Harry Lee | Lost in transatlantic translation

I landed here in a flying machine over a year ago. Officially, I'm a resident alien.

Life as an alien can be hard. Imagine trying to learn the language of aliens that inhabit a distant planet very dissimilar to our own. A tough task. Philosophers call it "radical translation" and few believe it possible.

Admittedly, my communication difficulties are less severe. Americans are quite similar to Brits. We share the same planet, we're primates - though whether we're all homo sapiens is a little moot - we all hate Mariah Carey (sorry, Mariah) and so on.

Nevertheless, I sometimes wish I owned an American English to English English dictionary. In allusion to Ron Carnell, at times our meanings are like ships passing in the night. He adds that such fleeting encounters bring "much delight." I agree.

So, in the interest of better transatlantic communication and just for the hell of it, I present some delightful examples of cross-cultural confusions.

Exhibit A: I celebrated Guy Fawkes' Night last week. The few Americans present acted much like anthropologists observing the rites of a primitive Amazonian tribe - intrigued but distanced. Maybe indulging pyromaniacal urges, screaming "burn 'em alive" whenever somebody says "Catholic" and then calling it all "national heritage" scared them off.

Exhibit B: "Harry" is a standard English name. It causes me no embarrassment over here, though remarks like "Oh, you mean like Harry Potter" get a little tiresome. I just can't understand why I don't conjure associations with somebody cool like Harry Callaghan, a.k.a Dirty Harry.

I bear no resemblance to a teenage wizard - really.

Anyway, American names are often more exotic and can cause trouble.

I've met a few people called "Randy" over here. There's a simple reason why I'd never met anybody with that name before: hmm how do i put this ... er ... back home, too much time spent sleeping alone will make you "randy."

I know a professor named Randy Wright. His understanding of monetary economics is phenomenal, but his inflection pattern lends his sentences a questioning tone. So, "Hi, I'm Randy Wright" becomes "Hi, I'm randy, right?" I'm tempted to smile awkwardly and slowly edge away.

Exhibit ... oh, screw it, there's more exhibits.

According to stereotypes, Brits are standoffish and Americans are friendly. I remember sitting in my cell - I mean, office - in McNeil as a forlorn first-year grad student when the caretaker walked in to empty my bin.

"How you doin'?" he said. How friendly, I thought. "I'm very well thank you. How are you today?" I replied. He emptied my bin into a large plastic bag and left without saying a word.

So does this make Americans unfriendly? Brits use throwaway greetings too. "How do you do?" isn't really a question, but rather a formal "Hello." I don't know whether it's better to wish people well when you don't really mean it or to walk around saying so little to strangers that you fear that wishing others well when you really do mean it might amount to speaking out of place. But that's for another column.

The words "pants" and "trousers" pose another difficulty. In America they're synonyms, but in Britain "trousers" are "pants" and "pants" are "underwear." This has led me to get overexcited when girls misjudge the weather.

One chilly morning, I was getting breakfast outside ABP with a girl in a skirt and ankle boots. She shivered slightly and complained, "Damn, I wish I'd put some pants on this morning."

To my enduring shame, I pretended to drop my pen and then set about rummaging under the table for it.

Indeed, sometimes the most innocent of phrases become tainted with lewd connotations.

Lastly, this column often falls prey to the U.S.-U.K. language barrier. When I wrote a column about how to deal with messy roommates, I wanted to call it, "The art of moaning."

Apparently, this suggested a column on how to fake an orgasm, which is a topic best left to Lindsey Stull - in her professional capacity as sex blogger, not because . oh, dear.

And just to clarify: I'm not a sex fiend. Thank you.

Harry Lee is a second-year economics Ph.D. candidate from Portsmouth, England. His e-mail address is lee@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Pondskater appears on alternating Wednesdays.

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