Taking the Metro Scoffers to the Cleaners

For reasons too convoluted to go into here, I recently had to take charge of a ski-hut full of mattress covers (or “metro scoffers”, to ape, not unkindly, the pronunciation of a Dutch girl in the group) and ensure they were washed, aired and then returned to their on-mountain home. I knew it would take an age to pass the metro scoffers through the diminutive washing machine and dryer in my house, to say nothing of eating up the electricity, and such being precisely the sort of things that can cause discord with roommates, the quicker, more economical and less fractious option would be to take the metro scoffers to a...a…What are those places called, these places with coin-operated machines in which one can wash clothes, linens and other household wares? Laundries? No, that wasn’t quite right. “I’ll take these to a Laundromat,” I said, hauling the metro scoffers into the back of my truck, but sensing this wasn’t quite the word I was grasping for either. It was only later I realised that while “laundromat” is the North American term for such establishments, in Ireland and the UK they’re called “laundrettes” and, daughter of Eire that I am, this would have been the more natural term for me to have used.

Telling, however, that the North American term was the one to the forefront of my consciousness, even if I sensed that it was slightly outwith my normal linguistic range. As with my altered accent, since leaving Ireland I’ve not only inducted many new words into my vocabulary - toque, toonie, chinook, to say nothing of a plethora of terms for varying snow conditions - but have also taken on new descriptors for things already familiar to me; “grocery store”, “gas”, “parking lot” and “fall” in place of “supermarket”, “petrol”, “car park” and “autumn”. I don’t go to “off-licences” anymore, it’s “liquor stores” or “bottle shops” and I’ve learned to call confectionery variously “sweets”, “candy” and “lollies” depending on whether I’m in Ireland, Canada, or New Zealand at any given time.

Similarly, if in Ireland I was offering to ferry someone somewhere in my motorcar, I wouldn’t, as in Canada or NZ, ask them “are you looking for a ride?” carrying as “ride” does somewhat different connotations in Dublin. (Let’s just say it’s is akin to how I caused quite the sensation when, upon first arriving in Fernie, I announced to my Australian roommates that I was “off for a quick root in the garage”. I think I was rummaging around for an extension cord or something.) Instead I’d ask them if they needed a lift.

All of this would be merely observational whimsy were it not for the relationship between “word” and “world”. Linguistic relativity theory - wha’? - holds that language does not simply reflect an anterior reality but instead actively shapes how we conceptualise the world. And as I’ve moved between countries and different ways of using English, phrases and words which I grew up with now strike me as odd and stilted. For example, “giving someone a lift” now creates for me an image of hoisting them up under the armpits rather than driving them from place to place. Similarly, when I first arrived in Canada I thought it sounded strange and somewhat unfinished to say you that “called” someone if you’d conducted a conversation with them on the telephone. “I called Andy”. Called him what? A liar? The greatest friend and lover you’ve ever known? In Ireland you’d say that you rang them, or gave them a ring. Because the phone goes “ring ring”, you see. But having become used to “calling” people in Canada, if I were now to say “I gave Andy a ring last night” I’d imagine not a phone conversation but instead myself lunging down onto one knee and producing a diamond solitaire. Add up all these mental pictures and you see how language shapes our world.

Incidentally, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that the freshly laundered metro scoffers have now made it back to the ski-hut, and whereas in Fernie you may have grown sick of the seemingly never-ending Winter 10/11, here in NZ we’re gearing up for the Southern Hemisphere ski-season to start and eagerly awaiting first snow.

Lisa McGonigle grew up in North County Dublin, Ireland, before coming to Fernie for one winter. She stayed for the winter, the summer, the following winter, and then a further two winters in Rossland. She is currently living and studying in New Zealand, pining for the Kootenays and exploring what it means when “home” becomes “away” and vice-versa.