The other evening, this chap, who I know slightly, came up to me in an Indian restaurant and began to chat. He shook my hand and asked how I was. I reciprocated and enquired after his family, who were sitting just a couple of tables away.
He then said, in English: ‘I must apologise for my rather unkempt appearance’. That’s right, he used the word ‘unkempt’.
Now, don’t get me wrong; the word unkempt was entirely appropriate, as he did look rather dishevelled.
Not quite the ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ look, but only a couple of steps away from it.
No, the point that I’m making is that he used the word at all. He’s a Portuguese chap, you see, and I think that unkempt is a remarkably sophisticated word for a non-native English speaker to use, in everyday conversation.
I’m not being patronising; rather complimentary. It turns out that he had studied something to do with land management at the University of Birmingham, which is where he met his wife.
His usage of English was just marvellous. He had an accent, of course, but the rest of his conversation was peppered with words of a similar ilk to unkempt. He used ‘baleful’ and ‘serendipitous’, I remember.
Anyhow, the reason he was rather unkempt, he went on to explain, was that he, too, had been affected rather badly by the fires. It turned out that they had lost all of their tools and, distressingly, some of their animals; in particular, his bees.
It appears that the hives had burned and, although some of the bees had managed to flee, they had no home. And winter is only a few short weeks away. He had been roaming around his land, making a sort of inventory of what remained. Going for a meal at the local Indian restaurant had been a rather spur-of-the-moment decision and, as their water was still not on, they had not managed to wash.
I am constantly amazed by the standard of English spoken by non-native speakers of the language. It is both humbling and a trifle embarrassing.
We Brits are not known for our linguistic prowess; rather the opposite.
I recall a time in France, when, with my two children, then small, I queued for some ice cream at a barrow at some French seaside resort. The man in front of me was clearly English. He arrived at the front of the queue and proceeded to ask for an ice cream. The vendor looked a little perplexed. Our friend resorted to the usual arrogant, xenophobic ploy: he simply repeated his words at a higher volume and leaned in slightly. Once again, a blank look. After a few shouted requests for ice cream, he gave up and stomped off.
The vendor looked my way and I stumbled through my request in franglais. He immediately responded in English.
I might have looked surprised, because he said, once more in English ‘at least you tried, monsieur’.