Mach de Bagua    

Texan English

The English of U.S. is much diffrent from what I learned in school, I am not sure if it is the unique phenomena in Texas or not. Here is ome examples.

1. How to say hello
Never say "How do you do!" to people. They do not know what it means. They will say "How are you going?" or "What's going?" Your answer could be "(pretty) good! (And you?)."

2. I hate it!
Would you hate something without life, for example, a chair or a lamp? I bet 90% person with mother tongue of Chinese won't, considering hate is a serious word in Chinese. However, the logic is pretty simple, hate is the other side of like. If you do not like something, you hate it. e.g.
I hate my cable because it slows down everyday on 5 o'clock.

3. now
They never use current as now, at least for hardware guys. Allways add a right now at the end of your sentence. Right now should pronounced like 315(上声) followed by 51(去声).

4. ride
It pains without a car in U.S. What would you if you do not have a car? Usually people will be nice to offer you aid: "Do you need a ride?"

5. in town/ out of town/ out from town
I guess New Yokers won't say these words. If you arrived somewhere, usually you should write a email to all your friends in that city: "Hi buddy, your old friend is in town now, my contact info is ... ...".
eg. Another senerio is, somone ask you to have a weekend dinner. You answer is "Oh, no, what a pity I will be out of town this weekend!".
eg. Bill is going to meet a chip vendor out from town this noon.

posted 2004.05.12 Wednesday