To my surprise England is a nation preoccupied with thoughts of disembowelment. It is unclear whether or not this is a result of paranoia or sinister thoughts, but England is unquestionably obsessed with entrails. You hear whispers of it everywhere. On the bus, in a restaurant, and even on the television. Men, women and children alike talk openly about the national pass-time of "gutting".
That is why my word for the day is "gutted". I wish it was my favourite word because I hear it all the time. The definition of the word in context is not nearly as sinister as it may seem initially. It is used to express feelings of disappointment or upset. Gutted? Pretty harsh, isn't it? Yes, it is a fairly dramatic word to use considering it also refers to the removal intestines. However it does seem to encompass a good range of feelings in one word, and it does seem a bit more sophisticated to say "I am totally gutted" than it does to say "me is oh so very sad". Poor me with my brutish Canadian English upbringing.
What is the difference? Canada and England are both predominantly English speaking nations (lets ignore French Canadians shall we? Because I am not interested in wasting time and I am from glorious western Canada.). However moving from one English speaking nation to the mother of all English speaking nations hasn't been as seamless as I had hoped it would be. Oddly enough one of my greatest complications has been communicating with people. I try very hard to understand people when I am spoken to, and throughout the years I have learned to understand many accents without much difficulty, but apparently when an English accent is involved all that is required to confuse me is a slightly heavy accent, a fast pace, or a bit of drunkenness. Any or all of these three variables turn what should be plain English into completely incoherent gibberish.
Sometimes it is a result of vocabulary. I am almost embarrassed to say that I have had difficulty accomplishing some very simple tasks because of a difference in vocabulary. Let me introduce one scenario which I wish I could say happened to a friend of mine, but it did not. Couldn't have. Why? Because I don't have any friends here, and it did in fact happen to me. Which is why this confessional begins with "I". I (told you it would) was at a pub attempting to order a soda/pop/fizzy drink/soft drink and I (just to clarify) had so much difficulty that I (just in case you didn't catch it the first two times) had to resort to listing off the ones I (getting a bit overused) knew they had in hopes that they would understand and continue to list them. Why all the trouble? Because I couldn't manage to figure out the necessary vocabulary word and as a result the bartender could not figure out what I was trying to order. In my defense the bartender was not a native English speaker, but in her defense apparently neither am I...
The English language is complex and during my first three weeks in England I have learned a bit more about it. Most importantly, I now know it does not matter if you think you are right, because you can't argue with an English person about how to speak English. An increasingly irritating fact. However, what I do know for sure is that fillet is pronounced fill-EH (a terrible Canadian joke) and not fill-IT, and it offends my mouth to say it any other way. One tiny victory for me.
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