“What’s ‘snogging’?” asked my American tennis opponent recently just as I was about to serve.

I missed the serve completely.

“What did you say?” I asked her, thinking that I had misheard.
“’Snogging’, what is it? I’m reading a British novel and it keeps coming up. What does it mean?” she replied.

6-foot rabbit

“Well, it’s slang for hugging and kissing. It is not a word that comes up very often in most peoples’ everyday conversation. Teenagers sneak a quick ‘snog’ behind the bike sheds at school, husbands come up behind their wives and give her a quick ‘snog’, usually when she is unsuspecting, such as when she is elbow deep in washing up suds and can only squeak in surprise as he goes off laughing. That’s ‘snogging’.”
“Oh!” she said. “It’s a very British word isn’t it?”

This exchange got me thinking. There are so many times when we think that what we say is being understood. On Anguilla, with English as the official language, English speakers take their speech for granted. This tennis court question made me realise that although ostensibly we all speak the same language, there are clear differences which could lead to confusion.

I remember the conversation I had with the same lady and some other American tennis playing friends recently. One of them is married to a Brit and so understands some of the language gulf. They were discussing a new ‘fanny pack’ one of them had bought. I listened fascinated. I had not got a clue what they meant but I know that in England the noun ‘fanny’ would not be used in polite parlance. Trying hard to ignore the somewhat startling pictures being conjured in my mind by the conversation, I asked what they were talking about.

“Oh, you call it a ‘bum bag’” my married-to-a-Brit friend replied kindly. “You know, the little bag that sits around your waist on a belt and hangs over your backside. We call it a ‘fanny pack’.”

What’s snogging

Oh, so that is what they were talking about! I wonder if Americans understand the looks that they must receive when asking for one of these in a shop in the UK. Saying that, I have had New Yorkers look at me blankly when I have gone shopping for a new ‘handbag’ in the Big Apple. When I have corrected myself and asked for a particular ‘purse’ knitted brows cleared with instant comprehension.

There is not just a difference between American and British English. I am from the south of England, just outside London. Some years ago I was watching a television programme with a friend from the north of the country. The drama was set in the north and the story was about the theft of ‘strides’. I sat watching completely mystified, hoping that a clue as to what had been stolen would present itself eventually. I did not want to show my ignorance by asking my friend what it was all about. In the end I had to ask as it was taken for granted that the programmes’ audience understood what was happening. I now know that ‘strides’ are, in Northern British English, what we in the South would call ‘trousers’ and what Americans call ‘pants’. This can be doubly confusing, as in Britain ‘pants’ are men’s underwear!

My husband is an ex-Royal Naval serviceman and one of his friends on island is a British ex-military man too. When these two get together and start talking what I term ‘service-ese’ both their respective wives find themselves completely adrift. My husband offers his friend a ‘goffer,’ a can of soft drink to you and I, usually refused in favour of a beer, while going into spirited conversations about anything from ‘crocadillyfrogs,’ swamp animals seen on visits to the Miami Everglades, to the contents of ‘Rat Packs,’ ration packs, they have enjoyed in the past (apparently the tinned sausages were particularly good). My husband has recently, helpfully, bought me a dictionary of Royal Naval and Marine ‘slanguage’ so that I can keep up with these conversations.

When we lived in Bangladesh the English language newspapers gave blood curdling details of the exploits of various gangs of ‘dacoits’ who were operating up and down the country. Never having come across this term I was determined to find out what a ‘dacoit’ was, as the gangs were certainly up to no good. I found that this is a term for a member of a gang of armed robbers and the word is used solely in the Indian Sub Continent and Myanmar, formally Burma. Interestingly, according to my battered 1991 copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, it originated from a Hindi word, dakait, meaning ‘gang – robbery’.

A Canadian friend recently made me laugh by telling me about when she and a girlfriend were invited to a ‘fancy dress’ party in Australia some years ago. They excitedly dressed up in their finest evening wear and arrived to be met at the front door by a six foot rabbit! In Canada it appears that the event would have been called a ‘costume party.’

Anguillian English has made me blink too. The best example of this is the name of the dress shop along the Jeremiah Gumbs Highway ‘Just Banging’. For a long time I thought this was an ‘adult’ shop and Anguilla a bit daring for having one so brazenly open. In the UK these shops are usually in the backstreets and have their windows blacked out so as not to offend the general population passing by. It was not until I was speaking to an Anguillian friend who mentioned that she had brought some nice things there, recommending me to go along and browse for myself, that I realised that the term ‘banging’ on Anguilla means something completely different to its connotations in the UK! I now know it means ‘cool’ and of course, this puts a completely new slant on the shop’s name!

So, we all speak the same language? I don’t think so!

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