From
UW to UK
Dear
Fellow Badgers,
Oh,
lordy, the lardy cake that I picked up at the bakery
this morning was ever so succulent, despite the fandango
my heart did when it sensed the incoming surge of
saturated fat. I could get that blast of bakery fat
in Madison, of course, simply by grazing my way up
and down State Street. But I couldn't get a jen-yoo-ine
lardy cake (roughly like an American cinnamon roll),
as I can in my new home of Oxford, England.
I get other things here, too, including confirmation
of George Bernard Shaw's wisdom when he said, "England
and America are two countries separated by the same
language." Boy, are they ever. I tried to tell
a Brit the other day that he was saying the letter
Z all wrong, but he mulishly insisted that it's zed.
No wonder the American colonies rebelled — out of
sheer alphabetical outrage.
Their
chips are actually fries, of course, ad their real
chips are crisps, which borders on unpronounceable.
The British insist that the dot at the end of a sentence
is a full stop, not a period, and the say whilst and
amongst, which makes me think I'm trapped in a Dickensian
time warp. They also glissade over their Rs as if
they weren't really there, making farther sound
like father.
But
generalizing about "the" British accent
is a dangerous (or dodgy, as my British friends would
say) enterprise. Compared to Wisconsin, Britain is
awash in accents, and even the British can't understand
each other at times. Broad accents from the north
of England, for example, can sound like gobbledygook
to southerners.
My spouse, Jikyeong Kang, is a faculty member at the
University of Manchester Business School in the north,
and when I visit there on weekends, my most commonly
used expression is "Pardon me?" followed
closely by "Huh?" And when a Glaswegian
Scot gets wound up, you can kiss my comprehension
good-bye. On the other hand, my American accent doesn't
seem to scrunch British brows, perhaps because I talk
like the people in Hollywood films, of which the British
get large doses at cinemas.
Differences between Britain and America run rampant
in sports. I thought football at Camp Randall Stadium
was a real slam-bang affair. But the padless rugby
players here seem to have, as their most sublime goal
in life, the removal of opponents' heads and limbs.
Soccer,
which they call football, is massively popular,
but the quintessential British sport is cricket. Cricket
is Š so slow Š you see Š that it makes baseball seem
whizzing-fast. A match can take days, and even then
there may be no winner. Cricket appears to be a way
for players and spectators to while away the hours
between lunch ad teatime, both of which bring play
to a sedate stop.
Speaking
of sedate stops, I see one coming up from my editor
about 241 words ahead, but not before I tell you about
Oxford University's colleges. They look, well, Oxonian.
Architects and masons have made stones say something
here that is unique in the world. I know Science Hall
at UW-Madison is funky, and Bascom Hall is an interesting
assemblage of limestone, but Oxford is architecturally
cool, in an ancient kind of way.
You
can gaze at the famed "dreaming spires,"
as the poet Matthew Arnold called them, or peer into
one of the grassy courtyards that look as if they're
groomed with a toothbrush, or sip an ale in a pub
that's just a bit older — by two or three centuries
— that the Rathskeller in the Memorial Union.
There are beauties on both sides of the Atlantic,
of course. More than one of my colleagues have studied
at UW-Madison, and they have fond memories of the
place, including the Union Terrace on Lake Mendota.
And my British friends who have traveled in the States
all remark on the same things: wide-open spaces, big
houses, friendly people. They're amazed that you can
go for miles without seeing anyone in America.
There's much more to tell you, but I really should
sign off. I need to finish my lardy cake and catch
the last three days of the cricket match on TV. Oh,
and Tony Blair is going to hop a chopper to Oxford
to consult with me on adopting the new Euro currency.
Any thoughts?
Cheerio,
Jeff.
Jeff Iseminger MA'93 served as assistant
director of University Communications at UW-Madison
until last summer, when he became director of communications
at Oxford Brookes University in England.
On Wisconsin home
