The longer I spend in the US, the more I realise what a starring role that intonation plays in the language. I knew of course that English has never been as ridgid as, say Italian in these matters (almost always penultimate syllable if you’re asking) but I hadn’t realised quite how fluid it all is.

First there’s the rising interrogative intonation – the rot here seems to stem from California (of course it is also endemic in Oz) . This is a) irritating (people sound so unsure of themselves if everything sounds like a question) and b) catching – quite a few other people have caught it from those already infected.

Then there’s the emphasis on different syllables within a word. Whilst for us Brits that doesn’t make things hard to understand, but for the locals it means that I could be speaking a different language.

Examples:

UK: PRO-cesses  US: process-SEAS
UK: miGRATE-ory  US: migraTORY
UK: hexAgonal  US: hexa GOnal
UK: sax-OFF-onist  US: saxoPHONEist.

I’ve been here a year now and I’m still not learning the language. I’m ashamed to say that I have however started to overuse the only collective noun recognised over here – a bunch….. Maybe coming up with a collective noun for Americans will help cure me.

How about: A bloat? An awesome? A bellicose? A bunch? Urgh please help.

Every time I go to the gym I’m confronted with this:

Frankly it has me totally perplexed. I always thought the British were the most prudish nation on the planet. I should know – convent school taught me the art of getting dressed under a towel. I’m not that bad anymore – when I get changed, I take clothes off, I put clothes on. No big deal. My continental European friends make me feel very prudish though – they are quite comfortable wandering around naked. Not in a weird way – but kind of between the bathroom and bedroom sort of thing and not all the time. *urgh that still sounds weird but it isn’t if you know what I mean*.

Anyway – the Americans make the Brits look like the most uninhibited sauna-bound Germans. I mean none of the women on TV are allowed to have boobs – they just have this localised fuzziness a bit like what they do to T shirts with brand names on the BBC. And that’s late at night. That’s strange. And actually rather distracting during the love scenes – how can you get passionate when your whole torso is out of focus?

So considering this, how much modesty and discretion is appropriate? I mean there’s a lot of room for manoeuvre between arriving in the pool in bloomers with a Victorian bathing carriage and striding around butt naked, towel whipping anyone within range.

What does everyone else do? Isn’t that a clue? Sadly not. No one apart from the rather old and gravity challenged seems to actually take off their clothes in the changing room. Maybe you exercise appropriate modesty by making your body go out of focus whilst changing. I think I’ll continue to arrive in my kit, just to be on the safe side.

Wow it has been a while since I’ve posted (thanks to some of you for the reminder). As you may know I’ve been away – a quick trip to London, then some time in Chicago then an absolutely awesome 3300mile roadtrip across some of America. (more about that later).

Being in London made me realise what I miss more than anything else:

– friends and family
–  decent food  (It isn’t that you can’t eat well here , just it is more likely that the food will be sugar and lard ridden or just plain disgusting)
– irony
– national newspapers (all the dailies but the WSJ have a bit of the “Lost Cat Found” about their local stories.
– food (I’ve taken to fantisizing about food the whole time).