What's For Tea?

We had wet rain this morning, but the last two days were nice, so I didn't mind it. Nothin to do but stay inside for tea when there's wet rain out...

One thing that's been interesting about being here is the wee language barrier. Right, there's not supposed to be one, but there most definitely is. Besides the fact that anyone who lives ten feet outside the town is virtually incomprehensible (to me), there's the slang, and also just simply the regular words for things (ahem, colloquialisms).

Besides all the Irish and Scottish accents, there are interns here from New York, Canada, California, Belfast, and England--which makes for a constant conversation about accents permeating every other conversation (much like conversations you hear among college freshman about norcal/socal).

My favorite is that dinner is called, simply, tea. As in, we're going to order pizza for tea. Or, I had sandwiches and juice for tea. Tea is also called tea, so I get confused frequently. The question, "have you had tea yet?" is perplexing, as I generally have tea 4 or 5 times a day...yet only have tea just once a day, in the evenings.

Furthermore, I've heard several times that I had lemonade with my tea, or with my lunch (which is the word for lunch), when I most certainly had 7-Up. But I don't slag off, I always let them know that 7-Up will never be, nor has it ever been, lemonade. That is something I simply cannot accept.

I had the mickey taken out of me on a few occasions, but not as much as the New Yorker. The other night, Jemma, who is English, generally speaking, insisted on mimicking Matt (from NY) about the way he says "coffee"...which isn't as bad as a could be. He has only a slight accent. But Jemma decided I say it oddly, too.

Jemma is quite talkative, but mostly to herself. We share an office and it's funny mostly all day long as I never know when she's talking to me or not. She told me about a wee movie she saw recently about killer sheep who turned people into sheep by biting them-- it was supposed to be taking the mickey out of slasher vampire movies.

Despite mild teasing about my wee American accent, I received a compliment today from someone who said she liked my accent, that it is "class." Brilliant! I have a class accent, according to one person at least.

There's loads of other wee differences besides those you hear in pronunciation alone--like baysil and baasil, or like this situation, "hi I'm calling from the Vineyard church"
silence, "which church?"
sigh "the Vine-yahrd church"
"oh helloo!"

What's the crack on that vine-yahrd church anyway? What IS the crack? I think it must be like, "the haps"... (Except you sometimes hear, "that's good crack!"). One of the wee kids from the Ugandan choir I saw on Wednesday night, who, when told I was from America, lit up and said with an appropriate grin, "Wazzup!?"