It's Not Like We Speak The Same Language Or Anything

Title- too long? Yeah, probably.

Today was my first day of volunteering. I work with lots of old Scottish volunteers who I have a really hard time understanding. I just nod to pretty much whatever they say. We had one instance today where this lady, Shirley, said "Knitting wool" about five times before I actually understood the words. It took another couple of minutes to understand what she wanted to do with knitting wool. At the University, I can deal with the accents just fine, especially the English kids. Actually, even the Northern Irish and Scottish folks are easy to understand, especially within the school setting. But these old people, well, I'm just glad I'm not in transcription anymore.

A couple of sentences into our introduction today, Shirley interrupted and asked, "Are you from America?" THat was a lot better than this other guy, who looked at me and asked if I was from China.

I'm not, of course, the only person not comprehending. The Brits have their mistakes, too. I was reading a UK magazine yesterday and there was a section on vacation spots in the States and the first one listed as a cool alternative was Boston. The article advised readers to leave home their White Sox caps because, the magazine explained, White Sox and Red Sox are "bitter rivals. " Ah haha ha ha, sweet misguided Brits and their football (soccer) playing ways. First off, no one here has a White Sox cap, so it wouldn't be hard for them to leave behind. Second, everyone here that does decide to wear caps has them Yankees ones (which are sold readily at the local H&M and many other locations), and those should definitely be left home and/or burned as soon as possible. And lastly, if you want a forced "natural" rivalry and leave behind some more caps other than the Yankees, it'd be the Braves in the NL, not the White Sox? Chicago? Who? What? Oh, British myths about America. Remember that time, when they thought that no one was going to be ready to fight back when they arrived by sea (that's two lights) and they thought they could just take Massachusetts? Yeah, that was cute, too. Lexington and Concord, good times.