Talk like a 'Merican

It's time for me to go back to the United States for a little while, because I am starting to talk like an expat.

I now use the word football interchangeably with soccer, refer to summer holidays instead of vacation, and talk about the years I spent at university.I found myself saying that I hadn't shut down the computer "properly" the other day. I'm more likely to talk about a film than a movie, and I take photos instead of pictures.

This is what happens when you leave the U.S. and talk to a lot of people who are either not native English speakers or who not native 'Merican speakers. Either way, I consciously try to avoid speaking English that is spiked with sports metaphors and idioms that would baffle a non-American. I try to avoid phrases like "cover your bases," "right out of the chute," "throw you for a loop," and "throw him under the bus" (apparently we throw things a lot). It's possible that no one in the U.S. even says those things any more. Have I been gone too long to keep up with idioms, much less the latest slang? Maybe I'm like an early colonist who still keeps up with what was in style the day I left the mainland. Pretty soon I will pull out my hoop skirts.

There is a lot of British English spoken at the International School, and even though I don't speak it much I can understand a lot.  If something bad happens that may or may not be your fault, it's unlucky. If everything is set and ready to go, it's sorted. I still am confused when one of our English or Aussie friends greets me in the morning with a "you all right?". As an American, I assume that I look tired, upset, or otherwise bad and he says this because he's concerned about me. It's actually a way of saying "how are you doing?".

No matter how long we live here, I won't develop a German accent (I can't even really speak German with a German accent). My language does, however, risk becoming the sort of vanilla variety of English of someone that could be from anywhere. Or, it could become slowly corrupted by other languages, which is what happened some of our expat friends who have been here a long time. Our friend Andy who used to live in France ends a lot of sentences with the word No, as in "it's cold outside, no?". Tom in Hamburg lets German seep in by saying "yeah, good" much like his wife says "ja, gut," and "no stress" instead of "kein Stress." 

The best remedy for this problem? How about a month back in the Midwest? Yes, I'll take it! We leave July 8th. And once I start talking with Americans again, the rest will be a piece of cake... unless I am way off base.