something about you. It gives away exactly where you were born and what social class you put yourself into.

Now technically, if you lined all these ‘bread rolls’ up, you would see subtle differences. If you gave me a barm or batch instead of a cob, I’d be unhappy. I like my bread very ‘crusty’, preferably with a nice big air bubble in it. I’m happy when it shatters when you bite into it and then fights you when you try to rip it off.

That’s a cob roll.

Not a batch or a barm.

That’s not to say, that I don’t like a batch now and then. Certain stuff, bacon for instance, requires white bread, doughy, with extra flour sprinkled on top. I do not want crusty bread with my bacon butty!

Bacon Butty

The thing is, all over England, when you walk into a sandwich shop and place an order, you inadvertently proudly claim your heritage by the term you use. But no one blinks, no one looks at you blankly, they all translate automatically, and hand you a sandwich on a bread roll.

When I moved to America, it was the first time that I became aware that I not only had an accent, but that apparently, I spoke a completely different language altogether. In fact, it was so different that often I couldn’t even be remotely understood.

My British Accent

In Pot Belly’s, I asked for ‘Chewna on wheat’–which, I’d proudly learned was how to order a sandwich in America. You have to name the type of bread they use, not the style of roll they put it on.

The assistant serving me, stared back.

Them: “Cheese?”

Me: “No, Chewna.”

Them: “Ham?”

I was losing my patience by now, but with typical British politeness, I smiled and repeated my request again, showing no annoyance to the person who was obviously going out of their way to misunderstand me. But to no avail.  Exhausting all the usual sandwich fillings, except for the one I actually wanted, they looked at me apologetically…

Them: “Could you point to it?”

After I eventually got my Tooooona sandwich, I should have quit while I was ahead. But no. I was thirsty.

Me: “Could I have, a wot-toah.”

Them: “Iced tea?’

Me: “Actually, I changed my mind, just the sandwich.”

Similar scenes have played out across America. For the most part, I have managed to get by, pretending I speak the language by putting on an American accent for certain words. However, there are some words, I find it impossible to say with an American accent, or are so drilled into my psyche that I can’t make myself butcher it; ga-rij, parm-a-san, baas-sil, mum, for instance. But these days, thankfully, I have a little 5-year-old translator in my grandson who helps me out in times of difficulty. We are very proud of him, he is bilingual in American and British English.

All this, I can perfectly understand. Even though I no longer sound like Paul McCartney, and despite everyone in England being convinced that I speak like a Yank, I realize that to all Americans, I still have what they mainly describe as a ‘cute British accent’.

Although I have enough grounding in American to translate most words that are completely different– boot to trunk, bonnet to hood, pavement to sidewalk–every now and then, I have a mental block. Like recently, during a kitchen installation, when I said hob and then had to look up a picture of my cooktop because I just could not think of the translated word (thank God for Google.)

However, it appears that my accent is not confined to the spoken word, but the written one too, and unfortunately, having a British accent in writing is not so ‘cute’.

On the whole, after sixteen years, I have managed to lose most Briticisms from my work, along with the spellings of ‘ou’, and double ‘ss’. To catch the stuff that I don’t see–because, well, it is my native language, so it does look right to me–I use an American editor and an American proof reader, and it always seems like they catch a new British phrase. I got my manuscript back from my editor a couple of days ago. She likes to provide me with an American alternative to switch out the offending British one. This time the phrase was “Damn cheek!”

Her note to me had me in stitches. “Angela, I had to look this up because I was confused—British term. I think in USA it is similar to “damn bum” or “damn fool” in case you want to change it.” (She’s always so polite.)

British Accent

‘Damn Cheek’, does not translate as any of those things! But I do admire her for trying. So, just for fun, anyone who is a ‘native American speaker’ want to hazard a guess at a good translation? Go on, have a go, I like a good giggle.  *Answer at bottom of page.

Tea and Crumpets

By now, you have probably been wondering what my blog title has to do with any of my blog post. Well, as an expat, there are things I really miss from back home. Tea, is number 1, of course. Sorry, America, but when you threw the tea in Boston harbor, you should have asked for the recipe first. Sixteen years, is a long time to go without one decent cup of tea, and as I drink around six a day, sometimes more, one of the first things I had to do was find a source of British tea bags, at a reasonable price. Thank you, Amazon! I now buy PG Tips in boxes of 2000, on repeat order, because I’d have a mental breakdown if I actually ran out!

For some unfathomable reason, I have been craving crumpets, recently. That is not to be mistaken for wanting crumpet. That means two VERY different things in England!!!

Crumpet

Now, in their essence, crumpets are yet another type of bread, but they would NEVER be used in a sandwich. Crumpets are primarily a breakfast food, or served in an archetypal English cream tea. Circular, and made from a dough that is sticky and loose, it has rows of vertical holes. It is cooked in a frying pan–a bit like pancakes (American versions, not British ones) or drop scones. They are great served hot, with butter that fills up those holes. I prefer mine rounded off with marmalade.

This week, I learned to make them from scratch. It’s something I would never have considered doing in the UK because they are available so cheaply in every grocery store. But due to my craving, and the, um, distinct lack of crumpet (actually, this means something else entirely, too), I made them myself. And, pardon my English, they were bloody delicious.

I’m making more tomorrow, so anyone who wants to, pop around for tea and crumpets, we will be serving them around 4pm.

For those of you who enjoy dual-language books, I have an extensive list on Amazon. Many are hiding out in lots of Authors’ Billboard boxed sets.

Learn more about me and what I write at my website.

The manuscript I spoke of earlier, the one with the now corrected ‘Damn Cheek’ will be available in the up and coming boxed set, Cute but Crazy: Unique and Unpredictable. I’m excited to release this book, my first rom-com, exclusively to this boxed set, first!

British Accent

Glossary of “British Accent” terms:

  • Wooly back- person born in Birkenhead, or south of the River Mersey but still in Merseyside
  • Scouse/ scouser, Liverpudlian- dialect spoken in Liverpool or coming from Liverpool
  • Mancunian – accent/ dialect of people from Manchester
  • ga-rij, parm-a-san, baas-sil, chew-na: garage, Parmesan cheese, basil (herb), Tuna
  • wot-toah – water
  • Hob – cooktop
  • wanting crumpet – desiring sex
  • lack of crumpet – a distinct absence of good looking girls present
  • bloody delicious – really tasty
  • Damn cheek! – What a nerve!/ The nerve of it!