Another expat Brit recently turned me on to Wikipedia’s List of British words not widely used in the USA. Now, other than perhaps queueing, there’s very little more likely to thrill me on a rainy day than a good, solid list with plenty of references and trivia, and I’ve spent the last couple of days devouring the whole thing.

There’s a handful of words in the list I hardly even recognise, such as “French letter” for a condom, or “jam sandwich” for a police car – although if it was speeding along I would be much more likely to use blues & twos than the USA’s awkward ‘lights & sirens’ or ‘code’. What is more surprising, however, is the sheer volume of words that I use on at least a weekly basis which have made it into this list and which I’ve recently ascertained a good portion of my American friends have no definition for. Perhaps this, rather than my Cardiff-English accent, explains the blank looks and non-sequitirs I get in response from them from time to time.

I’ve educated some closer friends on knackered and jumper (in the US, a sleeveless dress), and whilst other entries such as launderette and [five dollar] note sound a bit off, they’re close enough to be understood, but there are still a few which I had no idea are utterly baffling to folks over here. I found it amazing that strop is nearly unknown and that I would be completely incoherent were I to say that someone mincing around was a bit camp. Let’s examine a few more though:

If, feeling a bit peckish I put some petrol in my motor and popped off for a pukka hot pasty, no-one would think me a plonker, but things might go a bit pear-shaped if I asked for some Spotted Dick – they might think I was a bit of a ponce (not to be confused with a nonce). If I then suggested some toad in the hole, they’d probably think I was just another pisshead out on the razz and chuck me out into the street arse over tit.

The roads, though, can be a curious affair. If, just past the motorway, the flyover, or the dual carriageway you were to be waiting on the pavement under the Belisha beacons at a Zebra crossing, then Americans would think you were talking codswallop when you mentioned cats-eyes, sleeping policemen or suggested that, because of the roundabout, perhaps it would have been better to take the subway to cross the tarmac instead.

The bedroom could be an infinitely embarrassing source of confusion too, given the British predilection for social-awkwardness and the number of sexually-themed words appearing in our fine list. On the plus side (questions of chivalry aside), a Page 3 quality bird probably wouldn’t have the nous be upset if you called her a slag or a bint but, she might think you a bit twee if you asked her for a snog or tried to get her kit off. My mother reads this, so I won’t avail myself of the rest of the sexual entries, but I will just let my American friends know that blower, cack-handed and suck it and see wouldn’t have made it into this paragraph, whereas copping off and topping are indeed precursors to rogering some totty.

Honestly, I find it amazing I’ve ever managed to have a conversation over here.

Xx

Moving home is never fun, and that seems to go double in a big city. First, you ask around your friends, and most likely, although none of them are moving, they all know a couple of people who have a room or are looking for someone else to move with. One-by-one you talk to these pre-vetted strangers and quickly discover the vast range of requirements that people have. This time around I saw all the usual suspects: people who want to pay more or less rent; live in a different area; move on a different date; or keep a vegan-only kitchen. But I also saw one novel factor: a whole bunch of people who only wanted to live with girls.

New York is a girl-heavy city (unlike say, Middlesborough, a heavy-girl city,) but it’s also a very liberal place. So, I was intrigued as to this trend, and I wondered if it was simply a statistical blip from my small sample size. I threw together a Perl script and scraped tens of thousands of postings on the rooms & shares section of New York’s Craigslist, which is my the most common method of finding roommates in a big city (Gumtree is an alternative in other countries.) I then fed the results into a number of data-mining suites I’ve built or used as part of my day job and waited for the results.

The first thing to do, was to normalise the data. All capitalisation and punctuation is removed, carefully. It’s not enough to simply convert all hyphens and colons to spaces, for example. The code for marijuana on such sites is ’4-20′ or ’420′ (as in “must be 420 friendly”), so splitting this to ’4 20′ is meaningless, but the oddly popular ‘washing-machine’ should clearly be split into two words. Data from Princeton’s WordNet together with some manual effort took care of this. Contractions such as “you’re” need to be expanded, and there are many other boring details to be taken care of. Fortunately, I already have the means to do most of this automatically.

Even after this, the initial data was, always, useless. First, I looked at popular ngrams – sets of n concurrent words – and found predictably boring results.

Most popular trigrams
21% ‘looking for a’
18% ‘to move in’
14% ‘the room is’
11% ‘if you are’
10% ‘i am a’

But, even these had value. It seems the posters aren’t particularly egotistical, with first-person utterances only slightly more common than those in the second-person. Interesting to note was that the first-person statements were definitive – “I am a” or “we will be” – and the second-person statements were surprisingly imperative — “you are a” or “you must”. Despite this, posters were polite, with ‘please’ occurring in 35% of posts. The most common, non-mundane ngram followed by exclamation marks was “Washer and dryer” or “Washer/dryer”, as in “Washer and dryer in building!!” — a rare and desirable treat in New York.

Requirements similar to ‘you must be…’
1. Respectful
2. Clean
3. A good fit (with current roommates/with us)
4. Financially stable/have a job
5. Female
…
9. Normal

A lexicon unique to the site has also appeared, with the aforementioned “420 friendly” (generally positive, i.e. required) and “bring the party home/back” (generally negative) being rarely frequent. Posters cared far more that a potential roommate was ‘respectful’ than ‘clean’ and were far more likely to identify themselves as ‘white’ than any other ethnicity (and yes, I checked they weren’t simply talking about the colour of the walls). The word ‘lesbian’ was used only twice, compared to hundreds of occurrences of ‘gay female’, a trend of which I was previously unaware, and the word ‘chill’ (laid-back, cool, fun) was very likely to be found within a post littered with errors of grammar and spelling.

Initial exploration over with, I turned my attention to the question that had started this all off: do New Yorkers really find the idea of living with men unbearable? It seems they do. Somewhere between 11-13% of posts explicitly required a female roommate and around 17% preferred one. The only stricter requirement was no pets (around 35%), but this is a tickbox on Craigslist. Only about 10% specified ‘no smoking’, 8% specified ‘no hard drugs’ and 6% ‘no drugs’. Male roommates were required in less than 1% of posts, by comparison.

A ‘female preferred’ example
…NON SMOKER >>>NO DRUGS no exceptions …GAY friendly bc I am Gay . So no closed minds . I am female chef would perfer female bout will consider the right very clean guy.

The above is one of the few examples where any reason whatsoever is given, as for the rest I can simply guess and relate the guesses of some New York friends. One has suggested that there exists a stereotype that gentlemen are ‘obnoxious and slobbish’, which is somewhat corroborated by the above quote. I can’t argue against that one, but we do have redeeming qualities too. Another notes that ‘what if he turns out to be a rapist?’ is, apparently, a question to be asked of a potential new roommate. Whilst Craigslist indeed contains the odd posting warning seekers away from a certain location, including one recent set of posts warning that a man on the Upper East Side tried to rape a girl who came to view an apartment, I feel the average rapist doesn’t sign a 1-year lease with his victims prior to the act.

It isn’t even just girls that only want to live with girls either. One male German banker posts:

I want to live with more girls, my roommates that are leaving are girls and I want to keep the vibe.

Another chap who I’m simply assuming without evidence to be a banker is looking for:

A girl to live in my downtown apartment, very cheap rent, must be willing to be a tease and if we hit it off, maybe more.

Charming, I’m sure.

So, whilst the handful of guys with the ‘females only’ requirement have explained themselves, I’m still at a loss as to the motivations of the girls that specify this. But, as I’m not particularly interested in living with someone who’d make such a distinction, or those who specify ‘straight people only’ (very rare) or ‘I’m not racist but I prefer to live with people from the same background’ (just the one), I can live without knowing.

Next, I intend to continue gathering data from New York Craigslist and, when I have enough, to compare the attitudes in the various boroughs. I also intend on getting data from other cities and seeing how they differ. Are the Californian cities really much more liberal? Do the Aussies care about anything other than the quality of barbecuing facilities on offer?

First though, I need to stop procrastinating and find myself somewhere to live.

Xx

New York is big. Really, really quite big. Very large, in fact. Massive, some might say. ‘The 27^th biggest state by area,’ one might misleadingly proffer, failing to mention that even this median placing amongst the US territories is still larger than England. Approximately 7,400 square miles of New York is covered with water. That’s an area the size of Wales (if we discount Ynys Môn, which is a strange little island anyway). Central Park alone is larger than Monaco.

New York isn’t just vast, it’s tall too, and I’m not just talking about the various skyscrapers here that each once held the title ‘tallest in the world’ until Asia started to feel a little self conscious and the folks there got competitive about their erections. See what I did there? The highest mountain in Wales, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), stands at a little more than a kilometre high. Ben Nevis, tallest in the British Isles, is a trifling 1,344m and a veritable dwarf compared to the highest point in New York, Mount Marcy which has a prominence of 1,498m and is located in the amusingly-named Essex County.

Things don’t stop above ground either. The NYC subway system is the largest mass transit system in the world, by length of track, and competes with Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow and London in the various other statistics (such as passengers carried), but none of those cities can truly compete once it’s pointed out that their mass transit systems don’t run 24 hours a day. And, in case you somehow missed the cultural marvel that is Die Hard 3, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Manhattan holds about 25% of the world’s gold bullion in vaults 25m underground.

Depending on the credibility of the source you wish to believe, and how generous they are with their descriptors, between 200 and 250 feature films are shot in New York City every year (the majority of them on a Sunday morning, directly on the path between my old apartment and a hot breakfast), with 23 prime-time TV shows and 40,000 location shoots shot in the city last year. Wikipedia also has a wonderful list (with 59 entries at the time of writing) of films which feature the destruction of New York City.

In fact, there are few statistics about New York that don’t inspire some degree of awe. Whether it’s the number of active restaurants (over 24,000 according to the Deparment of Health) or the fact that more than one new restaurant opens every day on average, or the 6 million tonnes of garbage thrown out each year by residents alone, the figures are often beyond imaginable. Sometimes, whether you’re a tourist sticking to the guide books or a local going about your weekly routine, it’s easy to forget that the city alone has more new diversions being made available in a day (and I’m not counting shows, galleries and concerts) than one could possibly visit, and that exploring the state properly would take years.

New York is big. Very big. I’m going to try and see some more of it. Starting with that giant mountain I think.

Xx

Diners in America are a magical wonderland that exist in a dimension quite apart from that in which we live our normal lives. Twenty-four hours a day, come rain, shine, plague or hangover, they’re willing to welcome you into their leather-clad booths and present you with an eight-page menu filled with everything from omelettes and toast through to filet de bœuf, served with three crab-stuffed lobster tails.

The advice I’ve always received is, however, that one should never be tempted to order anything past the first page or two of the menu. The various combinations of eggs and bacon will be pleasing, the burger and sweet potato fries delicious and the breakfast sandwiches will cure what ails. Follow this advice, and nearly everything about eating at a diner will be an unparalleled pleasure.

Except the tea.

Americans don’t really know how to make or drink tea. They put honey in Assam tea, milk in Earl Grey and ice in…tea. Really, they put ice in tea. They put ice in tea. This is something I’ve learned to deal with at home, by dint of making my own tea, but I have very little recourse when weakened, hungover, and waiting on the whim of short-order cooks for much-needed bacon.

So, for diner employees nationwide that believe it’s acceptable to bring out a teabag, a warm cup of water and some cream, and then to later add more water to the cup once the bag has been discarded like a differentiated isolated constant, here is how to serve tea.

1. Select an appropriate blend. Beginners should stick to breakfast tea (before 2pm), afternoon tea (until 6.30pm) or Earl Grey (post 6.30pm).
2. Place the leaves in a warmed teapot or théière (see above). A simple rule of thumb is one teaspoon per person, plus one for the pot.
3. Add freshly boiled water.
4. Wait. At least three minutes.
5. Bring the tea to the table, with cups, saucers, teaspoons, and a strainer if necessary. If serving breakfast or afternoon tea, bring milk. For Earl Grey, bring slices of lemon. Do not pour the tea.
6. Comment on the weather as you leave.
7. After an appropriate interval, around 20-30 minutes, return with a fresh pot of boiling water.
8. Comment on the weather again.

A follow up post entitled ‘Iced Tea, or: How to Tie a Noose’ will be forthcoming for those of you tempted to alter the above set of instructions.

Xx

I’ve never owned an umbrella. They’ve always seemed a little too effeminate to me, but as it’s currently pouring with rain outside and I need some crackers to go with my cheese, I’m starting to reconsider that assessment. The problem is, I don’t know where one buys umbrellas from: there’s definitely no such thing as an umbrella shop and I don’t recall seeing them in any other shops I’ve frequented.

I know that, back in the UK, I could probably nip into a particularly large Tesco or Asda, but in Manhattan no such thing exists. So, I Googled Walmart (figuring that, as they bought Asda, they must be quite similar.)

Wow.

Presented below, are a very representative selection of user-submitted Google Reviews for the nearest Walmart. The full set are available here.

It was so dirty I think someone wiped a dirty diaper on the floor, and there was crusted faeces all over the floor in the cookie aisle. I couldn’t buy any cookies, when I told the lady she yelled at me and said I didn’t need any more cookies.

All the workers look depressed.

This Walmart is soo small & dirty [and it] stinks like fish & cheap perfume.

Of course, when not buying cookies, Google Reviews users always enjoy a bit of casual racism:

All the people that work in the store are black and if you ask them for help they yell at you.

At least three times I was behind someone who slowed down the line because they didn’t speak a word of English (NO HABLA, GET IT?)

But, if all the above isn’t enough to keep you away, then the next couple of quotes might make you think twice.

Do not ever come here at night.

This is the store that a man lost his life [in] the day after Thanksgiving.

I still really want to go to Walmart, just to see where it’s like to walk through the firearms aisle on my way between the dairy and car-parts sections. And get an umbrella. Just, maybe not this one.

Xx

I had a whole lot of help getting over here from the UK. If I’d been left to my own devices I’d have probably still gotten here, but I would very likely have forgotten some very basic and obvious items. Like socks. Or power cables for any of my electronics. Just to name two things that didn’t make it onto my packing list.

As it turns out, there wasn’t too much I missed out, but there were definitely a couple of things that didn’t quite deserve the space they took up, given that I left home quite a few things I would have liked to have brought. Amongst the items I haven’t touched since I unpacked them a couple of months ago are:

Looking back at the list though, I could probably assemble a pretty good fancy-dress outfit out of all that…

Xx