Cheeky Americans

Since I have been substitute teaching I have made great headway at understanding the British accent. I owe it to being totally immersed in the language daily. In fact, when Jim and I go out in public I am the official translator. In a relatively short time my ear has become so accustomed to hearing British accents that whenever I hear Americans speaking it really stands out.

One day, a few of us Tyndale residents were standing around having casual conversation about such things. Joining us was my husband’s PhD supervisor. He is one of our neighbors and also in charge of Tyndale House. His official title is “Warden” (another English word with different connotations to us Americans). In his best interest, I will refer to him from now on as “The Warden.” This is to avoid mentioning his actual name because I’m guessing he would rather not have The Cambridge Hillbillies blog pop up every time someone googles his name.

Anyway, we were all standing around talking about language differences and accents when I felt compelled to point out just how keen my ear had become, so that I could very quickly pick up on an American accent, even if I were in a crowded room. The Warden chimed in that it was probably because the Americans were speaking so loudly.

The high point of that conversation would have been some witty and comical comeback from me, but I restrained myself—it wasn’t that I couldn’t think of one I just restrained myself! While it seems out of character for me to restrain myself from a comical and witty come-back, I had a very good, yet complicated reason which I will try to explain.

The short of it is that I thought it would be unkind to rob The Warden of his moment. I owed The Warden this kindness because I knew he was still smarting from an earlier incident. We had only been living here a few days when someone organized a party in the Tyndale House common room to celebrate England’s participation in the Rugby world cup.

For my American friends who don’t know what Rugby is, well, neither do I really. They use a vaguely American shaped football and have sort of American football type goal posts, and some sort of scoring system similar to American football. They spend a lot of time in a huddle, but in one big one instead of two. They don’t wear pads or helmets, presumably because nothing exciting enough to warrant pads and helmets ever happens in the game. That’s about all I know about it.

At any rate, just as in America, before sporting events they play the national anthem. For some strange reason the English have chosen for their national anthem the tune of that glorious American patriotic hymn, My Country ‘Tis of Thee. They call it God Save Our Queen. There were twenty or so people in the room, about ¾ of them were Americans. We were all enrapt in hearing a tune so near and dear to our hearts, and we were humming along.

Somewhere near the end of the song I was overcome by a cheeky American impulse. The final phrase of the song for the British is the title “God save the Queen.” The final phrase for us Americans is of course “Let freedom ring.” There is a mechanism that takes over in the brain when one is singing a song you have sung over and over again. It is like an automatic pilot. This happens in church frequently. A hymn is sung a particular way and engrained on the congregation. If some one comes a long and sings it the right way, the congregation will automatically sing it they way they always have. I knew the Americans would follow me, so I did the deed. On the first beat of the final phrase I bellowed out “Let.” My patriotic brothers and sisters did the rest. In an instant freedom was ringing where God should have been saving the Queen.

I was hoping for some reaction, but The Warden’s response was priceless. Not since that original cheeky American impulse known as the Boston Tea Party has a perceived act of treason been met with such an overreaction. With eyes wild and limbs flailing the Warden sprang from his seat sputtering repeatedly “God save the Queen! It’s God save the Queen!” Amid his tones of “how could you” and “how dare you” the Americans, were holding their sides and wiping away tears of laughter. The joke had been on them as well, as many of them had subconsciously blurted out subversion of the monarchy.

There is no need to speculate as to whether I could actually come up with witty and comical response to The Warden’s suggestion that Americans are loud. It was purely for the sake of community harmony and good cultural integration that I chose to let the comment about how loud Americans are pass by with out a clever retort. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.