Another quote…
There are moments in Berlin night life when it would be nice be a native English speaker, just to be able to appreciate all the nuances. Like when a Swede and a Spaniard who have just met in Watergate and shared a taxi to Alexanderplatz talk about how great they think Berlin is: ‘I fucking love this city.’ Or shortly afterwards in the lift when a Dutch guy who lives in London gets talking to a Norwegian girl, and she’s there with a friend who just moved to London. While they’re attempting to explain all of this - they do have fifteen floors to travel - another Norwegian chips in, telling the Dutch guy that, should he ever travel to Norway, he mustn’t go to Bergen as it’s incredibly boring.. Then we reach the top. The door opens and the lift operator lests everyone out. On his way out of the lift, a guy in his late twenties who sounds as if he might come from Australia, and who has been listening to his companions’ conversation the whole way, says, ‘Norway, Norway - that’s the country with the fjords, right?’
Tobias Rapp, Lost and Sound: Berlin, Techno and the Easyjet Set
Water with or without Gas?
English is the current lingua franca of the world, the default code for international business, science and technology, just as French and Latin used to be in past times. A lingua franca is a language used by two people who do not share a mother tongue, particularly if this is an altogether third language, separate from both speaker’s vernacular. Native English speakers often forget this, which makes for interesting encounters at airports, cafés and historical ruins between a tourist who speaks English as their first language and a non plussed local who is familiar with the international variety.
In this case it was an exchange between an Anglosaxon lady, attired in her choicest Marks & Spencer twinset and H. Samuel pearls, and a German cashier with the sort of expression you presumably get after standing behind an airport sandwich counter 12 hours a day. Twinset lady had picked up a bottle of water and wanted to know whether it was still. This predictably drew a blank stare from the frankly unimpressed Teutonic sales assistant, and communication was not further improved by the Brit’s tendency to mumble her words and speak in hushed tones, as if she might upset the cheese and tomato sandwiches languishing on the counter in front of her.
She spoke as if British, and not International English, was the lingua franca and kept repeating “still” as if it were a mantra that would hopefully reach the exasperated person in front of her. “Without gas?” would the exasperated person say, “Natural?” she would venture. Her sparring partner refused to concede - this was after all her mother tongue, how dare this pimpled foreign youth tell her how to speak it?. This tug of war continued for a bit before twinset lady half-heartedly capitulated. “And how much is it then?” she sighed. “Zwee zirty”. “Beg a pardon?” And without taken her eyes from the customer, the German girl reached for a piece of cardboard behind the till upon which she had written € 3.30 in black marker pen.
