Recently I have read an article about an English journalist who had been working at The Guardian in New York for three years. She speaks about how English and American are divided by a common language, and, in the end she has decided to use communication accommodation, which is a real science to back this problem up. This theory says that, when people interact they adjust their speech, their vocal pattern and their gestures to accommodate to others. Scientists say the phenomenon of adopting first vocabulary and then even taking on a foreign accent is born out of empathy, or a subconscious desire to fit it.
Oscar Wilde in The Canterville Ghost - the story about an American family who wants to buy an English haunted castle - wrote “ We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course the language”.
Thinking about all that, I have reminded a song by Sting, An Englishman in New York.
I don't drink coffee I take tea my dear
I like my toast done on one side
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I'm an Englishman in New York…
I'm an alien I'm a legal alien
I'm an Englishman in New York…
Well, now just in case you have to go to New York and you don’t want to feel like an alien, find out how to say these words in American English.
Term, film, flat, taxi, return ticket, petrol, main road, motorway, underground, subway, pavement, lorry, car park, university, autumn, holiday, fortnight, tap rubbish, dustbin, wardrobe, ground floor, lift, toilet, chips, crisps.
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