Repost: War Sess Ter Shire Sauce And Other Delights

The following post was deleted (not by me, I might add) and I finally found a cached copy of it. So now, I re-submit for your enjoyment.

Monday, August 31, 2009


War Sess Ter Shire Sauce and other delights

Hi folks, Monday is here and it has been another eventful weekend. Working as I do at the good ole Outback restaurant, and having the blessed fortune to be born English, and having lost a good part of my English accent by virtue of living here in the good ole U. S. of A., many people I serve at work either don't notice that I have an accent or can't figure out what accent it is. Of course, being at an Aussie-themed restaurant further confuses them. I get asked a lot if I'm Australian, or from New Zealand, but mostly I get this:



"You've got an accent, haven't you?"



Why, yes I do.



And then I have to tell them my life story. I bemoaned this fact in an earlier post, but I guess I enjoy the fact that they pick up on it. It helps them to remember me.



Anyway, because I had the great pleasure of talking to a couple of Brits in the restaurant over the weekend, I thought today I would do what I promised earlier, and help a few of you American folks out with correct pronunciation. I'm talking about oregano and basil and things of that nature, but I guess the one I am talking about mainly is the one in the title of this post: Worcestershire Sauce.

Working at a steakhouse I get asked for this benign condiment quite frequently; but each and every person that asks for it has never been to England, and definitely hasn't been to Worcestershire, because if they had, they'd know how to say it. They all try to pronounce every letter in the word (I'd like some of that Warsestershy-er sauce please), and as every red-blooded Englishman knows (I'm looking at you, Nic), that just isn't the way the English language works.



I will now enlighten you.



Say wuss, as in, "Don't be such a big wuss."



Say tuh, as in, "I'm goin' tuh bed."



Say shurr, as in, "That's a big ten-four fer shurr."



Now put it all together. Wuss-tuh-shurr.



That's all there is to it.



Now, let's get to oregano. In America this is pronounced oh-regg-a no. In English, orrie-gar-no. Basil is bay-zul in America, bazzle in England. And we English don't know what arugula, eggplant or zucchini is. We instead have rocket or roquette, aubergines and courgettes. Oh, and big courgettes are marrows. We don't have SNAFUs; we balls it up. We don't rappel down a mountain, we abseil. There are no Kaiser rolls, there are baps. We don't use ballpoint pens, we write with biros. We don't know jack sh*t, we know bugger all. We wipe our arse with a bog roll and our rubbish gets picked up by the dustman. The list goes on, even to the extent of books and movies bearing different titles here and in the UK. For example:



The UK album The Electric Light Orchestra by ELO was titled No Answer in the US, which was the result of a misunderstanding by an employee of United Artists records who had tried to phone Harvest Records for the title but got no answer, and left a note saying so.



The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are known in the UK as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles as the term ninja was viewed as too violent an image for children.



In the UK no-one knows what White Castle is, so the movie was renamed Harold and Kumar Get The Munchies.

Sheena Easton's song 9 to 5 was retitled Morning Train (Nine To Five) in the USA in order to avoid confusion with the Dolly Parton song 9 to 5.



The hit TV show Man vs.Wild was titled Born Survivor: Bear Grylls in the UK. The title was changed due to the fact that he was not well known Stateside, whereas in Britain he is widely popular. Oh, and on a personal note: that guy is NUTS!



And the most well-known title change... J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone" was titled "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" when first published in the UK but the US editor felt that the original title original title "conveyed an incorrect idea of the subject matter".





There are many more examples of this kind of stuff on an excellent Wikipedia article titled American and British English differences.



Anyway folks, that's about all for today. I'll post some more as and when I think of it.



Cheerio, tatty-bye and hope your day is absolutely top drawer.













Posted by Jeff Hickmott at 7:36 AM

Reactions:



4 comments:

Ruprecht said...

Rupe always refers to it as "What's This Here Sauce?"



Works every time .....



August 31, 2009 10:34 AM

Wildhair said...

I miss my Brit lessons. Bugger off! Are you taking a piss? hehe



August 31, 2009 5:26 PM

Jeff Hickmott said...

Don't take the mickey, gobshite.



August 31, 2009 6:00 PM

ketsu said...

I enjoy the fact that, because you referred to Wuss-tuh-shire sauce, there's an ad for Lee and Perrin's at the bottom of this page for me.



So. Much. Awesome. :D



<3, Bucky



August 31, 2009 7:56 PM