Hey there.
It was a quiet week and weekend. It passed by fairly quickly. I have two essays due in two weeks, and my NaNo is coming along swimmingly…which is a weird phrase, by the way.
I guess I could go on about some more British tidbits…hm, I should come up with a catchy title for my British life section, since I talk about it nearly every week. British tidbits…aha! BritBits! Yeah, you know that’s awesome.
Sooooo it’s time for another segment of BritBits!
Something odd actually just happened yesterday. In the UK you need to have a TV license if you have a TV or if you watch live TV on your computer. Seeing as I don’t have a TV and I don’t even know how to get live television on my computer, I don’t need a license. However, someone in my house had gone to the mailbox and brought a stack of mail into the kitchen, many of the envelopes coming from the same person. It said “URGENT” on it so I assumed it was a bill or something about the university.
It wasn’t. It was a threatening letter stating that I had not informed TV Licensing, some company, that I did not need a TV license and that my house is currently under investigation. They said to call to inform them if I didn’t need one, so that’s what I did today. And what happened? The lady said they were sending someone to my house anyway.
Really irritated by this point, I went online to search what one of these “visits” were like and found multiple comments saying “Don’t let them in.” They have no right to enter anyone’s home. They aren’t the police. They have no warrant. They’re just a company trying to sell something, and being rude while they’re at it.
So basically, it’s harassment, and they’ve been getting away with it for years. They’re like Jehovah’s Witnesses, except they act like they have authority and they get people to let them in their homes. I’m not sure why this company hasn’t been shut down for consistently harassing people, but whatever. I’m ignoring them from now on. Talk about invasion of privacy.
So. There’s that.
Another slightly interesting (if obvious) BritBit is that Thanksgiving isn’t big here. That makes sense, as it’s an American holiday. Still, online I see all these social networking sites talking about Thanksgiving and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I would have forgotten about it if it wasn’t everywhere I looked online. I feel like I should care that I’m going to miss it, but I don’t. I’ll probably end up eating pizza.
And that’s another thing. The UK is extremely Americanized. I mean yes, they have their own culture here, but I was expecting a bigger difference. The food is different but they still have Pizza Hut and Burger King and even KFC. They have Sprite and Coke and Cheerios and Capri Sun. They listen to American music, they watch American television, they watch American movies. I wasn’t expecting any of this, or at least not at this scale. This just makes “culture shock” even more laughable than I found it before I came here. I thought it wouldn’t be that bad, and that was when I was expecting huge differences. I’d compare it to visiting another state. Yeah there are lots of differences, but nothing anyone can’t handle.
I just remembered something else. British people have different inflections in their tones. It drove me crazy when I first arrived. So, for instance, let’s take this scenario: two roommates are looking for…um…a remote control for the TV in their room, but they both realize it is missing at different times. They can’t find it, so they both assume the other has it. So one day the first person finally decides to ask. In the U.S. the conversation might go like this:
Person 1: Hey, have you seen the remote?
Person 2: What? You don’t have it?
In the U.K. it might go like this:
Person 1: Hey, have you seen the remote?
Person 2: Do you not have it?
It seems almost exactly the same, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. The inflection in the tone of the second person is different. The American person’s pitch increases throughout the sentence, so that the last word (“it”) is the highest pitched word. In the U.K., however, the last word goes down in pitch. So it’s sort of like, “do You NOT HAVE it?” whereas in the U.S. it’s, “you Don’t HAVE IT?” That’s how you determine if a question is a question: the pitch increases at the end. Have you ever seen those girls who speak like every sentence is a question? We think it sounds like a question because of the rise in pitch, not really because of the words she’s using. If someone said, “What is the capital of Texas.” with the same pitch throughout the entire sentence, the average person would be confused for a second or two because it would be unclear if it was a question or a statement.
Why is this important? I dunno, I guess it isn’t really. It’s just something I noticed, and it probably doesn’t apply to every single person here. Just generally speaking. I guess it interests me because I’m an English major and language fascinates me. Or something.
Okay, one last BritBit: British people are not reserved. I don’t know where this idea came from, but it’s a lie. They’re just as loud as Americans. This could be due to the fact that the drinking age is 18 so people are wandering around drunk. That, or it was just a misconception to being with. Here I was, hoping for a quiet, relaxing year away from the rowdiness that is America. Nope. Don’t believe everything you see on TV people.
Speaking of which, I miss TV. I had one in my room last year but I couldn’t exactly pack a TV in my suitcase. I guess I could have had it shipped…but then I’d have to pay for a license. Sigh. Nothing is free anymore. I hope this atrocious practice doesn’t spread to the U.S. Though I guess it already has, since you have to have a digital cable thingy in order to watch TV now. Still, that’s not really a license. And now I’m rambling.
That’s it for now. See you next week. Happy Thanksgiving!
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