“Faff”

What would this blog do without Nancy Friedman? I shudder to think. Hard on the heels of spotting an Oregon loo, she reports that on last Thursday’s “Parks and Recreation,” Chris (Rob Lowe) said to Ben (Adam Cooper Scott): “The Ben Wyatt I know, I don’t think he’d be happy just sitting here faffing around.” (I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this first from Elizabeth Yagoda, “Parks and Rec” fan that she is.)

The Britishism in there is derived from faff, a verb meaning dither or fuss, and is usually followed by about. The Oxford English Dictionary’s first citation, from an 1874 volume called Yorkshire Oddities, suggests that it originated as a regionalism: “T’ clock~maker‥fizzled an’ faff’d aboot her, but nivver did her a farthing’s worth o’ good.”

Up till now, U.S. use has been spotty (and I don’t mean spotty in the English sense). It is a favorite of New York Times sports blogger Jeff Z. Klein, who, covering the 2008 women’s soccer matches at the 2008 Olympics, wrote:

Much faffing about as these final minutes tick down. New Zealand have a throw in deep in the Amerk zone, but the one Fern is surrounded by four Americans and winds up on her back as they run away with the ball.

Klein’s use of the plural verb have with the collective New Zealand indicates he has absorbed a bit too much English football coverage, and suggests that faff  is still more or less a one-off.

Only in Portlandia

Other than this Oregon sighting (which came courtesy of Nancy Friedman), and in crossword puzzles, loo is not seen or heard much on these shores. An exception is this from an August 2011 New York Times style blog, about a country cottage: “You flush the loo the old-fashioned way — with buckets of water hand-pumped from a spring.”

But this is a Britishism that should be more than one-off. Now that john is antiquated, we don’t have a one-syllable term that’s neither euphemistic nor explicit. So let’s go loo.

And in any case, those stick figures are brilliant.

You Say “Scenahrio,” I Say “Scenahrio”

Always seeking new horizons for Not One-Off Britishisms, I turn the focus for the first time to pronunciation. This is not because I have ever heard an American say lefftenant, conTRAHversy, shedule, Re-NAY-sunce, pass-ta, or rahhther. Rahhther, the word in question is scenario.

This term for a future situation comes directly from Italian (scena=scene), and I believe that in contrast to Renaissance and pasta, the British have always pronounced the second syllable in accordance with the original language–to rhyme with car, that is—whereas Americans render it scen-AIR-io.

We have, that is, until now, the age of NOOBs. I have heard more and more Americans say it in the British manner in recent years, sometimes with the telltale syllable drawn luxuriously out. As an example, I plucked from cyberspace an exchange that took place on NPR’s “All Things Considered” this past September. Michelle Norris is interviewing Michael Mackenzie about the European financial crisis.

NORRIS: So if we do see defaults and chaos and uncertainty, could you give us a quick picture of what the best-case scenario would look like and the worst-case scenario as well?

MACKENZIE: Well, the best-case scenario is that it would be relatively quick.

Norris is American and Mackenzie is British, but they both say scenahhrio. You can hear for yourself here. The exchange comes at about the 2:40 mark.

A Garbage “Rubbish”?

In his recent book The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, the English Welsh journalist Jon Ronson has a set piece in which he encounters the disgraced American corporate executive Al “Chainsaw Al” Dunlop. The book is about psychopaths–whether they exist, what they are–and the issue in this scene is if Dunlop qualifies. Ronson quotes him as saying:

“Listen. The psychopath thing is rubbish. You cannot be successful unless you have certain”–he pointed to his head–“controls.”

Well, no. As everybody knows, American say garbage while the British say rubbish (and whilst). Well, not everybody. Jon Ronson was clearly unaware and put a bogus rubbish in Al Dunlop’s mouth. Good thing NOOBs is on the case!

On the radar: “Stockist”

From the website of the Brooklyn-based "Remedy Quarterly"

The extremely astute Nancy Friedman suggests looking into stockist, noting  “US companies are appropriating this BrE term… Until recently, the more-common term would have been ‘where to buy’ or ‘retailers.’” Never even once having come across this term, I would have doubted her, had she not supplied four web sites that list the  stockists from which one can purchase their stuff:

http://www.rgbcosmetics.com/stockists.php

http://mishkanyc.com/stockists

http://www.billykirk.com/stockist/

http://www.remedyquarterly.com/about/stockists/

Nancy notes that Remedy Quarterly, a magazine, is based in Brooklyn.

I am now convinced that stockist is indeed happening in the U.S. However, it has not yet appeared in the mainstream media, only, apparently, in commercial communication. This puts it in the same category as bespoke: a phony, hype-y word that exists–and one hopes will stay–in the realm of advertising and promotion.

The Searchers

A couple of days ago, I invited readers to vote on what they thought were the search terms (after the decisive winner, ginger) that most often led readers to Not One-Off-Britishisms in 2011.

Hoo boy, were you wrong. Here’s what you said:

  1. One-off
  2. Whinge
  3. Bespoke
  4. Sit for an exam
  5. Laddish
  6. Suss out
  7. From boot to bonnet
  8. Chattering classes
  9. Charlotte Church having a wee
  10. Thank you very much indeed

And here are the actual most commonly searched terms:

  1. From boot to bonnet
  2. Thank you very much indeed
  3. Sit for an exam
  4. Laddish
  5. Suss out
  6. Chattering classes
  7. Bespoke
  8. One-off
  9. Charlotte Church having a wee
  10. Whinge

I had pledged to send a signed copy of my book The Sound on the Page to anyone who correctly chose the three most commonly searched terms (From boot to bonnet, Thank you very much indeed and Sit for an exam). The offer holds–though how such a claim could be substantiated, short of a screen shot of your ballot, is beyond me.

 

 

Boxing Day ‘Boxing Day’ post

Rove: "Boxing Day" aficionado

I got an e-mail from Stuart Semmel reading, in its entirety: “‘Boxing Day.’ Suddenly it’s everywhere.”

Preliminary research suggests that Boxing Day–the day-after-Christmas holiday celebrated in the U.K. and around the Commonwealth–is, if not exactly ubiquitous in the U.S., at least establishing some outposts as a not-one-off-Britishism. To wit:

  • A post today in today’s Washington Post’s weather blog reads, “Welcome to the one year anniversay [sic] of the Boxing Day blizzard, known locally as No-mageddon, as the snow skipped over Washington.”
  •  Jimmy’s No. 43, a New York gastrobub, is celebrating its annual Boxing Day Coat Drive.
  •  “A Penny for your Boxing-Day Thoughts,” reads a headline in today’s  Pasadena Star-News.
  • The footwear website walkingonacloud.com is running a Boxing Day promotion.

If Boxing Day indeed has U.S. legs, the proof of the (Christmas) pudding comes from none other than Republican guru Karl Rove. Interviewed on December 22 by Fox News’s Mark Steyn, Rove said:

We’re now at a point in a primary where every single moment matters. You cannot imagine how many demands there when you have so few days, 12 days plus, you know, including Christmas day and Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day….

“You stunned me, Karl,” Steyn responded. “I didn’t know they celebrated Boxing Day in Iowa.”

Another day …

That darned ginger

… another Hollywood movie based on a European source, a movie in which characters speak in Britishisms. Yesterday it was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where reference is apparently made to a coffee. Today it’s Steven Spielberg’s animated Tintin, in which (again according to Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer), Haddock says:

I’ll not be doubted by some pip-squeak tuft of ginger and his irritating dog.

And speaking of which, WordPress provides a running list of the most common search terms that led people to this blog, and I have just been taking a look at it. By my informal count, the winner was various combinations of ginger, including ginger person, ginger prejudice and ginger commits suicide.

Now for some end-of-the-year fun. In the poll below, the other top ten searches are listed in random order. Your task is to choose the top three. I will report the correct order in a couple of days. If anyone attests to me that you got all three right, I will mail you, as my special holiday present, a copy of my book The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing. 

Little help, please

In Steven Rea’s Philadelphia Inquirer review today of some film based on an obscure novel by Stieg Larrson, he writes:

One of the most important questions to be asked in the late Swedish author’s mega-selling mystery The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo– the line “Do you want a coffee?” – makes it into David Fincher’s movie.

My questions are, 1, why is this so important? and, 2, accepting the convention that these Swedish characters are speaking English, why, since this is an American movie with an American director and American screenwriter, do they express themselves in Britishisms?