We Don’t Understand English; We’re Americans

I remember watching an episode of I Love Lucy when I was a kid where Lucy and Ethel were walking around London, asking for directions, and when a helpful Englishman answered, a bewildered Ethel responded, “We don’t understand English, we’re Americans.”

Thanks to Paramount+ and the Internet (two things that did not exist when I was a little girl), I found out that the episode in question was from season five, episode fifteen, entitled “Lucy Meets the Queen.” My memory has Lucy delivering the line, “We don’t speak English; we’re American.”

Funny, the things you remember and the things you don’t.

It’s a funny joke. But is it something that only a native English speaker can really get?

I recently met several English learners living in America who were convinced that the reason they have trouble understanding when English is spoken to them and being understood when they speak English to native speakers is that they were taught British English in their respective countries. There was nothing I could say to convince them that we do not speak a lesser, corrupted dialect over here that is fundamentally different than the elevated and sophisticated language spoken by our friends across the pond.

Sigh.

It’s made me want to start a new series, maybe called something like, “We don’t speak English; we’re American.” Stay tuned.