Deaf in DC: A Memoir

9. Learning American English

34 9 Learning American English THE BRITISH, ACCORDING TO AN INDIAN NATIONALIST leader, never left India. Their customs, dress, and, most of all, language has taken hold in India. English is not the national language of India, but de facto it is the language in which all official business is conducted. Since English is the key to a good job and advancement in life, every upward mobile young man strives to learn the language. I had decided to learn English after I became deaf. My experience in learning English was a major adventure. I had learned English back in Gagret mostly on my own and surrounded by people who didn’t speak English. I was proud of my command of English and people were amazed at how well I wrote. However, I was not prepared for “American” English and had a few problems after I started at Gallaudet. The British or Indian spellings were not thought to be correct by Gallaudet students. In our French class, the teacher would ask us to write English translation of the French sentence she had given for homework. A fellow student looked at my writing and took me to the blackboard. Pointing to the word “colour,” he erased “u” from it. I didn’t say anything ; I just shook my head in agreement even though I felt I was right and he was wrong. The other time, another student pointed to “learnt” that I had written on the board and changed it to “learned.” It was Terrence O’Rourke, my English teacher, who explained to me about my English. He took me to his office and wrote on paper. I still remember it verbatim: “You write well, and your grammar is correct. It is your British spelling and construction that are confusing. I suspect you have some influence of ‘Indian English.’” This helped me understand why that student had “corrected” my spelling. A month later, I needed a haircut and asked around where I could get l e a r n i n g a m e r i c a n e n g l i s h 35 one. Someone told me about a student who gave fifty-cent haircuts and who “was not really that bad a barber.” I was led to a signup sheet posted in the Ely Hall lounge. This was another American invention for me. I had never seen sign-up sheets before but I liked this idea of communication. I wrote my name on the sign-up sheet. The guy had written that he would cut hair in the first floor restroom of Ely Hall. The next day at the appointed time, I waited for my barber in the lounge. He didn’t show up. After waiting for more than an hour, I thought maybe I was on the wrong floor. Therefore I asked a passing student pointing to the sign-up sheet where that “restroom” was. He told me to go straight ahead, turn right at the end of the corridor and the second door would be the restroom where this guy was giving haircuts. I followed directions and found myself in the bathroom. I didn’t consider the student’s trick very funny. I decided not to ask anyone again fearing the next guy might send me to another bathroom. At night, I asked Dan where the restroom was. He looked puzzled and asked, “Didn’t you just come from there?” The light dawned upon me. “You mean a bathroom is called a restroom here?” I had thought that a restroom was where you rested—the drawing room— and that is why I was in the lounge, which in my opinion was the drawing room of our dormitory. How someone had decided to associate “resting” with the daily function of relieving oneself puzzled me and still does. I learned more American English as I went along. Actually, I am still learning, as English, especially American English, is a dynamic language; it changes daily. All languages absorb new vocabularies as they come in contact with other languages and English in America perhaps has more contact with speakers of other languages that most other languages. Of course, all foreign students were learning American English, but it was more problematic for me because of my habit of analyzing every word I learned. The need to decipher every new word or concept was part of habit. I could have formed it because a dictionary was not...