Yorkshire twinned with France by Steve Way

 

Partly because I am doing my best to teach English to some French, Spanish and Mexican students, I was thinking about discussing the use of incorrect, though commonly used, English in writing. Should we gently steer our young readers towards more accurate English… or not?*

It’s difficult enough teaching second language learners the difference between ‘lend’ and ‘borrow’ without having to explain that most people, particularly teenagers, consciously or otherwise reverse the meanings. Feeling a bit pedantic one day – and of course being a penniless writer – when one of my teenage step-daughters asked, “Steve can I lend a fiver?” I responded with perhaps unexpected enthusiasm. “Certainly! Of course you can… I could really do with a fiver, would you lend it to me?” To her credit Charl responded with relatively amicable teenage humour. After only gazing skywards briefly she said, “Borrow…”

I’ve noticed people and characters saying ‘them’ in a number of TV programmes, when they actually mean ‘those’, as of course many people do. The scriptwriters in case of dramas are of course simulating real speech though curiously by contrast as well as noticing this happening in Corrie, regularly all the characters make refences to the classics that make it seem that all the residents of Weatherfield have graduated in English Lit.

The reason why I’m burbling on clumsily about this no doubt controversial issue, is that my musings about the correct use of language led me to a revelation that I’m amazed has eluded me so long. Namely that I should teach my French students to speak Yorkshire English!

Neither in France nor in Yorkshire do they use the letter h in pronunciation. I’m a soft southerner mainly brought up in the curiously named Wiltshire town of Chippenham** and even more oddly, given its location, a Leeds United fan. By a convoluted route I ended up wedding a Leeds girl and marrying into a family of Whites fans. One of my brothers-in-law was intrigued from the start that I actually sounded my ‘aitches’. It was almost as though it seemed to him that I possessed some obscure superpower. Dave in his turn horrified me on one occasion when relating a story about looking after his son, Tom, in which it sounded to me as if Tom had nearly been asphyxiated. But it turned out that he was only suffering from a lack of hair and not oxygen.

Having not previously made this significant connection between God’s favourite country and La Belle France, I had been making huge efforts to help my French students succeed in sounding their aitches, particularly at the beginning of words. It’s perhaps sadly reassuring that the style of language teaching is as unfit for purpose in France as it is in the UK. After working hard with one teenage student, she read a short piece, packed with words beginning with h, perfectly. “That was brilliant!” I enthused. “You’ve improved so much… they must have noticed that at your school! They must be so pleased with you!”

When Lucie replied with an empathetic ‘no’ I felt completely deflated. How could her teachers not have noticed such a marked improvement? On questioning her further it turned out that she and her classmates never actually spoke in English in their lessons. I suppose I should have realised that from having seen the homework she was given.*** It was even more formalised, boring and mechanical than that encouraged by the UK National Curriculum. (The situation for my Spanish teenage students appears to be nearly the same, though it does seem that they do actually speak in English occasionally.)

So, although they may be twinned already, I suggest Bordeaux be twined with Bradford, Lille with Leeds and Sheffield with Cherbourg, particularly for the exchange of language students!

 

*I realise a question like this might stir up a hornet’s nest… or maybe more appropriately in this case a wasp’s nest!

**Apparently there’s a rational historical reason for this – but as you can imagine many of us living there speculated why the place was not called something equally random such as Potatopencilpork instead?

***A survey of French adults showed that the vast majority of them were embarrassed to speak in English – little wonder if they have never done so!

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One last little anecdote regarding the idiosyncrasies of Yorkshire English. In the days of the steam train the authorities in Yorkshire were concerned and bemused by the habit of the local not crossing the rail tracks when it was safe but queueing up and crossing dangerously when the train was in the station, soon to leave. It turns out the sign at the crossing read ‘Do not cross while the train is in the station’. In Yorkshire ‘while’ means until.