More about Burgers

Another reason for enjoying a Burger Bash is that it involves one of my favourite words. Burger. That’s right. Burger. You see, for the English amongst us (ie me and Husband), the word has 2 vowel sounds and 2 consonants. Bur-ger. But for the Americans amongst us (ie everyone else), the word has 2 consonants and a huge amount of rrrrr-ing. Brrrrrr-grrrrrr. Now in Scotland, it is altogether different. The word there has 4 vowel sounds and 4 consonants. Bu-rra-gu-rra. You see how impoverished we English are in this department. No amount of thatched cottages or winding leafy country lanes is going to make up for our sad deficiency on the R front. I have an English accent, and when it comes down to it, no-one is ever going to admire me for my Rs.

This is a subject close to my heart, by reason of the fact that my surname contains a silent R. Silent when I lived unsuspectingly in England. It didn’t remain so when I got to Scotland, and now, emboldened by a few years of causing me awkward introductions, it is jolly well not going to go back to submissive silence again. Suppose my surname is Burns (it isn’t, by the way). In Scotland I became Burrans. Now in the US, I am Brrrns. The trouble is, I still call myself Buuhns. You see the problem. When I have to give my name, it always involves the following conversation:

“Buuhns”.

“Brrrns?”

“Yes, that’s right. Buuhns.”

I have learnt to get round this problem by spelling out my name: “Buuhns, B-U-R-N-S” with a bit of rolling on the R (ahrrr) to help clarify. It is, however, all a bit of a disappointment. You see, on marrying, I exchanged an unusual maiden name for a much easier surname. Not only did I whizz up the alphabet, but for a few England-inhabiting years, I no longer had to spell out my name, pronounce my name, repeat my name. So it is rather annoying to return to all that.

However, notwithstanding my personal complications, I must say I do like all these extra Rs. One of the finest evenings I had in Scotland was when the book group I belonged to (nay, was a founder member of) discussed “Gurral with a Purral Earring”. This was already one of my favourite novels, but I think the sheer pleasure of listening to those lilting voices with their rolling Rs, pushed it even higher up the list.

There is one word that I prefer even to burger, and that is murder. True, it is less easy to weave into a conversation, but its great advantage is this: once you have got it into play, you are only one short step away from getting your speaker to say the word murderer. Now that really is fun. Here in the US, I’ve found that if you can target someone who is chewing gum before they start, you can leave them muted for the rest of the day, the fronts of their top teeth glued to the inside of their bottom lip. Fun, but perhaps not very sprrrting behaviour.