The Translator is my alter ego, my second self, who loves language and in particular the varieties of English she discovers as she goes about her daily life – a life which mainly involves looking after 3 kids, dogs, cat and house.
When Child 1 was 7, Child 2 was 5 and Child 3 was 3, we moved to Canada and lived in Oakville, a suburb of Toronto. Then 2 years later we moved to Pennsylvania.
The result? Even in our own house we are sometimes divided by our not so common language. I say biscuit and they say cookie. I still say pants talking about, well – pants, but when they say pants it means trousers. My daughter, Child 3, has never been to school in the UK and so is much less likely to say Autumn instead of Fall and she never calls football, football, because in her world, it’s most definitely soccer.
The blog is for fun more than anything. When I studied English at Leeds University I remember my tutor Andrew Wawn talking about how people ranted that the American’s called their ‘rubbish’ ‘trash’ but how in fact ‘trash’ was a perfectly acceptable sort of word with its roots in old Scandinavian.
So I am all about celebrating the differences and I don’t hold with any talk about American English corrupting or weakening the true English of the English. And besides, I’m Scottish anyway 😉
Kate Braithwaite 