Warning: This product contains rants

I was out walking Miles last night, and stopped at a liquor store to get a bottle of water.

I couldn't find any in the cold cabinets of the store, so went and asked the guys behind the counter.

Me: Do you have any water?
Them: Sorry? You want what?
Me: Water. Bottled water. Y'know... to drink?
Them: (blank look)
Me: Water. You know - H20. That see-through wet stuff?
Me: (sigh)
Me: Evian?

Them: Oh warder! You want a boddle of warder.
Me: Yes! Water. Preferably before one of us dies.

The last bit was said under my breath. To give you an idea of my tone of voice, I've often been told I sound like Basil Fawlty when I'm annoyed.

Most British people think Americans are either a little illiterate or just dumb, because they spell things differently, or use different words. This misconception has never been corrected by the British government. Still that's politics for you!

As I've said before, many many times, I (unlike most Britons) have respect for American English. It's a deliberate attempt to be different from the America's former colonial masters, or as I like to call them, my great-grandparents. Just kidding! ;-)

I'm all in favour of sheer bloody-mindedness and a desire to distinguish themselves from the British. That I can totally respect.

What I can't respect, however, is the refusal of some people to try and understand any accent but their own. It's even more insulting, when you consider that English isn't exactly a foreign language to me!

Oddly enough, this isn't the first time someone has not understood me, when I've asked for a bottle of water. Staff in the ironically-named Einstein Bros*. also seem to have the same abject inability to comprehend me** pronouncing water correctly.

I think the 'water' thing pisses me off more than anything, because the whole problem stems from me pronouncing the word properly, and them being so used to people flattening their T's into D's that they treat me as if I'm the one in the wrong.

So far, I've resisted the temptation to retaliate, but it's only a matter of time now:

"Oh! I see! Warder? Well, excuuuse me. Just how many D's are there in that word then? Hmm? Perhaps you'd like to spell it for me?"

"I don't go around expecting you to correct your pronounciation of it, do I? No. I live with the cultural and language differences between us. So perhaps you could take the gum out of your mouth, and work with me on this!?"

You get the idea. Or rather, the uncontrolled rant.

My point is really not, "I'm right. You're wrong". It's more, "I make the effort to understand you, now return the complement."

Meanwhile, back at the liquor store, after all the confusion over what I wanted was cleared up, and we were all pals, they gave me the warder... err I mean water, for free!

*A chain of sandwich shops, specialising in filled bagels
**In fact one particular young woman (not a lady, mind you) at Einstein's was incredibly rude to our faces, on several occasions, all because of her ignorance about, "people who tawk diffrunt". She talked down her nose at us, because she didn't understand us reading from the 12-item menu behind her. Some time I'll post the e-mail I ended up sending to their corporate HQ after a succession of 'incidents of rudness and incompetance'