Speak British, Mummy!

Kassie doesn't ask anymore. After three years she knows it's not going to happen. Although my Canadian accent shows no sign of fading, and British writer friends tell me I need to work on my Northern dialect, my vocabulary has changed significantly since taking up residence in the UK. I now prefer "rubbish" to "garbage" and use "mean" properly, to mean cheap or frugal as opposed to cruel. I even understood the delivery man yesterday whose only words to me were: "Cheers, duck. Ta-ra."

Just from his dialect and particulary the use of "duck", I knew him to be a native of nearby Stoke-on-Trent. Around here women are more likely to be called "luv" (much more preferable). One of my swim-class friends calls me "petal" and sometimes "flower", better still. (I either call people by name or not at all.) And I still use the typical Canadian greeting "How are you?" when met with the local "Are you all right?".

As Kassie is soon learning, some things change but many stay the same.