‘Divided By A Common Language’

A few humorous language ‘difficulties’ on WP prompted this ditty from me. A conversation about kilts and pants. And it wasn’t for the first time that comments with a fellow blogger took on a whole other meaning. Google doesn’t translate English to American or vice versa. Not that I know of.

 

Take a stroll on your sidewalk, my pavement,

Watch your ass or my arse on the kerb

Mind out for your trash and my rubbish

Our differences should not perturb

The fact that your fanny’s a bottom

While ours is a word I can’t say

And a name of a female or eejit

Irn Bru captured in ad for some days.

Your diapers are nappies, our trousers your pants,

Our pants are your underwear,

Your shit is our shite, but fuck is still fuck,

Good lord, it’s confusing, I swear!

You might wear a rubber, while I’d just erase,

And your fag’s not my cigarette,

Your sneakers are trainers, my randy your horny

Your buns are not iced/frosted as yet.

Your shag’s not my shag, cos ours copulates

While yours is a dance, I believe.

Your fries are my chips, your chips are my crisps

One language? Who would conceive?

I’ve been wasted; so touched by the pleasure,

Of words kindly said by a blogger.

On telling this truth she thought I was pished/pissed

Or high. It’s becoming a bugger

That words that I say with a smile and a nod

May be viewed with a frown or with glee,

While my reading here still guesses at some

Expressions not heard on TV.

I love it. It’s charming. It’s funny.

Like a joke that no one has used,

Except when we’re chatting and we each say a phrase

That leaves the other aghast, flummoxed/confused.

I’m thinking that we might need translations

To pass off the comments so jolly

A dictionary perhaps, in my boot or your trunk

Or maybe your cart or my trolley.

So before slagging off my sayings

Or I laugh at your craziest of phrase,

It might just be that like you, like me,

There are differences in all of our ways.

So Slainte to the Irish, the English,

Canadians, Scots, Aussies, the Welsh,

To the US of A and whose other Anglais

Is confused by our distinct vocal cords.

I’m all for the accents, the flavour,

The taste of a word said in prose

Or poesy fine, straight or in rhyme,

Though it helps if we sort out our codes. (zip or post)

 

 

Bear in mind when watching this that for us, well for me and my crew, this is not a word we would use in common parlance unless in the unlikely event that we met some female by this name. Or maybe, occasionally, if we were humorously calling someone an eejit/idiot/tosser.

On first hearing it in my living room, with some of my kids there, I was speechless. As were they. Then we fell about laughing. It was the talk of the place afterwards, everyone asking everyone else if they’d seen the new Irn Bru advert. Doesn’t take much to make us laugh! And Irn Bru’s very tasty too. Although it still wouldn’t persuade me to call any wean Fanny.