"Apparently we speak the same language" - 9 ways to get along in New York City

By: nyc-newbie

I live in New York City. I am from the UK and I’m here with my family and we are one year into a three year stint. I want to talk about language. I speak English, Americans speak English. Good start, you would think, but think again.

My first tip starts with the obvious: learn the important words which are different. I have two small children, one of whom is just 2 years old, so the lexicon of toddlers is at the forefront of my mind. I also have a nearly 8 year old, so I have already ingrained in me the language of children and I can’t adapt. I cannot say ‘diaper’ or ‘stroller’; I completely refuse to say ‘do you want to make pee pee’ or ‘go potty’ and I wince when anyone says ‘that’s a no no’ to their charge in the park.

Tip number two is all about the letter ‘t’. I live on a numbered street in Manhattan. I have tried and failed miserably to drop my ‘t’ and replace it with a ‘d’ when I say ’80-something’. I just feel like I’m taking the piss. I am an expert in dealing with taxi drivers who want just my street and my avenue and a response to ‘which side d’ya want?’, which means the right side for me and occasionally ‘nearside’. Any visitor from the UK is perplexed by this and has many a frustrating taxi ride home.
Speaking of ‘t’ and ‘d’, there’s the confusing question of water. It’s hot here in the summer and it’s hard to go far without needing some. There are vast numbers of kiosks on the streets selling water and snacks and at a dollar a bottle, it’s easy to access, but beware your ‘t’ as you will have to say it at least twice to be understood. Pointing helps.

For tip number three let’s talk about where you live. If you live in Manhattan, you are likely to live in an apartment building. You do not live in a flat. You do not go to your flat in an elevator. You will always say ‘hi, how are ya?’ (as if it is all one word) to anyone you meet in the lift and you will say ‘have a nice day’ to anyone who leaves the lift before you. If you do not, you will be considered a rude foreigner. In your flat you have faucets, not taps; you will not have a grill pan because they don’t exist, so forget about cheese on toast; you will use copious amounts of Bounty kitchen towel because no one sells dish cloths (eh?). And your bedding will be a different size, so make sure you bring your own from the UK, because otherwise you will struggle to fit it onto your UK sized bed.

For tip number four it’s time to think about cash. At the bank I am forced to put my cheque in checking, but I have to remove my ‘que’ (not a line) and replace it with a ‘ck’ to make any sense. With my bank I get a facsimile of my cheque when I deposit it in my ‘checking’ account. So that’s checked off my list. The banking system in the US is light years behind the UK. Getting a direct debit is painful and called ‘autopay’. Getting a bank account is hard work and without a social security number almost impossible. Get yourself down to the super grim social security offices downtown and hope for the best. Want to get a mobile phone without a social security number and a credit history? Forget it. I still have pay as you go as monthly phone tariffs are exorbitant.

Public transport is the focus of tip number five. I used to live in London and I used the tube a lot. I was a hardened commuter and I had an annual gold card programmed into my Oyster card. Here in New York City, the Metrocard is vastly inferior. It is bendy and prone to fold and therefore won’t work if your toddler gets hold of it. It takes two weeks to get the MTA to send you an ‘eazy pass’ to allow you to automatically top up your card once it gets to a certain level. It’s good to see that the subway ‘minute’ is as unreliable as the ‘tube’ minute in London. Accessible New York City is light years away as the subways force you to push the emergency door to get through with your buggy and on the bus you have to fold it before you get on, forcing an act of generally impossible origami under the bored gaze of your fellow travelers.

Tip number six just makes me cross, it’s all about manners. They are confused here. People are all about the ‘how are you?’ but less about the ‘thank you’. You can walk down the street and give way to someone because it seems the right thing to do and they will breeze by you like you don’t exist. I have got used to this now, but it does annoy me. In fact now, I generally don’t bother saying thank you anymore because it’s kind of pointless.
For lots of people, New York City is all about shopping. For tip number seven, I want to give you some advice about this. You are not in a queue, you are ‘on line’. You are a ‘guest’, not a customer; you will ‘step down’ not just move towards the check out and you will have plastic bags foisted on you at all times. I would like to introduce the United States to the metric system. No one told them that the UK switched to it in 1971 and whilst the UK was brought kicking and screaming into the world of grammes and kilos, it is fairly common there. Here there are quarts, gallons and pounds. I can’t cope with gallons of milk, it’s just too confusing, so I just go by size. It looks about right, it must be right. I’ll ask for ‘a quarder (sic) pound a coleslaw’ and generally be understood. I will say ‘can I get it’, not ‘could I have it’.

This is my favourite tip: number eight is all about food. I do like the food in New York City. I love the variety and the freshness that you generally get in every supermarket. I love the fact that I can get a cup of tea (teabag on the side, with hot water in the cup – not a proper cup of tea) anywhere, any time and invariably with a high calorie bagel packed to the gills with a filling of my choice. Learn the words ‘delivery’ and ‘tip’. You can get pretty much anything delivered at most times of day and it can be as little as a sandwich. Give the nice delivery man a few bucks for the tip and he’s happy and you didn’t have to leave the house. Manhattan is filled with men on bikes wearing tunics emblazoned with the names of local delis, restaurants and cafes. Mind yourself when you cross the road as you’ll end up underneath their wheels as the Cycling Proficiency Test must just be a British thing.

Which brings me to my final tip, number nine, which is don’t get sick. Here’s a name that doesn’t exist here: National Health Service. God I miss it. I miss being able to go to a GP and be grateful to get an appointment, sit in a stuffy hot waiting room, be talked to like I am the most boring person in the world and somehow get treated for whatever is wrong with me that day. I worked, I paid National Insurance and I got access to healthcare free at the point of delivery. It couldn’t be any more different here. Where a 15 minute visit to a specialist ear doctor to unbung an ear full of wax costs $1000 you know you are on a different planet. Where access to a doctor is quick and easy through ZocDoc (known in the UK?) and an appointment scored for the next day, there is a real cost to this and it is never cheap. Hope to hell you have decent health insurance and that you are never very ill, because despite Obamacare, healthcare in the US and in New York in particular is a racket and you will never be a winner.

Someone told me before we came to New York City that there is a huge cultural difference between our countries and I must admit I dismissed this, thinking how different could we be. But in reality they were right, we do speak the same language, but our culture, our history, our accents and our use of different words sets us wildly apart. And that’s the fun bit: working it all out. Happy Holidays!

nyc-newbie