Unamerican words

This post is less serious than most.

I think of myself as an Engineer with an Engineering outlook.  My father was also an Engineer, in his case a practising one.  He worked at smaller companies most of his carrier.  But on a couple of occasions he worked for large companies.  This is a story he told based on an event that happened while he was working for a large company.

This company had a supply room staffed by a woman attendant.  One day my father went to get some office supplies.  Ahead of him was another Engineer who was English.  The English fellow calmly asked the attendant for a "rubber".  She immediately turned bright red and started stammering.  At that point my father leaned in and said "I think he means an eraser".

This is an example of "Two countries separated by a common language".  Except in this example the two countries use different words for the same concept rather than the same words for different concepts.  I have come across several other examples of this "different words" phenomenon.  Here are some others.

There is a tool that Americans call a "wrench".  The idea is that you use this tool to wrench things, to force them to do what you want them to do.  The English call the same tool a "spanner" because it can be adjusted to "span" or fit bolts of several sizes.   Both terms seem about equally valid to me.

There is a family of electronic devices that Americans call "tubes".  This is short for "vacuum tube" and this phrase captures key details of its construction.  The vacuum tube was invented by Thomas Edison.  Shortly after he invented the electric light bulb, something that is a vacuum tube but is not generally referred to as such, he did a number of experiments with them to see what else he could figure out.  In one of these he inserted a metal plate close to but not touching the filament.  He noted that a steady current emerged from the contact he connected to the plate.  It turns out that electrons boil off the hot filament, travel across the vacuum inside the tube, and strike the plate.  These plate electrons generate a current.  This was the first diode (initially a tube with two components, later any device that turned alternating current into direct current).

Later someone (I forget who) added another component, a screen or "grid", which they placed between the filament and plate.  If a small negative voltage was applied to the grid then the plate current disappeared.  This configuration is called a triode (three components).  Further experimentation determined that a small change in the grid voltage could result in a much larger change in the plate current.  Thus a small signal (voltage change) to the triode could be used to control and, if operated correctly, could result in a large change (amplification) in the plate current.  The triode became a key component in early radios and other electronic devices.  As a result of this "control" characteristic the British refer to these devices as "valves".  So an American "tube" is a British "valve".  In this case I think the Brits have the better term.

In America we have a game called "football".  In Britain (and the rest of the world) we have a game called "football".  They are completely different games.  There is a tortured historical chain that connects American Football to British Football but at this point the commonality between the two games is almost nonexistent.  So which name is more accurate?  British Football involves a very intimate association between feet and balls.  Almost all control of the ball is implemented by the foot or feet.  There is permitted contact with other body parts like the head but foot action dominates heavily.

Now consider American football.  There is the occasional kick but most of the control of the ball is exercised by the hands.  The center snaps the ball with his hands.  The quarterback holds the ball then often throws the ball with his hands.  Running backs hold the ball while running.  Receivers use their hands to catch the ball then behave like running backs.  A better name for American Football would be handball.

Unfortunately, the name "handball" is already taken.  And the game it is associated with involves a lot of hands and balls so we must scratch "handball" off our list of possible alternative names for American Football.  Now consider what the Americans call the British game.  They call it "soccer".  Now socking is a not a completely accurate description of what goes on in American Football but it is reasonably close.  It we break "soccer" down into "sock" and "her", the "her" part does not fit as the game is played primarily by men.  So "sock him" or "soccem" would be a better name.  Here too I give the nod to the British for a better fit between the word and what it is connected with.

There was a 1960's "spy" TV show produced in the U.K. that I loved.  It starred Patrick McGoohan and was called "Danger Man" in the U.K.  The theme song in the U.K. version was called "High Wire".  It was OK.  Americans would recognize it because parts of it were used heavily within the episodes.  But the version broadcast in the U.S. was called "Secret Agent" and featured a theme song called "Secret Agent Man" sung by Johnny Rivers.  The U.S. theme song was much better.  It included the now famous line "they've given you a number and taken away your name".  This was a reference to the number "007" given to James Bond.  Danger Man was the most realistic of the '60s spy TV shows.  As a result it never was as popular as other offerings such as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", the James Bond movies, and other competitors.  McGoohan took the "given you a number and taken away your name" idea and turned it into a TV series called "The Prisoner".  The Prisoner has achieved cult status, although it was not that popular at the time of original broadcast.  I found the "alienation" and "theft of identity" themes mildly interesting.  But it was just too weird for me.

When I was growing up there was a famous word.  It was famous for being very long.  It was "antidisestablishmentarianism".  When the movie "Mary Poppins" came out it included a song about another long word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".  The new word immediately took over as the long word of choice.  But it is a made up word.  The other word is an actual real word.  Germans are famous for making up long words by smashing a number of short words together.  Antidisestablishmentarianism is an example in English of the same idea.  Breaking it down we have:

anti                 a negative
dis                  a negative
establishment  more on this part later
tarian              someone who does or is a member of the group who does
ism                 the philosophy associated with the thing

The key part is "establishment", which refers to "the established church".  The Church of England (a.k.a. the Anglican Church) was "established" (e.g. created) by king Henry the VIIIth.  He badly wanted a male heir.  He talked the Catholic Church into the equivalent of a divorce several times because his then current wife was either barren or kept producing only daughters.  Finally the Church had enough of this fudging and stopped cooperating.  So Henry "established" the Church of England (initially a clone of the Catholic Church except it had a liberal divorce policy when it came to kings).  Shortly thereafter there arose a group opposed to this whole idea of an established church.  They were the disestablishment bunch.  And some time later an opposition to the opposition developed.  They were the antidisestablishment bunch.  And all this got studied.  So scholars started writing papers about antidisestablishmentarianism.  Now two negatives cancel each other out.  So I don't know why they didn't just talk about establishmentarianism.  But, if they had, the word would not have been long enough to be interesting.

Finally, let me close this ditty out with a little Harry Potter trivia.  The first book has to do with the "Sorcerer's Stone", according to the American title.  What is that?  Never heard of it.  Well it turns out that the original U.K. title referred to the "Philosopher's Stone".  This makes much more sense.  Philosopher's Stones come from Alchemy.  Supposedly you could touch a Philosopher's Stone to "base metal", usually assumed to be lead, and it would turn to Gold.  Philosopher's Stones were often imputed to have other mystical properties too.  Alchemy eventually evolved into Chemistry and searches for a Philosopher's Stone were abandoned.  Modern nuclear chemistry provides an actual working recipe, by the way, for turning lead into Gold.  But it turns out the process is far more expensive than buying Gold at your local jewelry store.

Apparently the U.S. publisher of the Potter books believed that using "Philosopher's Stone" in the title was too much for the delicate sensibilities of potential American readers and changed the title to the nonsensical "Sorcerer's Stone".  Meanwhile, vast quantities of gore, death, and destruction are available at your local video store or on the TV in your child's bedroom.  But apparently, this is of less concern.  And, given the current state of education in this country, I'm not sure most American children have even heard of Philosopher's Stones.