Already

If you want a sure-fire way of knowing if someone is speaking British English or American English, listen to the way they use the word 'already'. It's largely to do with the positioning of the word in the sentence. If you asked the following question:

"Would you like me to tell you about the differences between the British and American positioning of the word 'already' in a sentence?"

you could anticipate the following two answers:

[from a Brit]

"No thanks - you already told me about them."

[from an American]

"No thanks - you told me about them already."

Actually, I think the Brit would say "you've already told me" rather than "you already told me", but that's another story.

In British English, we have more flexibility, because we don't have to put the word at the end of the sentence. So we could say

"No thanks - you've already told me about them" or "No thanks - you've told me already about them".

What we gain in flexibility however, we lose in extra meaning. American English can use the word to imply a judgement about the quality of something, as well as the timing of it. An example of this is the phrase 'Enough, already!' (which I think would probably always have an exclamation mark, so I've given it one). If I'm right, it's always used in the context of having had enough of something bad or annoying. This is what a mother says to her whining or arguing children. She wouldn't say it to someone scooping ice cream into a bowl for her - except perhaps with a wry laugh.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that 'already' in American English usually has that sense of world-weariness or irritation about it.

Look at this book title.

You'd know that wasn't British English, wouldn't you?


Photo credit: Blobby Farm



Going back to our original question, I'm guessing that if an American responded to you "No thanks - you told me about those differences already", they would be politely implying "please don't think I want to hear about them again". If they really did just mean that you had  imparted your views on the subject at a previous point in time, they would probably say "No thanks - you told me about them once before".

I think this is one of those Americanisms that's becoming increasingly common over this side of the Atlantic. If you listen out, you will hear our friend 'already' sliding away to the end of the sentence. It's happening now, (or "right now", to use another Americanism). It's happening right now already.

And now I think that's enough about 'already' already.

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Why is Donald Trump going to ban this cheese?

Because he's going to make America grate again.

(Oh go on, you enjoyed that.)

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Staying home with a poorly child

This week, four out of five of my family have had a horrid fluey, achey, coldy, coughy bug. That's everyone except me. They had it in succession, like dominoes.

What is a normal expectation of an employer, regarding a parent with an ill child? It seems to me that it's such a grey area. I looked in our staff handbook, and it was a little vague, talking about responsibilities for dependants, and if time off was needed, to please try and give as much notice as possible. Yeah, right. Like flu bugs come along on a schedule.

I just don't know what is reasonable to expect these days. Is it standard practice, would you say, that a parent can phone up in the morning and take a day's sick leave to look after an ill child, as if they were ill themselves? Is it standard practice that they can phone up the next day and take another day? How many days in a row would be accepted without raised eyebrows?

I feel I'm pretty conscientious. As it turned out, I needed only to be at home for two days. I split one of the days with Husband, working in the morning and coming home at lunchtime. The other day, I went in first thing and picked up work I could do at home. It just so happened that one of the days I was off was a particularly bad day to be off. But these things happen, and I feel I really tried my best. I was in the workplace as much as I reasonably could be, and I made good use of the time when I had to be at home (actually, I would say I was more efficient than usual, but the whole working-at-home debate is for another day). I have been left, however, with indications that I was at the limit of what was acceptable.

I clearly need to talk about this with my manager, and I do have my annual review next week, which is a good forum because we can talk about the policy and practice, rather than one specific incident. The culture of the organisation isn't particularly family-friendly, but I hadn't been aware of quite how family-unfriendly it is. I've just been lucky that we've had a pretty healthy time since I've been in the job, and when a child has been ill, either Husband has been able to stay at home, or the child has been old enough and well enough to stay on their own with frequent texts to make sure that they are ok. (I didn't like doing that, but I guess I picked up the culture fairly quickly and realised that I had to save my credits for when I really needed them.)

I would like the process to work on trust. As I say, I feel I went out of my way to continue as best I could. However, I sense that I might be coming from a very different angle to my manager, and that's why I would like a few opinions on what is standard practice these days. Or does it vary hugely? I'm interested to know.

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