810 I Do Too Speak English!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Herlock Sholmes has an amusing post on a recent language difficulty. It reminded me of the time I had a similar problem in England.

I speak English. What's the problem?

It was 1987. Great Britain wasn't as "Americanized" then as it seems to be now. Daughter and I were driving through tiny villages on our way from London to Wales, after having spent two weeks on a houseboat on the canals. Daughter was 12 years old, and had had her ears pierced just before we left the US, and I guess from the damp on the canals, her piercings had gotten infected. The pamphlet we had been given said to use rubbing alcohol to disinfect the earlobes and earrings.

So we set out to find a drug store and alcohol.

It wasn't easy. I kept asking people on the streets "Excuse me, ma'am, where can I find a drug store?" Most people just looked at me strangely, and said they didn't know. And then backed away from me. One woman, when I asked for a druggist, reared back and said in disgust, "We don't do that sort of thing around here!" She got really huffy when I explained that I wanted to get alcohol for my daughter. She told me I was a bad parent, and didn't deserve to have a child.

Three villages later, when I was very frustrated, I finally found a woman who laughed and explained that I wanted a "chemist", not a drug store. A seller of drugs is something quite different.

So we finally found a chemist shop. I looked on the shelves a bit, and couldn't find rubbing alcohol, so I went to the counter and asked. "I need alcohol. Where would I find it?"

The clerk directed me to the local pub.

It turns out what I wanted was medicinal spirits from a chemist, not alcohol from a drug store.