As an Englishman who moved to the US successful 2006 and became a national a fewer years later, I person been done assorted stages of homesickness. There are the evident forms—the lack of friends, household and places. For a while, I gravely missed pubs and British beer, but present America brews arguably amended ales than my homeland.
I utilized to miss watching cricket—but there’s an app for that now. I erstwhile pined for the easiness of taking agelong walks acknowledgment to Britain’s vast, intricate web of nationalist footpaths. Then I bought a location adjacent the Shawangunk Mountains successful New York’s Hudson Valley, wherever miles of trails person sated my yearning.
Recently, however, I’ve developed a caller strain of homesickness. I’ve started to miss the connection of my youth. You mightiness beryllium thinking: “I’m reasonably definite English is spoken connected some sides of the pond.”
But that’s not wholly true.
I’m referring to the aphorism—often misattributed to Winston Churchill—that the UK and US are 2 nations separated by a communal language. There exists a slew of words and phrases I cannot usage successful the beingness of astir Americans. Or astatine least, not if I privation to beryllium understood.
There exists a slew of words and phrases I cannot usage successful the beingness of astir Americans. Or astatine least, not if I privation to beryllium understood.That’s partially why, successful my archetypal 2 novels, Black Chalk and Grist Mill Road, I made not a azygous notation of the spot successful England wherever I was raised—the Medway Towns, situated 30 miles southeast of London. And nary of my characters hailed from the area. There was a clip erstwhile I couldn’t hold to flight from my hometown. But, arsenic my property has crept up, nostalgia has crept in.
By the clip I wrote my 3rd novel, The Rabbit Club, I felt the irresistible impulse to make a quality who hailed from my portion of the world, idiosyncratic who utilized the words I grew up hearing. So I invented aging British rockstar, Gerry McCain, pb singer/hellraiser of The Pale Fires.
Gerry “Gel” McCain comes from the largest of the Medway Towns, Chatham, which locals pronounce astir similar a azygous syllable, Chah’em. He’s an approximate transverse betwixt Ozzy Osbourne and Mick Jagger. (Jagger hails from Dartford, 20 miles up the roadworthy from wherever I was raised.)
Gel McCain calls everyone son oregon sunshine and speaks successful a substance of cockney rhyming slang and different dialectical words that person astir fallen retired of use, words similar jacksie, for example, meaning ass (anatomically speaking); helium calls different men geezers; alternatively of nothing and perfect, Gel says nuffink and perfick.
I americium 1 of those writers who perceive voices successful their heads, my characters speaking to me, each with their ain distinctive accents and code patterns. Also, I don’t similar to program my plots excessively heavy successful advance, overmuch preferring to “tune in” to those voices, waiting to spot wherever they take to instrumentality me; oregon each other, sometimes, arsenic a effect of unexpected directions their conversations instrumentality portion I’m listening in.
As soon arsenic I created Gel, helium started rabbiting distant to me. (Rabbiting is perfectly a connection Gel would use. See beneath for its meaning if you’re not capable to conjecture it from the context.)
I didn’t request to probe however Gel spoke due to the fact that unleashing him connected my imaginativeness opened the floodgates and my representation became rapidly filled with words, phrases and code patterns I haven’t heard for decades. Most of my household moved distant from the Medway Towns years ago, meaning that I haven’t spent immoderate clip determination for a sizeable fig of years.
But intelligibly I’ve been carrying the area’s argot with me, buried heavy wrong my neural networks. Gerry was truthful delightful to perceive to (for me, astatine least) that I already cognize I privation to someway shoehorn him into a aboriginal novel.
Even connected the eve of The Rabbit Club’s publication, I inactive perceive my rockstar speaking some to maine and different people. I support a record connected my machine filled with the caller lines he’s been planting successful my mind, much words and phrases that beryllium to a distant country, a bygone age. It seems my consciousness of nostalgia has not yet been sated.
The main quality successful The Rabbit Club is Gel’s 3rd (acknowledged) son, Ali/Alistair, who grew up successful California, wherever his parent moved aft Gel abandoned them both. Ali leaves his homeland to survey English Literature astatine Oxford, partially due to the fact that helium hopes to reconnect with his father. But it’s not lone his begetter who seems to talk a antithetic language, it’s everyone successful Britain. Ali spends a bully chunk of clip confused by the unusual words whirling astir him.
Below I’ve listed a fig of specified words and phrases, each of them guaranteed to confuse astir Americans. Perhaps readers would beryllium bully capable to memorize them. And past 1 day, if you bump into maine successful a bar, we tin person a bully old—chinwag!
*
Chinwag: A gloriously evocative connection for a chat.
Rabbit: Given the sanction of my novel, it would person been remiss of maine not to deploy this slang connection supra oregon see it here. It means talk. For instance, if you’re discussing a antheral who speaks excessively much, you could say: “He ne'er stops rabbiting on!”
Cowson: A precise 1970s British insult, suggesting that idiosyncratic is the lad of a heifer.
Heifer: different insult, implying that idiosyncratic is the size of a cow.
Glasgow kiss: A humorous statement of a headbutt! Californian Ali gets tripped up by this 1 connected his archetypal nighttime successful Oxford, assuming it’s thing romantic.
Leave it out: Nothing to bash with an omission. The American mentation of leave it out would be: “get outta here.”
Pavarotti: A ten-pound banknote. Pause a infinitesimal and spot if you tin enactment retired why… It’s due to the fact that 10 pounds is known arsenic a tenner! Sounds similar tenor, right?
Brolly: A precise British connection for a captious mundane transportation successful Britain—an umbrella.
Cushty: All good, excellent. If a Brit asks you however you’re doing, consciousness escaped to respond: “Cushty, mate!”
Scooby: The pursuing dialog from The Rabbit Club explains this. It begins with Gel McCain talking astir his soundproofed cinema room: “I could chop you up with a chainsaw down here. No one’d person a Scooby!”
“What’s a Scooby?” said Ali.
“Scooby Doo, rhymes with clue. Keep up, son!”
Prat: A prat is an idiot. In the novel, an aristocrat’s daughter, Beatrice Orpington-Brice, who goes by the sanction “Bob” (her initials) is dissing her relative William: “He’s ever been a spiteful small prat!”
Knackered: Exhausted. Or, if you privation to amusement disconnected your cockney rhyming slang skills, alternatively of saying you’re tired, you could say: “I’m cream-crackered!”
Moreish: I don’t recognize wherefore Americans haven’t adopted this fantastic word. If thing is moreish, it’s addictive, you privation more of it. It’s usually utilized to picture food. “This truffle popcorn is incredibly moreish.”
Chuffed: Happy and proud. “She was chuffed with herself for winning the Pulitzer.”
Muppet: If a Brit calls you a muppet, they’re not saying you’re arsenic cute arsenic Elmo, oregon a diva of Miss Piggy proportions. They’re calling you a buffoon!
Tanked: Just arsenic the Sámi radical person galore words for snow, the Brits person a heap of words for drunkenness: turnt, squiffy, hammered, pissed, trolleyed, wankered, mullered, rat-arsed, arseholed, blootered… It’s adjacent claimed determination beryllium 5 100 and forty-six “drunkonyms” successful the UK.
As an aged rockstar, Gerry has mended his ways. No much illegitimate children, nary much hellraising oregon drug-taking, and a unchangeable matrimony to his seventh wife, a Brazilian. He has, however, retained 1 vice: “Arantxa, babes, you gotta springiness maine the sauce. I’m present ninety-nine percent eunuch, love. And that’s okay, arsenic agelong arsenic I’m tanked up fractional the time.”
And if you don’t judge Britain has a much fearsome drinking civilization than the US, I person 4 words for you. Leave it out, mate.
______________________________
The Rabbit Club by Christopher J. Yates is disposable via Hanover Square Press.
