Ye Olde Kinge's Englishe

I love the British. Seriously, I love London, I love the beer, I love the comedy. I love the music so much that I don't even mind that they improved on something (rock and roll) that is rightfully the cultural property of America (in that it came from music stolen from people that we went to all the trouble of enslaving). I love the culture of politeness. I love the witty, largely unattractive celebrities.

That said, I've been getting pretty pissed off (or "brassed off") by British expats over the last several months. I realize that there's a fair amount of class tension in the US, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to get you to vote Republican (or, I don't know, "Tory"). But class rivalry/hatred/discrimination/hilariously stereotyped comedy is a time-honored, openly-acknowledged tradition in the UK; it's what sets aside your Delightful Urchin Chimneysweep from your average Timothy Dalton or Alfred the Butler. By demographics, only about 10% of British people speak with an accent classy enough to be allowed on the radio. But hey, that's their business, right?

The problem is, over here in Japan there are far fewer British people to bear the brunt of this snobbery. Here, many of the British expats I've met have busied themselves with trying to convince the whole world that there's only one kind of English that is, you know, proper and correct and stuff: the King's English. I've been turned down for interviews at two conversation schools because, as an American, I don't speak the King's English, I speak something barely recognizable as language at all.

I realize that American English and British English are different, sure. We say happy, they say chuffed; we say bullshit, they say bollocks; we say color, they say colour. I mean, really, "flavour?" Ha ha, what in tarnation does that mean? They might as well be speaking Martian!

The thing is, I'm generally a big enough person to say that we're speaking two different Englishes. American English isn't the correct form of English. Neither is British English. Yet there are teachers over here who give impassioned, long-winded speeches about how horribly we're miseducating our students when we teach them to say anything other than "all that and a packet of crisps."

One of my predecessors at Harumidai Yochien was apparently given to snide little comments about this: according to one of my coworkers, she told the room, apparently out of the blue, "I want some jelly." For the sake of clarification, someone asked, "Do you mean like jam-jelly, or gelatin-slash-Jell-o?" She scowled and explained: "I said 'jelly,' and I meant 'jelly.'" I guess the Brits have to occupy their time with something since the Empire collapsed and they ran out of brown people to oppress, huh?

In completely other news, I know we haven't been keeping up with the blog lately. The main reason for that (other than our complete contempt for you, the readers -- hi, Mom!) is that we're finally moving into the city! Yes, our horrible, hellish stay in the suburbs has come to a close...we're moving to Motomachi in Namba, 5 minutes' walk from several of the hippest neighborhoods in Osaka, such as Dotonburi and America-Town. As part of the moving experience, we're required to provide several dozens of sets of paperwork to the Man, which leaves us little time to reflect on life's little quirks. We will return you to your irregularly-scheduled snark as soon as we finish the moving process (say, October of 2011). Excelsior!