What does that mean?

(Sorry about not posting an engineering Tuesday yesterday. These things happen. But I hope you enjoy today's Western Wednesday.)

I recognize that there are regional dialect differences in America. My dad is from New York, and my mom is from Georgia--so I was aware of this from a very early age. But for the most part, I thought regional dialects just meant different people said words differently or had unique regional sayings.

For example, the word "crayon." My dad says "cran", as many Northerners do. My mom says "cray-on". My sister and I, as their confused offspring, say "crown" and always have. I always make sure I say a "coloring crown" so people don't think I mean the regal headgear of kings.

I spent most of my life in the South so I say "mirra" instead of "mirror" and "I'm fixin' to do something" instead of "I'm about to do this". However, because of my Northern dad, I do not say "ya'll". I have nothing against the word. My friends use it all the time. But I say "you guys", like many Northerners do.

So strange pronunciations and sayings I always knew existed. But I never really realized before that its not just pronounciations and sayings. Different regions call objects different things.

Take the above picture. It shows the top of a stove, which consists of four round objects on which you generally place pots to heat them up. Bring water to a boil, cook some soup, make an egg, whatever--that's what you do here.

What do you call those round things?

I thought everyone in the world called them what I did. I thought that these objects had a universally recognized name in the American version of English. And I thought it was "eye". As in: "don't touch that hot eye!", "Put the pot on the eye", etc.

But recently a Western writer friend of mine was reading my story. And when my narrator described something as feeling like "a hot eye on a stove", my reader said: "What? What's an eye? Does that maybe mean the center of the coil?"

To which my response was: "Uh...coil? Like a helicoil? What are we talking about here?"

Turns out not everyone calls these round heating elements the same thing. That my Western writer friend calls them "coils". Since my story takes place in the South, I'm not planning on changing it. My narrator would think of it as an eye.

Another word my reader commented on was "lanai". She said she thought people only called patios lanai's in Hawaii. Well in Florida me and all my friends had covered pool areas that were called lanais. I think a lanai is different from a patio, which is different from a porch. When I think lanai I think concrete/stucco ground in which their is a pool, and its all screened it. When I think patio.....honestly, I don't know what I think when I think patio. Seems like if its not a lanai its a porch. At least we call my grandmother's covered, un-airconditioned, astro turf back area a "porch" and not a patio. I can't actually recall using the word "patio" in everyday language. "Go out to the back patio" just doesn't have the same ring as "go out to the back porch". But this might also be a southern thing.

Have any of you ever run across regional differences like this? Objects that are called completely different words from what you're used to calling it?

A Navy Girl in an Air Force Town

(I know my post is late! But better late than never! Here is a Western Wednesday.)

My father was in the Navy, so in many ways I was "raised in the Navy." I know a lot of the weird Navy quirks and traditions. However, Albuquerque is an Air Force town, thanks to Kirtland Air Force Base, and aerospace engineering is in many ways an Air Force business. So I've had recent encounters with Air Force members.

I have two friends in the Air Force who I see regularly. They're my age and my friends, so there is no need for me to call them by their rank. But as my friends know, I often like to call people by their Jane Austin names. Not out of any love of Jane Austin, but because I feel there are some occasions that call for a little bit of formality. For example, if I'm a little bit angry at my friend I'll call him "Mr. Last Name". Or if I'm just in a formal feeling mood.

So on two occasions I called one of my Air Force friends "Mr. Last Name" within hearing of my other Air Force friend. The one I called Mister didn't seem to mind, but both times the other friend corrected me. "Captain Last Name" she said.

I was completely miffed by this. I mean, not because of the title. I get titles. I would never call my boss "Mr. Last Name" even if I was angry at him, because he's a PhD. I would call him "Dr. Last Name." However, I was fairly certain that for junior officers, which a captain in the Air Force is, Mister was a perfectly acceptable form of address. If this was a mistake, it was a mistake I'd been making all my life with Naval officers.

So I asked my dad. And thus struck my Navy upbringing.

Mister is a perfectly acceptable form of address for a junior officer in the Navy, he told me, but not the Air Force.

So you can call an Ensign Mister--like they do in Star Trek. But you can't call a Lieutenant Mister. Even though they're basically the same thing, just different branches.

It's not a big deal. From now on, when feeling formal or upset, I'll call my friend "Captain Last Name". But it’s just another example of culture shock--not necessarily a Southern culture to a Western one, but a Navy culture to an Air Force one*.

I had never before really thought about how being raised Navy affected my culture, but there it is--it does. It'll probably take a couple of corrections until I remember that. I'd never call a high ranking officer "Mister". You don't do that in the Navy either. So at least I shouldn't be making any big errors in this Air Force town. At least, I hope not. Hopefully, there aren't a lot of other Navy tendencies I've learned that will get me in trouble.

*Not to be confused with THE "Air Force One". :)

Prairie Dogs

(Sorry about not posting yesterday. I had a post planned, but as it was the day after the fourth of July, things were crazy. You see my dog absolutely hates fireworks. It was a late night and an early morning. Bleh. Anyway, on to a new Western Wednesdays.)

Being from the South I'm used to squirrels. Crazy, crazy, attack squirrels. Squirrels that have absolutely no fear and will come right up to you and eye you like crazed animals. Anyway, being used to said squirrels, I don't usually see any other small rodents. Chipmunks? Never saw one until I visited Boston. We don't need them in the South. We have squirrels, which not only fill an evolutionary nitch but scare all the other creatures of that sort away.

Here in New Mexico we don't have squirrels or mere chipmunks. No, no, we have prairie dogs.

Next to my apartment complex lives a whole colony of prairie dogs. (I'm not sure if they're called colonies but go with it). They kind of act like merekats, which I've seen on the Lion King and at Disney's Animal Kingdom. They live in burrows in the ground and occasionally you see one stand up on its back legs and just stare into the distance, as if on lookout for predators. They also run between the holes in the earth and occasionally wrestle with each other. I think they're incredibly cute. Apparently native New Mexicans think of them as pests.

I mentioned them to a New Mexican coworker. I expected her to react like we might react at the mention of squirrels in Atlanta. They look cute from afar but be aware. Those squirrels are vicious and they're not going anywhere. Instead she reacted as if I might have mentioned rats. In her mind they're pests that need to be gotten rid of.

It's weird. They don't seem like pests to me. They just stay in their little colony; they don't infest my apartment. It's possible they carry diseases. But it seems that if I just stay out of their little colony and don't bother them, they won't bother me.

Anyone out there know about Prairie Dogs? Or have local crazy rodents?

Chile

When I mention the word "chile" what do you think of? Possibly you think of llamas and alpacas, but I don't mean the country. I mean what sort of food do you think of? I've spent most of my life living on the east coast and both of my parents are east coasters, so I immediately think of Texas Chile. You know, beef, kidney beans, basically meat soup. Well, here in New Mexico, that's not what people think of. I had a conversation the other day that went like this.

Woman: My daughter doesn't like Chile.
Me: I don't blame here, I don't either.
Woman: And my son will only eat green chile.
Me: Oh, you mean red or green chile. Sorry. I agree with your son. I
like red chile but not green chile, it's too chunky. I thought you
meant, you know, real chile. You know, meat soup. I don't like that.
Woman: Real chile? Honey, that's not real chile. That's Texas Chile.
Me: Oops. Sorry. *confused*

In my world, supposed "Texas" Chile is real chile. It's the only chile I had ever heard of until I moved here. For those of you who don't know about New Mexican food, red and green chile are essentially sauces that go on your New Mexican food. If you go to any New Mexican restaurant and order anything they'll ask you if you want red or green chile on that. Red chile is essentially a red sauce. Green chile is chunkier, with vegetables. But to me, these are sauces. Chile is a meal in itself. But red or green chile is not. It's like ketchup: good, but not by itself.

Now, if I was living in another country, I would expect weird things like this to happen. I just find it strange that small culture shock events like this can happen within the same country. Theoretically we all speak the same language and have the same culture, but that simply isn't true.

So that's the purpose of these Western Wednesday posts. I'm a southern girl living in a Western, New Mexican world. I've only been here a month and its already strange to discover how different New Mexico is. It's also strange to experience people's prejudices against the south. So on Wednesday, I'll share what I experience in this dry, desert, so different from my native humid forests.

Have any of you experienced culture shock in America? I would love to hear your stories!