Two years ago, I was having a conversation with a British exchange student, and she told me she was from Birmingham.
I can now confirm that there is, in fact, a Birmingham, England. It is a metropolitan borough in the middle of the country with an estimated population of 1.1 million people. However, at the time, I was not 100 percent sure about this. What I was sure about is that there is a Birmingham in Alabama.
So, she’s talking and I’m thinking, “Of course, she’s not from Alabama. But, could she be from Alabama? Has she lived there a long time but kept her accent? Has she chosen to identify as Alabamian? Can you do that? Is that a thing? Is it not?” And I could ask her, but I see the conversation going one of two ways:
1) “No, I’m from England, stupid.”
2) Or, alternatively: “Well, thanks for pointing that out! Do you know how hard it was growing up British in metropolitan Alabama? Do you know how brutal the other children were? Always asking me if I wanted tea and crumpets, crumpets and tea! They never bullied me, but they were always confused!”
You would think I would have sympathized with this hypothetical scenario: I grew up with a speech impediment, so I always sounded a bit different too. I couldn’t make “sh” sounds, instead opting for a high-spittle “sss.” When I eventually learned how to make “sh” sounds, I would overcorrect, using them instead of the regular “s” sounds. This made common schoolyard phrases such as, “Let’s sit over here, guys,” particularly dangerous.
I still do struggle occasionally. For example, whoever named the large coastal inlet between British Columbia and Washington state, the “Salish Sea,” needs to feel pain. That person is marine biologist Bert Webber.
That might sound a bit harsh (or “harsss”), but so is the problem he has created for me: a “sh” sound followed directly by an “s” sound, without even a mediating vowel sound in between. I live in terror that I might one day have to describe the ecological region that includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound. Sheesh!
Incidentally, the Salish Sea has become mildly famous for being the discovery site of eighteen severed human feet. Has a lisping Seattleite cracked, becoming a serial killer who dismembered his victims into the very body of water that has caused him his linguistic torment? Possibly.
However, the most astonishing thing I discovered while researching the Salish Sea is that is has 52 Google reviews. It takes an incredible amount of arrogance to rate a natural phenomenon. It’s like giving the moon 3.8 stars, because “I like all the poems and songs about it, but it could be brighter. And you can’t see it for two weeks out of the year. What’s up with that?”
The Salish Sea has existed long before those 52 Google reviewers, and will continue to exist long after they are gone. It doesn’t care for constructive criticism. Instead, plopping an artificial number down has just served to flatten the magnitude and majesty of this natural place. It simplifies a deep and complicated entity to its most facile and digestible, and therefore diminishes it.
Anyway, this British exchange student I’m talking to is probably a 7, but could be an 8 if she let her hair down. I’ve asked a number of questions to try and determine her national origin, such as “Do you like banjos?” (no) and “Did your papa ever take you up the crick to go fishin’ for the crawdad?” (also, no), until I realize I would rather sit back and enjoy the mystery. You might say that you must grow up in, live in or at least visit Birmingham, Ala. to truly be from there, but I say that being from Birmingham, Ala. is open to all who believe.
She was from Birmingham, England, by the way.
Elise Brosnan is a Humor Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at humor@cavalierdaily.com.
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