Best Before End

So our friend Jean mentioned the other day that his silencer was being repaired. We sympathized, because you don’t want something like that making a big racket late at night while people are trying to sleep. Needless to say, we would definitely ask Jean where he took his silencer if we needed to get ours fixed. There are shops all over that advertise that they could do the job, but we’d definitely want to use someone we could trust. We might even ask Pastor Joe where he would go if his silencer needed repair.

Ok, I know what you’re thinking. “Whoa, Pastor Joe has a silencer? I knew that they were just off the coast of Sicily, but geez!” Well, sorry to disappoint any who were anxious to hear about Ben and Jessica’s Mafioso Escapades, but in Malta, what they call a “silencer” you in the States might know better as a “muffler.”

This is just one of the many funny situations that has led us to a profound insight: We aren’t just learning Maltese, we’re learning English.

The first clue to this revelation happened 4 years ago when I was first studying in Malta. I found out by accident that there was no school the next day because of some undoubtedly important national holiday (it may have been the feast of Saint Paul or something). Without skipping a beat she asked if I would be having a lion the next day.

“A what?”
“A Lion.”
“Uh….”

Obviously there was some aspect of Maltese culture that had escaped me. Was she talking about the popular candy bar, Nestle Lion, that was perhaps ritualistically consumed on feasts of particular saints? Or maybe there was a custom involving displaying lions to show your support of the local saint. I was SO confused.

After further clarification I realized that she had said “lie-in,” not “lion.” Of course, I immediately made the connection between “having a lie-in” and “sleeping in,” as is the American English way of saying things. But I have to admit that I was afraid for a moment that I would have to ask someone where I could buy a lion if all of the shops were going to be closed for the holiday…

Clue number two: the milk. What is the most important piece of information on the milk carton in your fridge? Yes, yes, homogenization and pasteurization are important, I agree. But those of you who said “the expiration date” can take the day off work. Go ahead, tell your boss I said it’s alright.

Good ol’ “best before --/--/--.” You might even dig further back in the fridge at Safeway to find those newer milks, you know, the ones that are fresh off the delivery truck and don’t expire until next month. But imagine our confusion one morning as we were eating our Frosties, when we gazed innocently at the top of the milk carton and discovered the words “best before end.” Our mouths hung open in disbelief and our Frosties slowly grew soggy. When was the end? The end as in, the end of the week? The end of the month? The end of the world? Would the milk truly last until Armageddon? How on earth would we be able to find out when this “end” was, and would we be able consume the milk before then? Our minds searched desperately for the answer.

Now let me explain something here. There was a date under “best before end.” We knew that this was all just a weird way of saying “best when consumed before --/--/--.” But we had to laugh at how it was ever so slightly “off the mark” from what we would have said using our own English. That’s because we’re not talking about funny translations of Japanese or Lithuanian into English, we’re talking about an entirely different English: British English. And it’s different enough in some spots to make you say, “huh?”

We’re not the only ones scratching our heads. Jean had no idea what we were talking about when we said that the faucets weren’t working. His English wife Sally, who fortunately has read her share of Jackie Collins novels, had to explain to him that by faucets we meant the taps. And Sally certainly won’t ever let us forget the time we asked if we could stop by since we were “in the neighborhood,” because apparently that is another phrase peculiar to American English.

If you know us, you know how much we love to learn languages. So you’ll also understand that this has all been a bit of unexpected fun for us. Look forward to more of our adventures in learning English; we hope to have more examples in the future for your amusement.

End.