On the Vagaries of American English

1. On the Vagaries of American English Johanna E. Katchen (柯安娜)National Tsing Hua University (國立清華大學外語系)katchen@mx.nthu.edu.tw http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen/

2. The Teacher’s Role • We teach General American English, but we cannot teach everything • We teach grammar but speakers sometimes speak ungrammatically • New vocabulary comes into a language every day • Best we can do is teach strategies for coping

3. New Concepts, New Words • English has more than three times as many words as most other languages • Synonyms for many shades of meaning • Prostituteis a general term for the occupation. What about call girl (high class, expensive), hooker (Neg. low class, solicits publicly or in red light district), whore (Neg. sex with many, maybe for money) • Male prostitute, gigolofor males

4. Sources of Vocabulary • Our most common words are from Germanic: family members, numbers, body parts, ordinary nouns (e.g., door, water) and verbs (e.g., eat, drink, sleep) • The grammar of English is also Germanic • Almost all functions words (pronouns, auxiliaries, conjunctions, adverbs) are Germanic

5. English has borrowed from the Scandinavian languages (the Viking Age) common words like window, sky, skin, anger, take, give • As a result of the Norman Conquest, English borrowed from French words from many fields, from law (e.g., arson, adultery, coroner) through fashion (e.g., blue, sapphire, veil)

6. Blame the French for giving us totally different words for the meat on the table compared with the live animal, e.g., Germanic cow, swine, sheep, deer but from French beef, pork, mutton, venison • Baugh and Cable claim that as many as 10,000 words entered English between 1066 and 1500, and about three-quarters of the words remain.

7. English has used Latin as a source al through its history, especially for more abstract terms. • Greek has been the basis for much scientific terminology (e.g., pneumonia, thermometer). • Other words from all over the world have become English words, among them in recent decades: apartheid (Afrikaans, South Africa) and tsunami (Japanese).

8. When explorers going to new lands found new plants and animals and geographical features • Often they took the word the local people used and changed it to fit their own language, e.g., guava, banana, kangaroo. • New cultural artifacts, such as American Indian wigwam, papoose.

9. The Christianization of England brought in hundreds of words from Latin, both for concrete (e.g., candle, chalice) and abstract (e.g., creed) nouns and verbs such as pray • Also the formation of new words on native Germanic roots (e.g., gospel, Easter, Holy Ghost).

10. During the Renaissance, English borrowed Italian words for aspects of art, architecture and music. • More recently, wars and conflict have caused English to borrow words (e.g., burqa/burkha, an outer garment worn by Muslim women to cover the body completely) or make new words from native sources, (e.g., ethnic cleansing).

11. Peaks of technology contribute to growth of vocabulary, current computer and digital age, e.g., digit has been around for some time, but digital has just come into general use in the past few years with digital cameras • New words: wi-fi, sim card, YouTube

12. When new names are created, ordinary spaces between words may be eliminated: PowerPoint, FrontPage, YouTube. • Change the category of a word: the company Google, now the verb to google, meaning to use Google to search for a person or thing.

13. Additional Meanings • Words like cell and mobile have been in English with other meanings (e.g., skin cell, prison cell, upwardly mobile) for a long time, but now they also refer to phones. • Words like windows and mouse have become more common in their computer contexts than in their household contexts.

14. An Example of Additional Meanings • You have just arrived in the USA and are having a great time with your host family. The mother asks you to stop off on your way home to pick up two pounds of hamburger. Where would you go to complete this errand? Would you go to McDonalds or to a supermarket?

15. To many people hamburgers are sandwiches—meat with bread • To many housewives hamburgers mean just the cooked meat patties, and this is why supermarkets also sell hamburger buns—the bread that goes around a hamburger. • Hamburger as a mass noun, as in two pounds of hamburger, refers to ground beef (in some varieties minced beef)

16. We usually tell students that dry and wet are antonyms • What about dry wine, dry toast, dry wit, and the idiom cut and dried? • One can have instead (as antonyms) sweet wine and buttered toast

17. A synonym for dry wit might be sardonic wit • Cut and dried may have described a stage in tobacco production (opposite of wet), but the total idiom means decided beforehand

18. Jargon • All languages have jargon specific to certain contexts. • English teachers talk about communicative competence, task-based instruction, the affective filter, i + 1 • Most of us are not familiar with specialized vocabulary outside our own professions and interests even in our first language,

19. We might pick up jargon of other fields through spouses and friends—or editing scientific English and teaching ESP. • We expand our vocabulary into these fields when we need it, and even just a basic foundation in a language allows us to add and use new vocabulary.

20. Examples of Jargon—Household Items • Do you know all these English words? • Screwdriver • Wrench • Pliers • Plunger • Wheelbarrow

21. What’s the difference between dough and batter? • What’s the difference between a spice and an herb? • When might you need to use a snake (it’s not the animal)?

22. Match the words with the food with which they are most usually associated. • Colander a. cake batter • Strainer b. noodles • Spatula c. adding flour to dough or batter • Wisk d. adding flour or corn starch to hot liquid or beating eggs • Sifter e. lemons or oranges to make juice

23. Kitchen Utensils

24. How do we learn these words in L1? • Boys learn from fathers, girls from mothers. • We learn these words in the old apprentice way—we watch and observe. • Eventually, we may be given some simple task and, if we show promise and have interest, we may become masters.

25. How do we learn these words in L2? • If one goes to France to study cooking, one works in the kitchen and hears the French of the kitchen. • Talk and interact with L2 speakers, cook together, talk about motorcycles, etc. • For the rest of us, specialized ELT dictionaries, often with pictures.

27. Acronyms • Do you have ESP? To most Americans this means extra sensory perception, the ability to see or sense what is unseen to most people. • It is our acronym jargon that has ELT, ESL, EFL, EAP, GEPT, TOEIC and organizations like ETA, PALT, MELTA, FEELTA

28. The English language is full of acronyms, with more coming in every day. • In Taiwan even those with minimal English know USA, IBM, MIT, and TSMC. • If they have an interest in politics or business, they may belong to the KMT or DPP and have discussions on the WTO, UN, and WHO, and may even aspire to become a CEO and own a BMW.

29. If they have cable TV, Papa may watch an NBA game on ESPN, followed by the news on CNN • Junior watches CSI on AXN and then MTV • Mama likes to watch movies on HBO • If all that is boring, they can watch a DVD.

30. Computer users worry about the cost of ADSL and whether they have enough CPU. • Teachers worry about the latest decision of the MOE while their students have sleepless nights over the TOEFL. • What is a CD? If you listen to music, it is a compact disk, but if you are an investor, it is a certificate of deposit.

31. Acronym Jargon • As with jargon, each profession or area of interest has its acronyms. • We may know IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) • Many of the general guidelines it follows were formulated by IRPA (the International Radiation Protection Association)

32. Most of us are not familiar with the acronym IRPA or other from the field • When new nuclear facilities are built, in order to minimize the potential danger to the public, they calculate radiation dose rates following the ALARA principle (as low as reasonably achievable). • As with other jargon, we learn it when we need it.

33. Words from Immigrant Groups—Food Words • What kind of cheese goes on pizza? • What kind goes on pasta dishes (spaghetti)? • What’s the difference among these kinds of pasta: spaghetti, fettucini, macaroni,penne,androtini? • You go to the market or a restaurant, see something new, try it and find out.

34. Italian food has been popular in the USA, so many food terms are used, such as words for many kinds of cheeses, pasta, salami—and coffee. • Thanks to the marketing of Starbucks and their competitors, terms like expresso, capucchino, and latte have spread around the world. And we all know pizzaand lasagne.

35. Often food words are also regional. • For example, in the US South one is more likely to find various sorts of Mexican food on offer, as well as more Spanish words for all sorts of things. • The greater the number of people who speak a language in a region, the more likely their words will come into more general use. • Mexican restaurants (many not all that authentic) can be found all over the US, and virtually all Americans know what burritos, tacos, nachos, and enchiladas are.

36. In Pennsylvania nearly everyone is familiar with halupkies (ground beef/pork with rice and spices wrapped in cabbage leaves and steamed in tomato sauce) • We also know pierogies (similar to Chinese dumplings but filled most often with mashed potatoes or grated cabbage and then heated with butter and fried onions) • We even have pierogi/pirohy sales at the local church on Fridays.

37. In other regions of the USA as well as in other parts of the world, one would find different combinations of foods, both indigenous and from immigrant groups. • You might find sushi, tiramisu, tofu, moussaka, baklava, feta, hommus, tabbouli, kolbasa, knockwurst, sauerkraut, jambalaya

38. Levels of Formality • All languages can express ranges of formality. • In Chinese, saying去洗手間is more polite that saying 上廁所. • English has a rest room where one doesn’t rest, a bathroom where one does not always take a bath, and the more direct but slightly less polite toilet, which can also refer to the fixture itself.

39. There are additional terms appropriate for medical usage; to the doctor or in polite company one talks about a bowel movement • The toddler makes poo poo or kaka; in primary school the process may be called Number Two • The working class man takes a shit

40. Taboo and Euphemism • All languages have their taboo words. • For English one must be careful with words for sexual activities, toilet activities, and aspects of religion. • The most vulgar words in the language, those used for cursing, or swearing oaths in the case of religion, come from these three areas.

41. Death is another area which, though not actually being taboo, often requires politeness to grieving relatives. • Ordinarily, we might mention that someone died, but in newspaper obituaries we read that Mrs. Smith passed away and is referred to as the deceased. • Instead of bury, we may read laid to rest.

42. Coffin, a simple box, is replaced by casket, a more elegant and more expensive box. • Perhaps in order to mock death, people have made up all sorts of idioms for to die (e.g., kick the bucket, bite the dust) or be dead (e.g., pushing up daisies, six feet under).

43. Idiomatic Expressions • Idiomatic expressions have more uses than just euphemism. • Some may be proverbs or famous quotations: Let sleeping dogs lie; A fool and his money are soon parted. • There are so many possibilities and so many books explaining idioms already written. • These expressions are also among the most creative and amusing aspects of a language.

44. Example: describing someone not very intelligent • At the beginning of the first Shrek movie, there is a song, and within the song we hear ain’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree, ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. • Both bright and sharp can mean intelligent, and the idioms work on the double meanings.

45. Other idioms refer to something lacking: two sandwiches short of a picnic; nobody home upstairs • A crazy person might be described as nuts, not all there, got a screw loose. • Someone who is drunk might be described thus: he’sthree sheets to the wind, he tied one on, he got a snoot full.

46. Variation in Pronunciation • Taiwan students have difficulty understanding spoken English because they learn how to pronounce individual words • They have little practice listening to how ordinary people—not the careful speakers making ELT materials—elide their speech in ordinary conversation. • Elision often happens with auxiliary words, which are often contracted even in more careful speech.

47. dincha‘didn't you’ Dincha ever hear that one before? • hafta ‘have to’ I hafta get up town ta play da number before 7 o'clock! • gonna ‘going to’ You’re gonna get it! • We also hear amina‘I am going to’;kupula‘a couple of’; and even some more idiosyncratic elisions likegradz ‘garage’.

48. Many speakers of English who use nonstandard varieties may not pronounce “th” but instead use “t” and “d” and in I tink so, dis an’ dat. • Final consonants or consonant clusters may be eliminated or reduced, fast becoming fas’. • Regional accents can, of course, cause difficulties, especially if the person’s accent is rather strong.

49. Most educated speakers switch their regional accent to something closer to Standard English when speaking to people from outside their region or when speaking in contexts where their regional accent would be less appropriate. • Our students are more likely to encounter speakers who speak in a more standard way • An exchange student may hear more Standard English from his teachers but hear something incomprehensible from cafeteria staff.

50. Stress and intonation can also contribute to comprehension problems. • In the American South the stress on the word police may be put on the first syllable. • We are taught that the tone of a declarative sentence should drop at the end, and yet the feature of rising intonation continues to spread.