Part the eighth—Cars
Oct. 15th, 2004 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistCars were pretty much the first thing that I noticed when I got to England. I watched them zoom around when the plane was landing, and the first thing I did on leaving the building was go to the parking lot (or "car park") and get in Andrew's dad's car.
He said he was going to put my suitcase in the boot and I was struck by the oddness of the word, even though I knew what he was talking about. People actually say that sort of thing? I thought it was just something from movies ...
I opened the back door and sat down. My brain was alarmed when a casual glance revealed no steering wheel visible between the front seats. I sit on the right side of cars by habit (somehow in my family it evolved that I always sat there and my brother always sat on the left side) and I know what the view from that half of the back seat looks like. I couldn't help peeking around to see the steering wheel and assorted car-driving instruments in front of me. There they were, all normal-looking, as if there was nothing exceptional about them all being on the wrong side of the car.
I was on to their game; I pretended it was completely normal, too. Steering wheels aren't the only thing that can be nonchalant. I'm amazingly knowledgeable!, I told myself, For an American ...
As we drove, I watched the cars go by my window. I was fairly sure I wasn't on the same planet as the one from which my plane had taken off. There shouldn't be cars right outside my window! And they all seemed to be going so fast.
I still think they're fast, and I'm not sure if it's because the cars tend to be small (so the same amount of speed feels greater), or because they're close together (lanes are smaller, too) or just because they're all going fast. Also, I think it feels crazy to me because everything looks backwards to me and so I'm amazed these people aren't suffering from similar disorientation and crashing their cars.
Many of the roads here pre-date cars (when Andrew's dad was driving us from Manchester to his house, he told me that the road we were on was built by the Romans), so they're not made for several lanes of cars. And admittedly, sometimes it does seem that the semis (or waggons, as I hear them called here) are going to crush your car as you go past them, but I remain uncrushed.
I don't know if narrowness of roads really affects anyone's car-driving or -buying, but I do know that cars here tend to be smaller than cars in the states. A "normal" sedan-type car like the Taurus my parents had is not obscenely out of place here, but does seem noticably bulky. SUVs like the Explorer my parents traded their Taurus for seem beastly huge things. The same is true of minivans; I've seen one or two of those. The cars are built smaller and lighter than I'm used to. The engines aren't as powerful either; you can tell just from listening to them. Some sound like they'd really be more suited to run a vacuum cleaner.
The biggest impact cars have on my life these days is trying to run me over as I cross the street. I assist them by forgetting which side of the road to look at first. Without even noticing, I was used to looking left first, because that's the direction of the oncoming traffic in the lane I'll cross first. (I suppose revelations like this are why travel is good for you.) Doing that now will give me a false sense of security, so a few times I've taken a couple steps into the street before realizing that a car was about to hit me from the neglected right side. It's not that I don't look to the right, it's that my brain is used to thinking of cars there as being the secondary rather than the immediate worry.
It's even more obvious when I use my ears more than my eyes to judge, which I often do; it's a habit picked up due to my lack of vision. If I'm halfway across a street and I hear a car coming towards me from the left, I know without even thinking that I'll be okay because it'll pass behind me ... in America! Here, I'm right in its way, and it often takes me a second to realize this and get out of its way. Similarly, if I hear a car on my right, I have to remember that that's not a good time to start crossing the road.
(Speaking of crossing the road, what I'm used to calling a crosswalk—the lines, either parallel or perpendicular to the sidewalk, that show you where to walk across the street—is called a "zebra crossing" here. That seems silly, but I suppose I can understand it, given the parallel strips of white alternating with the black road thing. Worse, though, "zebra" is pronounced "zeh-bra" instead of "zee-bra," and so the outlandishness of the name is increased by the strange sound of the word. Oh, and while I'm at it, sidewalks aren't even called sidewalks. They're called "pavement." This still throws me off.)
I've been exposed to enough British stuff now that my brain has given up on some of its old American ideas of what's normal ... but they haven't been replaced by new British ones. So just as I might stare at a word like "favour" and wonder Is that right? How is this word supposed to be spelled!, I now have no idea which side of the car should have the steering wheel or which side of the road cars should use. Andrew and I watched an American film today and I saw someone driving a car and thought My, doesn't that look odd with the steering wheel over there? And my reflexes have pretty much figured out which side of the road to pay attention to when I'm crossing it, so even if my brain's confused it's all right, because my brain doesn't enter into it.
My brain is confused, to be sure. A couple paragraphs ago, when I said that cars come from the left first in the US, I had to stop and think about that for a pathetic amount of time before I was sure I had it straight. Poor brain.
He said he was going to put my suitcase in the boot and I was struck by the oddness of the word, even though I knew what he was talking about. People actually say that sort of thing? I thought it was just something from movies ...
I opened the back door and sat down. My brain was alarmed when a casual glance revealed no steering wheel visible between the front seats. I sit on the right side of cars by habit (somehow in my family it evolved that I always sat there and my brother always sat on the left side) and I know what the view from that half of the back seat looks like. I couldn't help peeking around to see the steering wheel and assorted car-driving instruments in front of me. There they were, all normal-looking, as if there was nothing exceptional about them all being on the wrong side of the car.
I was on to their game; I pretended it was completely normal, too. Steering wheels aren't the only thing that can be nonchalant. I'm amazingly knowledgeable!, I told myself, For an American ...
As we drove, I watched the cars go by my window. I was fairly sure I wasn't on the same planet as the one from which my plane had taken off. There shouldn't be cars right outside my window! And they all seemed to be going so fast.
I still think they're fast, and I'm not sure if it's because the cars tend to be small (so the same amount of speed feels greater), or because they're close together (lanes are smaller, too) or just because they're all going fast. Also, I think it feels crazy to me because everything looks backwards to me and so I'm amazed these people aren't suffering from similar disorientation and crashing their cars.
Many of the roads here pre-date cars (when Andrew's dad was driving us from Manchester to his house, he told me that the road we were on was built by the Romans), so they're not made for several lanes of cars. And admittedly, sometimes it does seem that the semis (or waggons, as I hear them called here) are going to crush your car as you go past them, but I remain uncrushed.
I don't know if narrowness of roads really affects anyone's car-driving or -buying, but I do know that cars here tend to be smaller than cars in the states. A "normal" sedan-type car like the Taurus my parents had is not obscenely out of place here, but does seem noticably bulky. SUVs like the Explorer my parents traded their Taurus for seem beastly huge things. The same is true of minivans; I've seen one or two of those. The cars are built smaller and lighter than I'm used to. The engines aren't as powerful either; you can tell just from listening to them. Some sound like they'd really be more suited to run a vacuum cleaner.
The biggest impact cars have on my life these days is trying to run me over as I cross the street. I assist them by forgetting which side of the road to look at first. Without even noticing, I was used to looking left first, because that's the direction of the oncoming traffic in the lane I'll cross first. (I suppose revelations like this are why travel is good for you.) Doing that now will give me a false sense of security, so a few times I've taken a couple steps into the street before realizing that a car was about to hit me from the neglected right side. It's not that I don't look to the right, it's that my brain is used to thinking of cars there as being the secondary rather than the immediate worry.
It's even more obvious when I use my ears more than my eyes to judge, which I often do; it's a habit picked up due to my lack of vision. If I'm halfway across a street and I hear a car coming towards me from the left, I know without even thinking that I'll be okay because it'll pass behind me ... in America! Here, I'm right in its way, and it often takes me a second to realize this and get out of its way. Similarly, if I hear a car on my right, I have to remember that that's not a good time to start crossing the road.
(Speaking of crossing the road, what I'm used to calling a crosswalk—the lines, either parallel or perpendicular to the sidewalk, that show you where to walk across the street—is called a "zebra crossing" here. That seems silly, but I suppose I can understand it, given the parallel strips of white alternating with the black road thing. Worse, though, "zebra" is pronounced "zeh-bra" instead of "zee-bra," and so the outlandishness of the name is increased by the strange sound of the word. Oh, and while I'm at it, sidewalks aren't even called sidewalks. They're called "pavement." This still throws me off.)
I've been exposed to enough British stuff now that my brain has given up on some of its old American ideas of what's normal ... but they haven't been replaced by new British ones. So just as I might stare at a word like "favour" and wonder Is that right? How is this word supposed to be spelled!, I now have no idea which side of the car should have the steering wheel or which side of the road cars should use. Andrew and I watched an American film today and I saw someone driving a car and thought My, doesn't that look odd with the steering wheel over there? And my reflexes have pretty much figured out which side of the road to pay attention to when I'm crossing it, so even if my brain's confused it's all right, because my brain doesn't enter into it.
My brain is confused, to be sure. A couple paragraphs ago, when I said that cars come from the left first in the US, I had to stop and think about that for a pathetic amount of time before I was sure I had it straight. Poor brain.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 03:56 am (UTC)Sidewalks are made from concrete, not pavement. It's ludicrous to call them "pavements." They're not paved.
I've got a team of young American men who will be willing to attest that there's a hell of a lot of different between mixing concrete (SIDEWALKS) all summer long and mixing pavement (ROADS) all summer long.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 07:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 09:17 am (UTC)*looks again*
All concrete.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 03:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 07:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 09:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 09:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 04:29 am (UTC)similarly sarah's reaction at king's cross for the first time: "look at all the cute old cars!" "sarah, they're taxis..." "ah..."
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:28 am (UTC)I think I might have had a similar reaction to Sarah's upon first seeing the black cabs. Or maybe I just imagineed that.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 05:41 am (UTC)Having recently driven over there, I can confidently say it is all three.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 07:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 09:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:35 am (UTC)I read the first and third Hitch Hiker's books (the ones I could find in the library) when I was 12 or so, and didn't really get it. I read all four (is it four?) this summer, and I think having gained another decade of life experience helped, but I also recognized a lot of tiny things I don't think I would've understood before I came to England.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 08:41 am (UTC)Have to relate this story:
A friend of mine was in Scotland, driving on a one-lane road. As he crested a small rise, there was another car. Being from the U.S., he swerved over to the right, as the other driver swerved left. They managed to screech to a stop about a foot apart.
They backed up, and continued on their way.
A short while later, the same rise, going the other direction. Same car. This time he swerves left. The other driver swerves right. Screech - a foot apart.
I suspect there was much muttering, "$#%#(* Yanks!!!"
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 10:33 am (UTC)Guam had a lot of Japanese tourists, and while they were good about keeping right on the roads, they more often than not would forget when going into a parking lot and enter on the left, which was kind of disconcerting when someone else was pulling out at the same time.
My mom worked for the British Nonferrous Metals Research Association as a typist, and did pretty well picking up British spellings (-ise, -our, etc.) but since they dealt exclusively with nonferrous metals she'd run into "aluminium" a lot, and she never quite got used to that one. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:44 am (UTC)For some reason, my groggy brain read "Nonferrous" as "Notorious." That'd be a cool name. It's a pretty cool name anyway, the British Nonferrous Metals Research Association. I probably would be all right using (more or less) just British spellings but all my American friends go " 'Realise'?! 'Centre'?! What happened to you, Holly?!" And I don't want to be similarly confused when I go back, so I've tried not to really assimilate myself to these strange spellings yet. Spelling I can be somewhat deliberate, though; it'll be the spoken idiosyncracies that'll probably confuse people when I get back. Already, I used "dodgy" when I was talking to my mom on the phone and she commented on it; she'd never heard that before and didn't know what I was talking about. Everybody should know "dodgy", it's a useful word!
Sorry, I'll leave you alone now.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 11:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-15 12:14 pm (UTC)a scheme
Date: 2004-10-18 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-19 03:23 am (UTC)And I like your scheme. This isn't the first time someone's told me that things like what I'm writing here would be suitable for publication, and that bewilders me. But, again, in a nice way.