Whose English and When It Matters

It seems when people travel to English-speaking countries, the most noticeable differences are ones that don’t matter very much. So you say “hob” and I say “stove.” I call that arrangement of stars “The Big Dipper” and you call it “The Plow.” You say “ye” and I thought no one had used that form of the verb since King James’ Bible. In the end, though, it highlights our similarities more than our differences, because there’s no cultural confusion: we just have two ways of saying the exact same thing.
There are times, though, when two ways of saying the same thing can matter a lot. A few weeks ago I went to the island of Cape Clear, the southernmost inhabited point in Ireland. I was there for a storytelling workshop hosted by an American named Chuck Kruger, and attended by around ten people from the storytelling community in Ireland and England. Nearly every person there had a different accent, from thick country Irish to a sincere Cockney. It was an incredible experience, but I had one problem: due to a fluke in the off-season bus schedule, it was not possible for me to get back to Cork. I could get to Cape Clear without a problem, but there was no bus back. So I explained my situation at dinner and asked for a ride.

To their credit, the Irishmen kept straight faces while we worked out transportation logistics, but Gerry couldn’t help grinning when he explained I really couldn’t use that wording anymore. “In Ireland, needing a ride means you want to have sex.”
“If I ask for a lift, is that better or worse?”
They all lost it. Daphne said where she’s from they sometimes ask for a spin, thus avoiding the awkwardness of both ride and lift. Nina, an American girl currently living in Dublin, wondered how you would say “ride a horse” if you can’t use those words, and Noona (eighty years old, wears a crocheted cap) went into a fit of giggles and didn’t recover for a solid five minutes.
Luckily I had the ultimate payback: “It goes both ways you know. When Kate told us that story about the nun who liked her fags…”*

For your further edification, here is an incomplete introduction to Irish phraseology:
Give out: Another phrase that sounds funny but is completely innocent. It means to give someone a hard time. “I suppose I can’t give out about burning the Thanksgiving turkey, since I messed up the sweet potatoes.”
Your man: This is not establishing any ownership over the man, it’s just a way of referring to someone male. “Isn’t that your man from the pub last night?”
Lads: Just like we say “guys,” this does not say anything about the gender of the people in question. In fact, the lads might all be girls. “We’ll stay here a moment and wait for the lads.”
Laughs: When something is a laugh, it is fun or entertaining, not necessarily humorous. “That trip was a laugh.”
Fair play: Roughly “good job.” “I succeeded in putting photos up on Facebook! Fair play to me.”
Didn’t he…: This is a trick where you turn whatever your main point is into a question. I think it’s for emphasis, because you’re not expected to answer. You might not even know the answer. “We were walking back from the second pub, and didn’t your man fall right down the hill?”
Ah sure: Thrown in front of things every once in a while, for good measure. “Obama says ‘Yes we can,’ Irish politicians say ‘Ah sure, we’ll think about it and get back to you in a week.’” (Direct quote—this was not me. I would never confuse Obama with Bob the Builder.)
Thanks be to God: Peppers the speech of Irish people of a certain generation. Gaelic speakers tended to say “Thanks be to God” (it is somewhat shorter in Gaelic) frequently, and I think the tendency translated into English. “It’s cold but it’s not wet, thanks be to God.”

*The nun in question was fond of cigarettes.

Amsterdam: The Museums, a guide?

This will be a rather brief (as brief as I can make it) summary of a trip I took with one of my art history classes (Genre Painting, heavy emphasis on Dutch painting) to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The trip was a lot of fun, especially because, as one of three Americans (and the only one to stay the whole trip), I was forced to make friends with Irish students. By Saturday I had been adopted into the group and was being taught (possibly futilely) to speak with an Irish accent and various slang terms. It was quite the experience, filled with much laughter, and one somehow appropriate to the pub location.

The city itself was AMAZING! I had never been before, so it was all new to me. You could tell that it was the holiday season because the whole city already had its Christmas lights up. Most small side streets were lined with lights, even the notorious Red Light District had its own lights (red lights with a big 'W' in the middle, de Wallen is the name of that area in Dutch).

The purpose of the trip was to look at art, of course, so most of our trip was spent going to the Museum District of the city by tram. We went twice to the Rijksmuseum (if you should ever think of going there, make it a whole day trip because it's the most expensive museum in that area and they don't let you back in even with a ticket from that day once you leave), and while the museum was laid out in a thought-provoking and well-planned manner, most of the building is under restoration, meaning that only a small part of their collection is out for viewing. This makes the amount you pay to get in even more ridiculous because you don't even get to see everything. Wait until 2013 to go back, when the whole thing will be done, because it will be amazing, since this building is enormous.

The Historical Museum had an interesting exhibit on the history of men's fashion from the beginning of the Republic to modern day in Amsterdam. The waist coats and hats were cool, and I would have spent more time looking at it had a large group of fashion design students not been occupying the entire floor area.

We also went to the Van Gogh museum which had a moving exhibit called "Illusions of Reality" that focused on various medias illustration of people's lives during the 1800s, especially the period of Van Gogh's life. The purpose was to show what might have influenced his style and subject choices. This applies mostly to his first phase of painting.

However, the Stedelijk Museum (their modern art museum) was by far the best museum of them all. The building is apparently just their temporary location, which explains the numerous empty rooms. I just walked through and would comment on the white color of choice in the room, debating if it was ivory, egg shell, etc. The rooms that were occupied more than made up for those rooms, though. My two favorite rooms were the one covered floor to ceiling in giant black and white quotes and the one in which my height was marked on a wall. They were even on the floor! And we were allowed to take pictures of everything, so it was just a wonderland for all of the girls in this group.
The other room was a work in progress, and pretty much every visitor who comes in picks a place along the wall for their height to be marked and then labeled with their name and date. It certainly showed me how very average my height is.


I also visited Amsterdam's Cat Museum, which was very fab. It was all art inspired by cats, and then real cats who lived there. I ended up sitting on a couch and petting one cat for a good 15-20 minutes. Worth going to if you are a cat lover, though it is off the beaten path.

That basically sums up my museum trip of Amsterdam. In Haarlem (a most adorable town, one I highly recommend), we went to the Frans Hals museum which was rather, eh. It was well laid out, but not my preferred style so I was not blown away.

(For more pictures, look to Facebook. Either friend me or grab someone who is friends with me to look at them. Erika is always a good choice :) )

Amadea

AMRS Movie, Take 2!

Hello again everyone!

The second AMRS movie night was a blast! We watched The Secret of the Kells, which is an animated movie "set in medieval Ireland. This movie tells the adventure of Brendan and a celebrated master illuminator of manuscripts who arrives with a book brimming with secret wisdom and powers. Magic, fantasy, and Celtic mythology come together in a riot of color and detail that dazzle the eyes in a sweeping story about the power of imagination and faith to carry humanity through dark times." In other words, it was just awesome. :) The animation and colors were fantastic. My favorite character was Pangur Ban, the white cat who belongs to the master illuminator and, later, Brendan. Pangur provided comic moments throughout the film by acting like a typical cat.

And to make this second movie even better, Dr. DeMarco cooked a delicious pork butt, cumin carrots, and mashed potatoes with a secret ingredient, which shall not be disclosed (it is secret after all). The food was absolutely soooo good!

Everyone had a wonderful time and enjoyed the fantastic food!