When you say you want a Biscuit, you mean . . .

Beware, American traveler! You may consider yourself an expert English speaker, having your first coherent words uttered in this internationally-spoken language. You may feel secure in your accent, pronunciation, diction, interpretation, and any other word that fits this list. But I still must issue this warning. When traveling abroad, be forewarned, a biscuit is NOT a biscuit.

When I first began traveling outside my cozy Midwestern American nest, I noticed that the words I had always used to refer to common items varied somewhat by location. As a child I drank pop, wore tennies, and Oregon (pronounced ore-ee-gone) was a far-off western state. We raised peonies, pronounced pee-oh-nees and ate apricots (short vowel "a," as in "apple"). Then I moved, and people drank soda, wore sneakers, and Oregon (Ore-gin) was a few hours’ drive away. We no longer had pee-oh-nees, but pe-u-nees, and most of the people ate apricots (with the long vowel "a," as in "acorn").

After a while of living in the west, I took a turn in the south. Here, people burp the car horn; I had previously honked mine. They mashed the lights on and off in the house, where as I turned mine on and off. In Mississippi, where I visited, my friends used a buggy at the grocery store; I used a shopping cart. This was all within the confines of the lower 48. The English I grew up speaking didn’t seem to be the same everywhere.

Then my travels took me outside my native land. English is the international language of business. Virtually anywhere you go in the world, you will find that you can do business, go to the market, and conduct your daily activities in English. It surprised me to find that I really did not need to learn the languages of the various countries where I took up residence. English was so widely spoken as to make if unnecessary. What happened, rather, is that I took up English as a second language. That may sound impossible, but it’s too true.

My ESL skills are still in their infancy, and I am not always confident in my new language. When I speak with my friends and discuss food, do I say I like biscuits? Will they know to what type of biscuit I am referring, or should I translate into ESL? If I do that, then will they think I have already translated their version of biscuit back to American English, and I, in fact, am NOT speaking of biscuits at all?

If you, my patient reader, are confused, I can understand. I get confused myself. In the UK, Australia, South Africa, etc., a biscuit is a cracker, sort of, or a cookie, depending. I’m still working it out myself. A chocolate chip cookie is a biscuit. A sweet cracker is also a biscuit, but a saltine-style cracker can also be a biscuit. I have figured out that you can have sweet or savory biscuits. Savory, by the way, is the non-sweet variety, like garlic and herb crackers. So then, what is a biscuit?

What we Americans call a "scone" is what a biscuit is in ESL. (If your diet doesn’t include a scone, think of it as a type of deep-fat-fried dough, often topped with sugar or honey.) You can see where some confusion might arise. If you go out to breakfast and ask for biscuits and gravy, you may cause your waiter a bit of nausea. Really, think of a scone smothered in grandma’s country gravy. I believe I just lost my appetite along with the waiter.

This problem is relevant for non-American English speakers. A case in point relates to my good friends from Scotland. Having not yet stretched their English to include American buttermilk biscuits, you may understand their confusion when they first visited KFC. When ordering their meals, the drive-thru attendant asked if they would like biscuits with their chicken meal. They were not sure why biscuits (aka cookies) would be served with chicken. It didn’t sound appetizing to them. They soon added to their own ESL skills and discovered that the biscuits they were served were in actuality scones in their own language

This is just one small example. The list is quite extensive. You may want to invest in an ESL dictionary for English speakers, if there is indeed such a book. For fun, I have included a sample of what such a list might need to include. The first word in the list is the foreign word and the second word is the translation into what I will call "American Standard English".

Lift –Elevator

Buggy or Pram – Stroller

Where do you stay? - Where do you live?

Flat - Apartment

Biscuit - Cracker or Cookie

Scone – Biscuit

Ref – Refrigerator

Aircon - Air conditioner, A/c

Excuse - Excuse me

Dummy-Pacifier or Binky

Napkins or Nappies – Diapers

Football – Soccer

Beef Mince - Hamburger or Ground Beef (In general, all ground meat is referred to as mince.)

Trolly - Shopping Cart

Lorry – Delivery Truck

Water closet - Bathroom, Restroom, or Toilet

Take away - Take out food

This is a very short list. As I have never been very good with foreign languages, my ESL is still somewhat lacking. I do know to take a lift and have been glad to figure out W/C is the abbreviation for water closet or, in other words, a bathroom. . I am still uncertain if the package of “biscuits” I purchased will turn out to be cookies or crackers. But, through trial and error, I am learning. As I said at the beginning, you’ve been forewarned, a biscuit is NOT a biscuit.