Keswick (reprise)

There's really no wonder that Americans traveling in Britain have such a hard time pronouncing certain words, especially place names. Even if the name is new, the rules of pronunciation are different. But ignoring that, we like to name cities and towns after ones in England or Scotland and then change the way they're said entirely. A sense of heritage with a large amount of independence.

Keswick. At first look it should be pronounced just so---Kess-WICK.
And indeed, there is a Keswick just outside of Charlottesville that is pronounced this way.
But the English town I visited in the Lake District was KESS-ick. No W.

Why put in a W if it's not to be used? I think the British are worse about this than the Americans.

Either that, or Americans take things more literally.

Another example:
Lieutenant is pronounced Left-tenant, but there's no f's in the word at all. And yet the American pronunciation is the one considered "daft". Isn't the French way our way too?
But then, we still use Colonel.

In summary:
-I discovered a Keswick in Virginia! Cool!

Lake District

The Lake District, I have been told on many occasions, is the most beautiful part of England. It is located in the NW corner of England, just south of Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall, in the area known as Cumbria.

According to one sign, some millions of years ago, the continents of Europe and the Americas slammed into each other, and many mountains were created at this time, including those in the Lakes. After ages of erosion by glaciers, wind, rain, the mountains became rounded, lakes filled in some of the valleys, and the result is the lush green farming area today.

The Lake District was the famous retreat of many English artists, the more famous of whom are writers like Beatrix Potter, Wordsworth, Coleridge, the creater of Postman Pat (a British cartoon character). Back in the day, it was the summer home for loaded gentry, as one might find in Jane Austen novels.

Here, mountains are called fells.
Small lakes are tarns.
There were a lot of weird names. Keswick, pronounced Kez-sick. Just south is a lake called Derwent Water. Towns like Penrith, Cockermouth, Threlkeld. Lake Windermere, and the town Windermere, is a popular spot for walkers, just as was Keswick.

Keswick managed to cater to weekending tourists with its charm and remain genuine; it was also a Fair Trade and organic food haven. Almost every single house, even those outside the 'town centre', were B&B's. There were a few pubs and taverns, mostly associated with small hotels, and Keswick even boasts a nightclub open seven nights a week, though I didn't go inside. Most of the shops were either cafes, outdoor goods, or cute baubles (antiques & crafts).

The whole area was beautiful! More later; also, pictures coming.

whoops?

You know that Patrick Dempsey movie, "Made of Honor"?

I first saw adverts for it about a month ago, mostly posters on telephone booths and the sides of buses. The first wave were advertising "Made of Honor"

More recently I noticed a second wave of adverts plugging "Made of Honour".

Amazing!

Paper

I think I've already mentioned this, but the standard paper size is called A4, and measures 21 cm by 30 cm, or 8.3" by 11.7". The hole-punched variety have two holes, roughly 1/3 of the way down the page. I've gotten used to it, but during my revision I brought out some notes on US Letter and I forgot that many people had never seen it. It was "so short!" and had "too many holes!" Hah.

I learned that the equivalent of the "nuclear family" is known as the "A4 family".

"So.. if you don't have A4 paper, then what do you call the A4 family?"
"The what?"

Chug! Chug! Chug!

Chugging. It's not downing your beverage quickly. Well, that too. It's also short for "charity mugging". The people, usually attractive young kids fresh out of uni or college, who approach innocent passers-by, present a sad story about [homeless people, veterans, abused animals, so on] and then ask for a donation: they are chugging.

Turns out [many? most? some?] people get paid to chug.

Creche. Daycare centers. In commercial centres, it seems. I heard an advertisement on the radio today that a new shopping mall has a large creche. This weekend, a few parents were chugging outside the local swimming pool (located on my block) with signs saying "Save Our Creche".


For those of you keeping track at home, today in Edinburgh the sun rose at 05:38 AM and set at 8:45 PM. That's over 15 hours of sunlight! And it's only the end of April. No wonder I can't sleep in the mornings.

Compare, for DC: 6:15 AM sunrise, 7:58 PM sunset. 13.5 hours of sunlight.

The temperature was in the mid-60's, very sunny with a slight breeze. And at the beginning of exam time, so people studied outside in shorts and tanks.
That seems a little extreme to me.

Notes on Ireland

-the local grocery chain is called SPAR

-the stereotype of the friendly/jolly Irish farmer seemed to be pretty true. When I was out walking, you could tell the natives from the tourists: the tourists scowled and were silent. The Irish smiled and waved hello

-"How are you?" was the standard greeting

-When in Scotland, people want to know if DC is close to New York.
In Ireland they wanted to know if it's close to Boston.

-When eating dinner in Inis Oirr (I really didn't have enough food to be stranded on this island!) the TV had on a Celtic vs. Rangers football match. (They are both Glasgow teams: the Celtics have mostly Catholic fans, and the Rangers mostly Protestant fans.) Everyone in the pub, all seven of them, were rooting heavily for Celtic.

-There was an interesting mix of Americanisms and Britishisms. They sold sweaters and not jumpers, and we were to form a line not a queue, but I still boiled my water in an electric kettle, followed the ferry timetable, and 'couldn't be bothered' to do things, except maybe if they were 'well good'.

-I had some truly delicious Irish stew. And soda bread, that was pretty popular as well.

-Everyone drank Guinness. Seriously. Everyone. (Okay,maybe except for some older couples who seemed to all drink red wine.) And it was no better coming out of the Irish taps than any other Guinness, that myth is such a lie.

More phrases I remembered.

Other words I may or may not have mentioned.

Bursting. When you really, really have to pee.
"Is this the queue to the loo? I'm absolutely bursting!"

Thanking you. When someone does something for you that's more of a small favor than a big favor. It's not a deep, heartful thank-you but you want to acknowledge what they did. A step up from 'cheers', which seems to register common courtesies like holding he door open, this is more like "Hey, do you mind folding that jumper for me? ... Thanking you!"

That's me! You're leaving somewhere you've been for awhile. The ladies at the Shop use it at the end of their shift, as they're getting on their coats. A friend once said it to me to let me know she was leaving the hairdressers and that she was coming home. "Well, that's me! See you tomorrow!"

You can also say that to someone else, more like "It's half-four, so that'll be you, eh?" ("It's four-thirty, so time for you to go, eh?")

Nuremberg 1

As hinted in my last post, I had a wee trip this weekend, to go visit Nurnberg (Nuremberg). I'll probably make a series of small posts about it as I remember things to write about. So, to begin.

Nurnberg is an old, old city. It has a center well-defined by the old city walls: within lies all the medieval architecture, including a castle known as the Berg and several old churches. Outside the wall looked to me like a fairly typical suburban-metro sprawl, though with some German-style architecture mixed in with all the glass office buildings and plain hotels. But within were houses painted white with brown shutters, Gothic churches, narrow covered footbridges, clocktowers, and extremely strange bronze statues. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera every time I passed by one of these statues, but when I post my pictures you;ll be able to see a few. Nurnberg was beautiful.

I wanted to see the courtroom of the famous Nuremberg Trials, but it is actually kind of far out of the city and the car was a manual, so we didn't make the journey to see it. I'm sure it's a boring place anyway, right? Just a courtroom!

It was really nice to stroll through the open-air market in the plaza of Lorenzkirche (kirche means church), which was open every day, although pretty empty when we first visited in the rain. Many of the stalls were exactly like the German Market I saw in Edinburgh around Christmas time, with the same roasted/sweetened nuts and heart-shaped biscuits, but the other stalls had different kinds of jewelry, or clothing, or cooking utensils, or whatever was being sold. Although most of the Germans we ran across seemed to have a good knowledge of English, the venders in the markets were more difficult to communicate with. We bought sausage sandwiches by pointing at what we wanted and holding up fingers; this procured us something called the Nurnberger Snack though we didn't know it at the time. Three small sausages on a hard roll, pretty tasty.

It was more difficult perhaps when we asked the fruit sellers what certain fruits were, or when we wanted a fruit in the center of the display. The stands were so huge it was pretty impossible to get close to a fruit if it wasn't placed in the front, but we made do and had some delicious grapes, strawberries, and dried apricots. At one stand there was dried ginger next to the dried apricots, but the vender spoke very little English. We asked what it was, still, because the label 'Ingwar' sounded like 'Ginger' but we weren't sure. He picked up a nearby ginger root, and then offered us to try a piece of the dried ginger. A lot of the venders let us sample what we were about to buy, except for things that were prepackaged, like the strawberries. The ginger was stronger than I expected, and he mimicked the 'whoa' sound I made with a laugh.

I have developed a strong appreciation for people who visit a country without knowing the language, it's difficult. Luckily the venders and waiters we came across had a good sense of humor about it and were very patient and helpful. Some seemed to enjoy the chance to practice their English with us, and for some others we found it easier to communicate in Spanish, although one waiter first switched to Italian when we obviously didn't understand German.

Other people were at least completely bilingual, and I'm sure this is a great asset to any employer. The hotel staff were fluent in both, as well as the every grocery store clerk we bought from, and the waiters at the higher-end restaurants. Nurnberg hosts a lot of fairs and conventions, so presumably they see a lot of English-speaking businessmen all year round.

Things I learned at the Shop today...

Today was another day of typical Scottish weather. Sunny in the morning, then a drizzle, then sunny from 11-1. Then a rainstorm that lasted about 20 minutes, followed by sun, followed by rain, then sun, then around 3:30 drizzle to rain to snow? to rain to sun.

Apparently England is having a lot of flooding problems this week, and there is some big storm approaching Scotland soon. But, as the storm has been predicted for several days now and has yet to come, 'it's those English metereologists who hate Scotland and want to give us bad weather'.

Hm, maybe.

I really like how the Scottish people I know say "idear".
Apparently the subjunctive is a pretty American constructive ('I wish I were a rich man')

After months of complaining to the head office about our lack of hangers, we finally got a set of 60 at the Shop. This was cause for much celebration, and now you can hardly browse through the ladies' tops there are so many on the racks.


No entries until next week, for reasons I won't divulge online. Take care until then.

Fairtrade Fortnight

The Fairtrade Fortnight is a two-week period all throughout the UK to raise awareness about fairtrade products and issues. It started February 25th and extends to March 8, I think. I haven't heard too much about goings-on, the university fairtrade group had a kickoff party featuring food made entirely of fairtrade ingredients. After Mass at the church I go to, there is always fairtrade coffee and tea, and this past Sunday the local MP (Member of Parliament), Nigel Griffiths, came to talk to the parishoners, especially to hear economics/fairtrade concerns.

A few stores have advertised that they have such-and-such fairtrade products, but I think mostly it is a period in which individuals try to put pressure on supermarkets to supply more fairtrade food, and when the local governments vow to support (or renew support for) developing nations.


Also, people actually use the word "fortnight" in everyday speech. "My tutorial meets fortnightly." "I went to Stirling about a fortnight ago." So on. Amazing!

a Tuesday by any other name

Yesterday had many names. Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras.

But Shrove Tuesday? Pancake Day?
The latter two have nothing to do with the former two, apparently it is around now that a farmer's flour might start to go bad... and what do you make when you need to use up your flour but pancakes? And now it's just an excuse to get together with your friends and have breakfast for dinner.

I learned that there aren't really any summer camps in the UK, not overnight camps. I figured they were a fairly universal thing for kids.


Super Tuesday.
During the coffee break in my Atomic & Molecular Physics class yesterday, we had a much more animated discussion about the Super Tuesday primaries than we did about atomic orbitals... I think the lecturer was the only other American there, and though the elections are not something I've heard discussed in dinner table conversation recently, I'm still surprised at how informed most students seem to be about the American elections.
That said, given their knowledge of the candidates, there are still many fine distinctions I need to make clear: the difference between spring primaries and the November elections, that Republican and Democrat primaries are seperate, and that other elections will occur alongside the Presidential one.

Still you must admit it's impressive.

Punctuation

I'm sure most of you have heard of the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, which is all about punctuation. It's really pretty informative and entertaining at the same time, which is not something I expected from a grammar book. I read it about a week ago, and was struck by the amount of British examples... which of course makes sense, as Truss is British and would approach punctuation from a British view.

There were a few times, okay, there were many, in which she made a lot of statements I didn't agree with, then at the end of several pages wrote, "Of course, if you are in America, _____." Which, perhaps, struck me even more. It wasn't that she was incorrect, we actually have different rules of punctuation. Different spellings I can understand in a way, but the placement of punctuation?

I can't expound upon the differences here, but I do wonder what the American English versions of the book--if such exists--do about those things.

I also learned that we call punctuation marks by different names. Why? Beyond me. Still the comma , the semi-colon ; and the colon : but the rest...

British - Symbol - American
-full stop . period
-query ? question mark ---okay, so they use "question mark" too, but also "query"
-bracket ( ) parenthesis
-square bracket [ ] bracket
- that funny bracket { } has different names but I forget what they are
-inverted commas ' ' used for most speech
- " " not always called quotation marks
-stroke / slash ---this one is my favorite. Is the \ backstroke?

The things you take for granted.

The past few days I've been on an absolute brainstorm of UK-US differences.
I can't believe I've never mentioned any of this before.

The adjective "dear" is used to mean "expensive". Often at the shop the comment will go along the lines of: "I marked this jacket at five quid, but is that too dear?"

Putting maple syrup on anything is pretty much unheard of, and probably more American than peanut butter or the two-party political system.

On my derive last weekend I went through an entire pair of AA batteries for my camera. When I mentioned this to a Scottish friend, he asked why I didn't use rechargable batteries. I tried to explain why buying UK electronic products is a little silly, but I think most people don't know that electric plugs are shaped differently in different parts of the world. I know I didn't.

The European way to write dates is date/month/year, so you would read today at "the 26th of January, 2008", rather than month/date/year ("January 26th, 2008").
So someone looking at my driver's license will assume that because I'm born on an eleventh, I'm actually born in November.
This is part of why I really hate getting carded. No one can resist expressing confusion/distaste/amusement at my driver's licence.

The calendars I've seen here start the week on Monday and run through Sunday, so the weekend is at one end rather than thought of as "book-ending" the week. Something I'm used to, but when British friends try to read my monthly calendar, which is American, they've gotten dates wrong. Another thing most people assume is the same everywhere, although I knew that continential Europe treated Monday as the start of the week.

Picked-up pennies are still lucky here, but only if you pass it along to someone else. Only Americans frown if the penny's heads-down. (And yes, a 1p coin is still called a penny.)

Yesterday I saw a one-pound bank note.
Seriously.
It confused me. Until yesterday all the banknotes I've ever seen have been fivers and up, and the pound coin and two-pound coin prevail. I'm not sure that UK is the right setting for a one-pound note, just as the Sacajawea one-dollar coins never caught on in the States.
It's a good question: what cultural differences lead to those distinctions?

A set of new banknotes were released recently, all more brightly coloured than the previous ones. From an American point of view, anything that is not off-white and dark green looks a little bit fake, but these were just too colourful, and I've heard them derided as looking "like Euros!"

If something costs $1.50, I think we would usually say it costs "One-fifty", but at the shop I've found that is understood but not common to say. Rather it would be "one pound fifty".

Also, the different coins are not given names, other than the penny. Where America has the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter, the British have the penny, and then 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, and 50p coins. Not to mention the one-pound and two-pound coins.
Suddenly I understand why Mr. Weasely cannot figure out Muggle money.
Now imagine being in UK before the adoption of the decimal system, during which there were 240p to the pound.
My imagination does not stretch that far. But that was as recent at 1971 or so.

I was asked how much a quarter was. On several occasions.
Once I made mention of paying a dime, and that was not understood.
The things you take for granted.

the things you never knew you never knew

Recently I've been thinking of a lot of things that have since become normal but I realise do strike as very different.
In the UK, there is no such thing as jaywalking. Out walking with a group of Brits, I have on several occasions been asked, "Is it true that in America it's against the law to cross the street when you're not supposed to?"

I guess when you think about, if that's how you've always had it then you don't think about it. But for us, we have rules about when you're not allowed to cross the same way you have the "right of way", or more accurately the "necessity to yield". Still I think most people have the impression that jaywalking is enforced when I have never heard of anyone actually being fined for such an action.

I have on several occasions been asked, "Why does America have so many stop signs?"
Until those moments I forget that a stop sign is a rare sight on British streets. They just know to stop or not to stop, depending. Many intersections that might be governed by stop signs in America are replaced by the roundabout.
I hate roundabouts.

A lot of things are not as refrigerated than at home. Grocery store eggs are typically located near the milk and cheese, but on the opposite side of the aisle where they are not refrigerated. You would not believe how often I see unrefrigerated margarine and milk, for that matter.

I was once asked, "But I thought Americans didn't drink tea?"
I was once told, "Americans don't understand how to make tea." I think that if your standard of tea is so low it requires the universal addition of milk then you can't judge. Not to sound judgmental myself, of course.
The electric kettle is a bit of a strange invention, if you ask me.

I had haggis for the fifth time tonight!
Several times I have heard with surprise, "Wait, you don't have haggis is America?"
Once I was asked if I knew what a baked potato was.
Several times I have been confronted with foods cooked "American style" and they never taste right.
I have learned to stay away from ketchup this side of the ocean.

Sultanas are raisins.

Yes, Virginia, there is "snow" in Scotland.

Just when I thought I'd figured out Edinburgh weather patterns, I am thrown for a loop. Yesterday had a high of 12C (about 53F) and was sunny and glorious, until some nasty rain in the late afternoon. This morning started just over freezing and never rose higher, but the promise of sun I saw walking towards breakfast changed into big fat snowflakes by the time I walked down to KB for my morning lecture.

During this walk the snow changed to icy sleet-like drops, then rain, then stopped completely by the time I made it to the physics building. So I actually walked in the worst half-hour possible. It drizzled a little bit this afternoon; the rain drops changed into snowflakes and then back again.

Brilliant.


This reminds me of a poster by the JCMB library, advertising need-based scholarship money. Today was not the first time I saw it, I just haven't mentioned it until now. I think it resonates with me because the phrase is so short and so profoundly Scottish:
"Clever but skint?"
Roughly translated, this means "Smart but broke?", yet has a much better ring. Every time I see it I marvel. Perhaps other phrases don't sound as good as in American English, but this one "clever but skint?" is a work of art.

more elections

Just as I was thinking about the response to the American primaries here, I browsed Washingtonpost.com this morning and found an article on the world response. U.S. Political Drama Compels -- and Baffles
Of course, these sorts of articles are difficult to generalise from, for one thing the number of interviews sounds very few, but this article hardly mentions the Republican candidates at all. Is this a fact of the world attention on the elections, or of reporting bias?


-Overused word: "unimpressed".
-gammon for ham. Not sure I've ever heard a British person call food 'ham'
-fussed, usually "not fussed"---not concerned, not worried about
-sussed. Suspicious of, surmise that

Seven Hills of Edinburgh

First, and most importantly, I added a few new photos to my album. Hooray!

On Friday I took a hiking study break. Sort-of hiking. It took much longer to get to Calton Hill, on the east end of Princes St, than it did to climb the hill. At the top is the unfinished National Monument, dedicated to those fallen in the Napoleonic Wars. (The actual road the hill is on is aptly named Waterloo Place.) There's the Nelson Monument, and a few other buildings I'm less sure about. I was absolutely fascinated by a set of columns on the very top of the hill.

Another quick walk, this time through an old residential area and past the Scottish Parliament building, brought me to Holyrood Park. Rather than climb Arthur's Seat, as Ive done every single time I've gone climbing, I went up the Salisbury Crags, which curve around the west/NW side of Arthur's Seat. A short hike, but tougher than I thought it would be, especially with the wind!


You might think that having been here for three months I would no longer be surprised by language differences, but I found a new one last night. Shirts are called different things here, and the whole time I never knew---even working at CHSS I haven't been able to figure this one out.
I think "tops" are usually dressy tops. A "shirt" is a button-down shirt, but I suppose t-shirt is still a t-shirt. How "blouse" fits in here, and what one would call a normal shirt, I have no idea.

I also like the phrasing one uses to go over to someone else's house/flat/home/room/etc. Rather than specify what type of place it is, you drop the object entirely. So I might say,
"I'm going to spend Christmas at Flora's." Flora's what? It doesn't matter.
"Zach is coming over to mine to revise maths." What is mine? Doesn't matter.
Ambiguous, yes, but also eliminates confusion on what to say.

Fire Regulations

So far I have noted a huge difference in the treatment of fire safety here. Fire exits are marked differently, typically a green sign with a running man and a directional arrow to point towards the exit, rather than the US red light "EXIT" signs from the ceiling. Long hallways, like my corridor, are split by a fire door halfway down, and most doors are hinged to close unless propped open. Furthermore, leaving a door propped open will result in a verbal warning from a warden here.

The fire alarms are tested once a week in public areas and are so sensitive that in the flats, even steam will set off the fire alarm unless the windows are opened to ventillate the air. On the other hand, I have no idea where the closest fire hydrants are... there are probably plenty and I just haven't noticed them.

Today I was in my maths lecture when we heard a very high-pitched whining. The professor paused in the middle of his explanation of Bessel functions, and said, "I assume that's just a drill. Well, we'll move on, shall we?" Wow.
He continued to talk about Bessel functions for a minute more, with no one in the lecture theatre paying attention. Finally, he put down his chalk and said, "well, okay, maybe we should participate in the drill too, so I'll leave this here for today. If you want a copy of the notes I'll leave them by the teaching office later this afternoon." The students took their collective time packing up before leaving, and we all stopped to pick up copies of the notes on our way out. The crowd of students, from our class and others, stood next to the building's front doors, which I am pretty sure is not a fire safety regulation. In fact, most of it was against regulations.

Recently I've been exploring all those words that are spelled differently between British and American English.
-"Fetal" gets turned into "foetal". A lot of double-vowels.
-grey
-colour, honour, neighbour, etc.
-realise, civilise, etc. Nothing has a "zed", pretty much.
Turning my language default to British English helps catch a lot of these.

-Oh, and "cell phones" are "mobiles", which I can't even pronounce properly.
-when you want to call someone, you phone them. I never remember that one.
-"well" can be used to mean "very". So, "He was well upset."

Last night I went to Laserquest (like Laser Tag) in a competition between Phys Soc and Maths Soc. We all were able to play two games... and while I was awful (ranked 15th out of 18 in both games) I had a lot of fun. The packs had sensors on the back, chest, shoulders, and lasergun, but were designed for use by people much larger than myself, so the too-broad shoulders clipped walls as I turned corners. I'd like to think that at least I didn't get in the way of my fellow team members, but I literally ran into so many that I'm not sure that's the case either... oh well. PhysSoc won anyway! And it was just an amazingly fun evening.

A lot of people have taken it upon themselves to educate me in terms of British comedy. Mostly this means watching old John Cleese sitcoms, along the lines of "Fawlty Towers".

Couldn't be bothered.

Yesterday at CHSS I steamed things for close to three hours, with frequent breaks for coffee, biscuits, and refilling the hot water supply. If I actually worked retail, I would have been upset at steaming clothing for such a long time, but as it's volunteer work I find I don't mind. A lot of things are like that. (Also, steaming trousers or skirts is fine, but I dislike steaming blouses/shirts. A lot.)

Today I did a lot of odd jobs. I combed the bookshelves looking for a replacement book for a boxed set of Wilson Smith (?) novels. I took some items out from the front (culling?). I spent a long time choosing outfits for the mannequins, and I did up the front window! Again, something I would not have enjoyed quite so much had I been paid.

It's nice working in that shop. The women are definitely genuinely Scottish. They say a lot of very Scottish things, and especially on the phone I can't understand them nearly so well. I think they tone it down when talking to me, and I have to censor my own Americanisms out because mostly I've had to rephrase when I do use them.
-to ken is to know, as in "You ken what I mean."
-a hen is a familiar word for a woman. It can be used as a term of endearment, today I was told, "Would you like a cuppa, my hen?". Or you can have a night out with the hens, with the girlfriends.

Also, the Assistant Manager yesterday asked me if I had a favorite pub. That was a little awkward, I don't think that question would be asked back home by a supervisor so much older.

-Braces are suspenders. Suspenders are garters. Garters are used for knee socks.
...Important information when you want the men's product used to hold up trousers. Don't ask a group of guys if they have suspenders you can borrow, only those familiar with the American usage won't snigger/act offended.
-"Consolidants" are adhesives? I think?
-the famous Egyptian pharoah Tutankamun is pronounced "too-tank-ham-OON"
-status as "state-us"

Scottish soil is extremely acidic and breaks artefacts down rapidly, so it is difficult to find remains of the past. There are exceptions to this, of course, most notably peat bogs. It is taken for granted that everyone in the class has firsthand experience with peat bogs.
I am learning more about the Scottish climate through Archaeology class than I ever expected. Don't think it rivals what I know about VA, but it's still quite a bit.

Other common words: pile (a lot of stuff), bit (thingy, or in "wee bit"), ehm (umm), squiggly (especially "squiggly bits"), squashed, ace (good).

One of my favorite phrases: "Can't be bothered." It means "I just don't want to, I don't feel like it."
"I was meant to do my maths work, but I couldn't be bothered."
"She couldn't be bothered to eat dinner with me."
This phrase is going to stick.

Notes on Maths

Math is one of those things that is luckily universal, we all use the same Arabic numerals and Greek symbols. So when there are differences in my maths class, I am always surprised. Can you tell I am avoiding doing my maths problem set right now.

Also, no fear, I don't expect non-science-y people to be bothered by these words.

I have already mentioned the word "maths" and how Fourier is pronounced "furrier" rather than the (correct) French way. Cosine, shortened to "cos", is usually said in America in a similar way to "coast" without the T, but here it's "cosh" rhymes with "posh". Confusing because there is another trigonometic function called the hyperbolic cosine shortened to "cosh" which is said in that same, rhymes-with-posh, way in America... but I don't know what they would call it here.

When we are working in groups in Tutorials, and I explain how I solved a set of functions, usually I get blank stares. Not because the math I use is any different or because my peers are slow, but because of the different phrases used. As an example, "divided by" or "over", like "3/8 is three over eight" is more usually said "three upon eight" but I can never remember to said it that way.

Instead of "zero" or "oh" the number 0 is "naught". Right. Fortunately, unlike other places, I think a million is still 1,000,000. A vector (one- or multi-dimensional direction) I have always seen written with an arrow over the symbol, or emboldened in texts, but here it is much more common to write the arrow under the symbol. Something I have never before seen.
Another thing I'd never seen: If showing the integral of a function, usually it looks like S f(x) dx. (S is meant to be the integrand.) More often I see S dx f(x), which is fine, but confusing.
And when writing an exponential, rather than the natural e with its power written smaller above it, or e^(2*pi*x), it is written exp(2*pi*x).

More things have "unity". Also the phrase "normal modes" is used quite frequently and I'm not exactly sure to what it refers, but it's not the same as "nodes" nor as "mode of freedom", another concept with which I am familiar.

And of course there are spelling differences like normalise. You want me to do what to that function?

Speaking of which, I will get back to my homework now.