Mary,
What irks me is that everyone who replied MISSED THE POINT ENTIRELY and
then wanted to get didactic.
First of all, I didn't "condemn all within an area for the sins of some,
even if a majority".  I simply stated the majority.  Numerical fact is
numerical fact, no matter how much the minority dislikes it.  Besides,
anybody with the "common sense of a coon's ass" (to use a Texas analogy)
knows there are ALWAYS minority viewpoints.  Obviously, I know that.  I
have had to deal with being in it.

Secondly, you speak of knowing what Telly, Lorry and Lift were before you
went to London.  Well of course YOU did.  Your parents were Canadian!  They
had a frame of reference that someone who's family had been in ET for
generations didn't have.  Your parents were probably better educated as
well, giving you a further advantage.

My grandparents had 8th grade educations, my parents only high school.
That doesn't make them stupid.  In fact, why would anybody in ET need to
know these words?  In what instance of daily life would this be necessary
or even beneficial?  It wouldn't. I certainly managed to live to adulthood
without them. My parents lived almost 60 years.  Didn't hurt them a bit.

Lastly, you speak of people taking opera classes and going to Dallas
monthly and The Met once a year.  How many people can afford to do that?
Again you are speaking of minorities.  I won't even get into the fact that
education level is the determiner of social class and not money. Therefore,
many people with the money to economically afford such activities would
have absolutely no interest in them. Nationally, less than 25% of adults
are college educated, only about 10% of women.  Therefore, MOST people in
this entire country are probably not educated enough to want to go to the
opera or need to understand Telly and Lorry and Lift.

Which brings me back to the original point which was that British and
American English are not the same and that to assume that American tourists
don't need separate brochures is elitist.  Or rather, that providing
separate brochures is not condescending.  I have heard every argument about
don't use slang in labels anyway,  everybody has exposure to these words,
etc., etc.  The fact is, language is cultural.  When learning my 3rd
language, the professor explained one day that the best way to understand a
foreign culture was to learn their language.  The actual language structure
can tell you volumes about how a culture thinks and what they value. This
is highly evident to anyone who really listens to the British speak.  Our
English is heavily influenced by German, among other languages, and tends
to be very direct.  Our culture has been evolving for 225 years independent
of theirs.  Our language reflects that.

So forgive me if I am little peeved at being told that the only differences
are slang words and those shouldn't be in brochures anyway, but if they
are, everybody knows them from PBS.  BS.  This is about recognition of an
independent and valid culture and its language.  The British have done a
wonderful job of attempting to be non-elitist.  I wish I could say the same
for this group.  Museum professionals had better start realising (BR
spelling) that they and the intellectual audiences the have traditionally
served are minorities, and they may have to swallow their superiority
complexes and put contractions in the label copy and a whole host of other
inferiorities to recognize and validate the lowly common culture of the
people who don't know what a Lorry is and don't need to. Survival may
depend on it.


Lori Allen,
Graduate Student, UMSL

"Well behaved women rarely make history."
                                  - Anonymous


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