“I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien,
I’m a Yorkshire lass in Oxford…”
So goes Sting’s 1987 hit ‘Englishman in New York‘ in my mind whenever I’m in Oxford. These days, I particularly resonate with that song, after having made the move away from the little town up north where I have lived every single day for the past nineteen years. The song discusses the feeling of not quite belonging in a place yet fundamentally feeling completely alien, although the same language is spoken, a heritage shared. I never particularly realised how deeply I owe so much of my cultural experience to the place I come from, until being thrown together in the wonderful melting pot of classes, nationalities and backgrounds here in Oxford.
Dialects and Dissonances
Most bizarre to me in the respect of regional dialects was how so many northern words simply don’t exist down here. I was out and about with one of my newfound friends, and when giving her directions, I told her to go through a ‘ginnel’. Not only had she never heard that word before in her life, but neither had any of my new southern friends, nor did they have any adjacent word for it. I asked them if they had ‘snicket’ – a near-synonymous word where I’m from – and alas, they had never heard that one either. They had never heard of a river ‘beck’ and didn’t know what it was to ‘bray’ on someone’s door. They had no idea what it meant to ‘have the monk on’ and be ‘mourngy’. Most confusing of all was trying to arrange to see each other at mealtimes: they would say ‘dinner’ and I would think of their ‘lunch’, and when I would say ‘tea’, they would just be puzzled.*
It’s been an incredibly eye-opening experience because I genuinely had no idea that these weren’t universal words in the English language. Quite a few times, people have actually been unable to understand me – something I really wouldn’t have thought to be true a year ago. At home, everybody says I barely have any accent, but here I have had to clarify my speech quite a few times. And yes, there have been several occasions on which my accent has been poked fun at, in both light-hearted and unkind ways. These are all elements of university life that never occurred to me before I began in October last year, and while it has been very strange to get used to, it’s imbued a sense of pride in me that I’ve never felt before for my home. I’ve made an effort not to let my accent fade away, nor to change the words I use, because I’ve now come to see that they’re such an important part of who I am in Oxford, even if they never defined me so much before.
The Economic Divide
Most fellow northerners I have encountered in Oxford thus far have shared with me one particular shock: just how poignant price differences are here in the South. Like many students of the central colleges, I am now a loyal and frequent customer of the Tesco Express on St. Giles. My breakfast cereal at home would cost £2.50 a box, and the exact same one now costs me £2.90. Although quite a tame example, no borders have been crossed, and yet there is a difference in the value of money. The quality of roads, the frequency and quality of trains and buses in Oxford is, from my experience, significantly better than in cities I have visited closer to home (sorry Leeds, I love you really). Even in the villages around Oxford that I have wandered through, infrastructure is simply more efficient here.
As a Crankstart scholar, becoming aware of the economic backgrounds of some of my peers has been quite daunting. What I might have once thought of as ‘well-off’ is pocket change to some, and I eat my tea in a dining hall that has held royalty. Though there are many grand places in Yorkshire, many of which I have visited myself, there is a certain, undeniable atmosphere about Oxford that really does have the capacity to transform notions of wealth and privilege. I am terribly grateful to be here, being able to write about just how strange it all is.
Reflections
Oxford has taught me to be proud of where I come from, even if I might sound ‘common’ or confuse people with my strange words. At first, I was rather self-conscious throughout tutorials, trying to make sure I could be fully understood and wouldn’t be looked down on for my heavy vowels and occasional lack of ‘T’s. But now that my third term is beginning, I have become comfortable with these signposts of my background. I am privileged enough to be sitting in my room in a 500-year-old building belonging to one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. So, while I might sometimes feel like a ‘legal alien’ as Sting would say, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the unique dialects of my friends, and teaching them a bit of Yorkshire too. I truly hope that no student will repress their way of speaking, regardless of where in the world it originates from.
For any readers who also happen to hail from God’s Own County, amuse your friends by saying the phrase ‘it isn’t in the tin’ as you would at home.
*Yorkshire Dictionary
Beck – a small stream or river
Bray – to knock or hit something
Ginnel – a narrow alley or passage
Mourngy – similar to grumpy. Another variant, infamous thanks to Arctic Monkeys, is “mardy”
Snicket – a narrow passage between houses
To have the monk on – this is what you’re doing when you’re being mourngy
Tea – the third meal of the day