This brought to you by Andrew saying he left a glass of water for me on the side

[cosmolinguist]

In many ways I'm envious of the British variant of our fair language; I don't think we have such a good word for wellies, or anything quite like faffing about. I like trainers better than any of the words I grew up with for such shoes.

But it's just not worth it. The thing in the kitchen, for which I use the perfectly good word counter, is here called the top¹ ... or the side. <sup>2

1</sup> Which I can almost see because I could call it a countertop without getting weird looks.

² Which not only makes no sense (except maybe from sideboard?) but is also not allowed to be in any way equivalent to the top of anything.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I know I'm really no kind of expert on the Englishes in the same way I'm no expert on all of America, though everybody asks me here about how things are in America and I feel I'm sure to disappoint by being able to tell them only of my experience, which is a Midwest farmer's daughter who went to a cow college.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

I still get people asking me about stuff like 'what do Americans think of Obama' or whatever and I'm like er I've lived here for nearly 10 years I dunno! It's because nothing can kill a Midwest accent, so I think I sound like I just got off the boat!

[cosmolinguist]

The last sentence made me laugh a lot. But I was always, and am increasingly often the longer I stay here, asked if I am Canadian. Which seems to me a fair balance of English and Minnesoooo-dah. Also seems better than being from the most insane country in the world.

Though yesterday somebody asked if I was Greek. Don't know where that came from. Besides, despite the dark hair, I'm Scandinavian-pasty.