Dear England 2..........

An ongoing dialogue with and about the UK.

Logic tells you that we, as former Brits long ago, should have multiple ties to our several-times-removed cousins and that one of those ties would be our language.

Well, you'd be bloody wrong.

I don't know what sailing across the ocean did to the way we talk but it's so far removed from the Mother Tongue as to be almost a completely different thing entirely. And what's annoying is that, in some ways, the Brits have a much more colorful range of expressions (for the stiff, unemotional souls they can be).

I'd love to adopt some of those expressions but my Texas friends would give me the kind of look that would fry ants on a rock. Texans aren't much for what they consider high-falutin' ways as it is and an East Texas girl spouting British-isms would not be accepted. I might get my "ya'll" privileges taken away.

Brits have a fondness for the sarcasm I love so much and so my favorite UK expression relates to that. Nowhere in the American lexicon is a term so perfect and so relevant as the British-ism "taking the piss". It has nothing to do with urination (unless you want to count the pouring down of sarcastic wit) but has everything to do with twisting a situation back around on someone. For a very simplistic definition, let's say you come in from a soaking rain and I tell you how lovely you look. Well, that's taking the piss--again, in an extremely simplistic illustration. It's just plain, simple, lovely sarcasm.

And we've got no one word or term that comes even close to meaning the same thing. "Kidding" is too soft, too juvenile. "Joking" doesn't apply and we shan't even discuss "joshing".

I love the term car park for parking lot just because it sounds more elegant somehow...less humble and mundane. I think it's delightful when something "comes over a treat" or, rather, turns out well. There are also "poncey" and "posh". I have yet to clarify precisely each of the terms but I enjoy the perceived meanings I've chosen for them. And I'm pretty sure I like for things to be posh even though it seems to be frowned upon.

Of course, I realized my most ambitious linguistic desire on my last trip to England. I couldn't help but stand out with my Texas-cum-Southern accent and yet I wanted so much to appear as if I knew what I was doing. I dined lavishly on a pub Sunday roast and readied myself for the moment of ordering a dessert (or a pudding, if I were actually being correct). The waiter asked what I'd like and I looked him straight in the eyes. In my most serious tone, I said clearly, "Spotted dick please."

Then I spoiled it when I giggled.

Dear England.....

The advent and ascension of the internet in my life has been both a blessing and a curse. It gobbles my time as I find more and more new, fun places to wander and it has introduced me to people around the world who have become “virtual friends”. Because I am an obsessive Anglophile, I tend to sniff around the British corner of the web more than any one other place. Thus we sometimes discuss the differences between being a U.S. citizen and living in England.

I just made myself a cup of tea. Somehow, it leaves a lot to be desired. My favorite mug here at the office, a whirl in the microwave and….plop. In goes a dusty dry bag of cinnamon and orange tea. That’s a far cry from the luscious equivalent that is a staple in Britain.

In England, you couldn’t escape a good cup of tea if you tried. Every dining establishment, from large to small, presents you with a charming pot of some sort that has been warmed and filled with hot water. The tea bag is swimming around happily inside and, in a few minutes, it is steeped to perfection.

Room temperature milk is poured into a cup, the tea is poured over and, in my case, sugar is stirred in enthusiastically.

For some reason, Americans (at least the Texas variety) just don’t get tea. Using milk with tea is looked on as incredibly strange. That’s partly because Americans, if they touch hot tea at all, are big on weirdly flavored teas: apricot, cinnamon, orange, almond, cherry….on and on. Most people don’t seem to understand that there’s nothing more delightful than a good strong, black India tea.

They like to plunk a big wedge of lemon in their tea and most men think they can’t touch it at all. Texas men like their coffee—hot and black—and assume that, if they were ever forced into drinking tea, they would have to extend their pinky finger just so.

Yet, if you drop some ice into that very same tea, you have all of us clamoring to get to it. Iced tea is a staple. It’s like mother’s milk and we can barely make it through a day, much less a meal, without a big, shimmeringly cold, tooth-achingly sweet glass of it. I’ll admit to needing—not just wanting—it when driving a long distance or at the office during an afternoon.

It doesn’t make any difference what the weather is—iced tea is a requirement all year round.

And I will admit to longing for iced tea in England. But I never had the nerve to drop the rare British ice cube into any tea while confronted with those stiff upper lips. It just wouldn’t have been proper!