Englarican Pt. 1

When you're an American engaged to a Brit...questions about "what is this called" or "why do you refer to that as such" are bound to come up. (To say nothing for an American not only engaged to a Brit but actually moving to England!) From the Motherland to America, the differences abound. You can find plenty of English/American dictionaries out there. So I'm not attempting to recreate one of those. Just google it.

Instead, I've decided to make note of such idiosyncracies on my blog that I found particularly amusing to me...things I personally wondered about. Not every nuance under the sun between our two languages.

Pronunciation is often key. Case in point: vitamin. Americans pronounce this word "vye-tah-min". It's a long "i" as in "lite". Brits, on the other hand, pronounce it "vih-tah-min", a short "i" sound, as found in the word "bit". I'm not an English teacher, and I need as much help as anyone else. But in my opinion, the Brits probably win this round. After all, there's no indicator of a long "i" in the word. It's not "viteamin", is it?

But what about the river that runs through London? It's spelled T-h-a-m-e-s. Now I know we Americans are inclined to pronounce it exactly as it looks, with a long "a" sound as in "shame". But the Brits? No, they've got their own pronunciation and proud of it - "tems"...short "e" sound as in "gems".

Now that's just weird. It's not only clearly an "a", it's a long "a" as is indicated by the "e" at the end of the word. But they change it round to a short "e".

The point is, we both have words that the other culture might snicker at when we hear it pronounced. Such are the diversities that make the world interesting!

But it's not just pronunciation that make languages interesting. Entirely different words can mean the same thing between two countries, even two countries that claim to speak the same language.

While Americans claim to speak "English", it's really not 'true English', is it? It's "American". They're clearly sister languages...indeed twin languages, if only in the fraternal sense. There are differences that set each apart.

One such example that has intrigued me over the two and a half years that I've known Helen is the English Muffin. Americans, when you think of English Muffins you think of these:

http://thomas.gwbakeries.com/subcat.cfm/subcatId/22

Indeed, if some sources on the 'net are to be believed, the above brand owes its namesake to its founder and the founder of the English Muffin itself, Samual Thomas.

But what about our brothers and sisters in England? What do they call these tasty, toasted treats? Simply "muffins"? The old joke goes that "Brazil Nuts" are simply "nuts" when you head to that little country in South America. So in an effort to find out, I asked Helen.

Her initial reaction was, "Pardon?" Fair enough. So I sent her a link to an image of an English Muffin, likely the same link you see above. She recognized the food product of course, but said that, indeed to delight that the product in question was referred to simply as a "muffin" back home in 'ye olde country'.

This poses a problem, however. I know for a fact that what we think of as a 'muffin', that is a sweet roll of sorts, cake-like in texture, baked in a deep-dish tin, are also referred to as "muffins" in England. So...if I'm at a restaurant, and I want would like to eat what I think of as an "English Muffin", what do I request so as not to end up with a cake-like item full of blueberries or chocolate chips?

After further probing of Helen, we've come to the conclusion that while English Muffins are commonly 'muffins' in England, were you to buy them in a supermarket they 'might' be referred to as 'breakfest muffins' or something like that, but we're not entirely sure. What we do know for sure is there's another product that, to my knowledge, we don't have in the States but that we're probably all aware of - crumpets.

Anyone seen the movie version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"? Raphael has a memorable moment fighting Casey Jones near the beginning of the film.

Casey: New game, round-head. Cricket!
Raph: Cricket? Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket.

Well, I can honestly say I'm one step closer to understanding that favourite, yet elusively confusing sport with sticky wickets, bails and wicked googlies...because I know what a crumpet is.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&defl=en&q=define:CRUMPET&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

"Okay," I hear you say. "But what IS it?" Well perhaps an image would help?

http://static.flickr.com/1/4460621_b5cb6514f7_m.jpg

"But Jeremiah! It looks like an English Muffin to me!" Au contraire, my uneducated, colonial rebel! A crumpet is different from an English Muffin in subtle, but distinct ways.

First of all, it's not got a "top" and "bottom" like an English Muffin. Also, note the porous texture! The air pockets created while baking give it a unique, spongy texture that stands apart from an English Muffin.

If Yahoo! Answers is to be believed, (http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060828064804AAnhcUR) the main difference lies in the makeup of the batter and the cooking.

See also: http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-cru1.htm in which it is discussed that the first "Harry Potter" book changed "crumpets" to "English Muffins" when it came to the states but also touches on the significant differences in cooking procedures.

Also, Wikipedia has extensive information on the various types of muffins and breakfast breads, but as they are hardly 100% reliable, and as I've presented other good links already, I'll leave that one to your discretion, reader.

Finally, I'll leave you with a blog entry...or...web-entry of sorts...from a woman who was born and raised in England but now lives in Japan, and had the same queries herself as I do, and has first-handedly gone to several stores in England and done the research herself.

http://www.imaginatorium.org/words/muffin.htm

Whatever you call them...English Muffins or Crumpets...whatever you prefer...I think we can all agree they're tasty when toasted with butter.

Happy munching!