Two countries separated by a common language! By someone called John Silverton

Very many years ago I was a trainee plastic surgeon in England. I went to Emory University in Atlanta to get some training in gun shot injuries just in case I was ever faced with treating one in England. I had never seen a patient with a gun shot injury.

On my first evening at Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta I saw 10, yes 10! They said they saw more gun shot injuries in that one hospital than were occurring in the whole of the N. Ireland “troubles” at that time.

When I was in the operating theatre I wanted the nurse to bring the instrument table closer. I said “Sister, could you bring your trolley closer?” I nearly got myself thrown out for that one.

I heard people talking about “rednecks”. I had no idea what that meant and started looking at people’s necks.

I went to a department store and bought what I needed. As I left someone said “Y’all come back now”. Thinking that maybe they thought I hadn’t paid for something, I went right back and said “Yes, how can I help you?” She looked kind of embarrassed and said “Sorry, that’s what we say around here”.

Another time I was making rounds and seeing a patient after surgery. I wanted to know if his bowels had started to work again. I said very politely “Have you passed wind?” He said “Eh?” I tried again and delicately got a little closer to the point. I said “Have you passed gas?” He was flummoxed. He said “Eh?” The chief resident was standing behind me and he had had enough of this. He said “Have you farted?” Immediately the patient said “Oh yes, twice this morning already!”

Another time my 4 year old was playing with a neighbour’s child and I heard her having trouble understanding the American accent. She said “Pardon?” The other child said “What?” She said “Pardon?” again. The other child said “What?” again. This went on for some time until I stepped in to help out.

Oh well - two countries separated by a common language!

Addendum: Nice to see so many upvotes. I have been sitting on my arse chuckling at this. Makes me feel pretty chuffed.

The sister thing seems to need some explanation. In a British operating theatre the nurse in charge is called the Sister. It’s her (almost always female in my day) rank. She is usually scrubbed and helps the surgeon. In America the nurse in charge is the circulating nurse. The person who scrubs is a scrub tech. In the American South, especially Atlanta, the scrub tech is more often than not female and black. Black women in the South often address each other as “Sister”. White people, especially a white man, never address a black woman in that way. It’s very rude and maybe racist, but probably more like a complete stranger of a different race intruding in an unwelcome way on a personal family culture. I had no clue about all this at that time.

in America the sterile surgical instruments are on a table with wheels. This is often referred to as the instrument table or instrument cart. The term “Trolley” usually refers to a trolley bus. There are hardly any of those left. So the word “Trolley” is only rarely used, whereas it is used much more frequently in the UK for things that Americans might call “carts”, like that thing we push around in a supermarket. There are also some slang meanings for Trolley.