911 and 77 (21)
Listen up! ( + Hey!) Okay now let's take this nice and slowly ok?
First I need you to practice making some sounds with me, are you ready...
YUM. Say it, now again, yum, yum yum. That's it fine.
Now, say EEE-Yum, again, eee-yum, eee-yum. good.
Moving along nicely,
Say, MinEeeYum, min-ee-yum, that's it, THREE syllables, MinEeeYum. Good. Getting there.
Now say Al, Just exactly as in the song "Call me Al" with Chevy Chase and the little guy.
We are almost there now folks, just a little more and we're all done and dusted.
Say LOO, as in LOO Ten Ant, Loo, loo, loo.
That's real good, (ya all). All we got ta do now is stick it all together, ready, big breath in and... alu-min-i-um, Al-loo-min-eee-yum. Watch it now, not your average bunch of Al-LOO-min-um (s), that's a big no, no. It's the full thing and the stress is never on the LOO in fact any stress on the loo over here will risk you ending up with piles (see further down ((and a little round to the back a bit)) ).
It's Al-Loo- (hey, the first parts just fine, it just always goes so very badly wrong very quickly after such a good start, don't it).
Al-loo-min-EEE-Yum.
That is how everybody, everybody, needs to say it, Al-loo-min-EEE-Yum.
Now that we've done it properly together I can let you off the hook a little and say "Relax, that wasn't so bad, was it?" and here's how to make it a bit easier for everyone.
You CAN say al-oo-min-yum and skip the eee bit but it's still throwing away a proper syllable and really you ought to make the most of it when you get over here (there's nothing much else to do after all unless you want to go on TV and be interviewed, again, and again, and again, which of course is exactly what you're going to do anyway).
You can drop the eee bit if you wish, as I just said, so Al-oo-min-yum and, frankly, that's the way a lot of people say it over here anyway, but it's really al-loo-min-ee-um, so it's that or al-loo-min-yum, either is okay and no one will look at you aghast.
Are we done?
Okay then, lesson over, no more aloominum, ok, is that asking too much?
Oh, and while we're at it, can you tell your president to stop saying New-Que-Lar; it's New Clear, okay?
Here endith my letter to Americans.
Now, just in case you think there is a note of seriousness somewhere in the above, it's okay, I'm just fine with your aloominum, really, it's cute, honest, I actually like it, no I LOVE it and all the regional american accents and idioms, no, really, I'm serious now.
We grew up on it with TV here in the UK and get this: we even change the english over here to match your own way of doing things.
Moreover, the way you turned the language in to a tool - I call it verbification - the turning of a noun into a verb; that is pure genius, and you don't know it, but that would NEVER have happened over here in a thousand years, truely.
Anyone wanting to understand our two cultures would learn a lot by observing that particular feature that you introduced and I really mean it when I say 'a thousand years', I don't think we would have ever been able to do that on our own.
Now why is that and what is it about our two cultures that makes that so?
I think it's about expressiveness and emotion and repression and a kind of institutionalization of the cultural mind so to speak. We in the UK come from a heavily and tightly controlled and emotionally cold and repressive background and culture with a rich history of barbaric and brutal behaviour and thinking. Which, by the way, is why we took to christianity - a totally foreign system - with such a frenzy, it enabled us to lash out murderously and merely obsequeously grovel to a priest in mock regret, exactly how it is now. (We just got a prime minister that fled after so much evil-doing and joined the gang of catholics, boy what a clue there).
A kind of intellectual incestuousness develops, a fear of everything pervades our very being.
When half of us went to the USA and wiped out the "sitting tenants" because we wanted to steal their lands and everything on it (because we are a god fearing, christian, people, largely), well, we "went totally bananas", completely wild with that sudden new freedom to act as mindless and utter savages with minimalist restraint or conscience, somewhat psychopathically it has to be observed (so no change there then). Our forefathers, generally speaking or perhaps 'cultural forefathers' might be a more illuminating term, released that repression just a little and it shows up in the language with these differences. Today, some people use "IMHO" meaning "in my humble opinion". When I write, and if I were to adopt that false modesty and pretence at humility then I would have to add this to just about everything I say: I would humbly offer to suggest might be considered as indicating something that may be useful in a search towards a greater understanding of the truth, may I very respectfully and humbly request your wonderfulness to herewith posit. Get it, how our shared language used to expose the greater repression back then? That is a pristine example, it's like a great archeological find but in the language instead of in the ground. The mere fact that you can all verbify a noun at the drop of a hat shows it really well. Can I labour this just a little more, the word hemorage (spell it any way you like). There still are medical experts, very intelligent, very expert, who will say (here in the UK) a hemorage is a bleed and the verb is bleeding (and not the US: hemoraging). I guess the laugh really is that you ought to just drop the word hemorage altogether and just say bleed and bleeding, I mean, really. After writing that I thought I would look the work up in a heavy dictionary (UK) and I was surprised because it now seems that although, as you'd expect, the spelling is different, we have now adopted that idea so it is good english, huh - I haven't bothered to correct the spelling and just in case you're wondering, I spelt it wrong both ways (US and UK).
Anyway, it's aloo,min, ee, yum, don't forget but, when you get over here we prefer you to say it your way, and, why not try exagerating it by emphasizing the difference in your favour, draw attention to it, and to do that focus on the LOO part (we NEVER do that as a loo over here is the same as a john over there but it's the polite version, as used by females rather than males unless they're gay of course) - we WILL be amused!.
You may be puzzled by my humour and possibly take it personally or as a jibe but that is NOT how it is meant at all so if anyone reading this takes offence, please don't; I called this category Humour after all didn't I?
To come...
Faucet and lieutenant, sidewalk and pavement and a discrete word in your ear about your president (if you've still got one that is).
For those in a hurry: Just say "metal" ok.
Oh, and we have just got to do hostel soon too as in "Is your humour (humor) a little hostile ("Hos-Tul"). It's two and a half syllables: Hos-Ty-uL and it's not possible to drop that little itty bitty half a syllable Ty. It's hos-Ti-le or nothing. Okay we're done, thank you, class dismissed.
By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
29 May 2008
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