Learning to speak Kansan

When we lived in Amsterdam Kellen went to the British School and had friends from all over the world. One of his buddies proudly announced that he could speak, "Dutch, English and American."

George Bernard Shaw said that "England and America are two countries divided by a common language". What I didn't anticipate was yet another language gap on the state level.

Last night my extended family was converging on Red Robin to celebrate a birthday. I was driving one vehicle in the caravan with my brother, Mark, riding shotgun. "Is it on Waco or Greenwich?" I asked, giving the last word its correct British pronunciation.

"Gren-ich?" Mark said, "it's GREEN-witch. You're in Kansas now."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh please, I'll say ArKANSAS River when it runs through Kansas (as opposed to ArkanSAW, like the state) but I draw the line at saying GREEN-witch."

"How do you say 'Eldorado'?" he asked.

"EldorAYdo" I said.

"It's really EldorAHdo."

Okay, he got me there. It all depends on how you learn the words — and what language you're speaking when you learn them. I just happened to be speaking The Queen's English when I learned to pronounce "Greenwich", but most of my vocabulary is Kansan.

My friend Elise returned to her native New York after living in Europe for 20 years and also faced translation issues. "Most of my English speaking friends back in Europe have avoided the slang trap and speak in real sentences that are grammatically correct. They speak an English that is probably just as foreign to Americans as theirs is to the long-term expatriate" she wrote in an article titled Do We Speak the Same Language?

What language do you speak? Do you have another example of a uniquely Kansan word? Leave a comment and I'll work hard to understand you no matter which English you speak.

Comments

[alexis]

I have given up on any language - it's a miracle we understand each other at all. :P

[karlong]

That's pretty pessimistic for a chica who knows the difference between Dutch and Business Dutch!