Almost Lost in Translation

I've had occasion twice in the last week to be on the phone with people from the UK and today I was struck for the first time in a while about the differences between the English and American languages. Let me explain.

The first of the two calls was with a man whom I'll call Clive. He is the head of the group that does the actual coding and creation of the software package that this company sells. I've watched enough BBC to know that his accent was decidedly southern England and he spoke in a very measured and methodical manner. As such he was easy to understand and we had a pleasant discussion about the job I've been trying to get.

By contrast my call this morning with a woman named Electra for the purpose of this story. Electra also had a very southern England (almost Welsh) accent but she spoke at about 90 kilometers per hour. [It's the UK so I figured I should measure this in metric.] She's an account manager for about half a dozen customers and is busy, busy, busy hence the frenetic pace of her speech. Between her accent and the speed I lost about 15% of what she said but that was not the most interesting thing about the conversation.

During the conversation I had opportunity to ask her about how deep in to their products code she got. Specifically I asked the question "How often and how deep do you really get under the hood and mess the with the Java?" The moment the words left my mouth I started to wonder if I should have used the phrase bonnet (or boot, I never remember the right one to use) rather than hood. From that point on I was very aware of the differences between English and our American variant.

But the story does not end there. Just a few moments later the tables were turned. Electra was talking about the couple of US customers that she is currently responsible for that would probably end up on my plate should I land the job I was interviewing for.

"In addition to [a major cable network] we also have a print publisher based in New York. They put out a bunch of girlie magazines..."

Fortunately I had a good knowledge of the company at this point and had reviewed their website so I understood that the girlie magazines she was talking about were of the Cosmo variety and not the Busty Babes on Parade type. Besides I don't think that having a client like that would have sat too well with my wife.

It just goes to show that just because we were both speaking English doesn't mean that we were speaking the same language.

Epilogue: For more discussion on languages check out this post over at Island Passage. It's written by a fellow who spends his day swimming in the stuff.