Are we being served?

The Americans have always fascinated me. What a lot of people find brash and artificial, I find rather intriguing and refreshing. The way someone you've never met or even seen before bounces up to you at a restaurant, with that cheerleader I've-just-won-the-lottery disposition, tells you that her name is Wendy and that she'll be your hostess and waitress for the evening; or how the lady at the Clarins counter at Nordstrom's hijacks you and manages to sell you an eye cream or a lipstick you didn't really want, because she convinces you that 'that is such a good colour for you'.

For some insane reason, it makes me laugh and smile. It agrees with me. It truly does. I - who can be quite the cheerless cynic, the lead balloon, who refuses to talk to people until 9 a.m. if I can help it, who never wakes up with that Persil Automatic verve for life, thankful for the bright new day ahead - somehow fall for that sales pitch, every single time.

Let's face it, it's so much nicer than walking into a shop and being told that they are closed when they're obviously not, because otherwise you would have never got past the door in the first place now, would you? "Magħluqin ta ħi - sorry - ħu paċenzja ta ħi, ejja għada għax fis-sebgħa nagħlqu."

It's so rare to find someone who really pulls out the stops to accommodate you in Malta, that when it does happen, you feel so very obliged, grateful and indebted, you sort of trip over yourself and feel you need to buy something. People in sales or customer care should try it.

There are lots of suckers like me out there who are just waiting for you to take an interest in them, to give them a modicum of importance. There are exceptions, and yes, I have met wonderful cashiers and customer care representatives where I bank.

I have walked into shops and been impressed with many salespersons, with the staff at my hairdresser's for instance. There are waiters and waitresses who will go that extra mile to accommodate you (only today at Parapett, a young gentleman did just that), and yet, although we have come some of the way, we still have a long way to go.

An American friend of mine, who has died since, had summed up the customer care and salesperson situation in Malta quite beautifully: "I want to give them my money, Michela, but they won't take it."

Coming from a culture where people would sell you air if you'd buy it, who would accost you in a desperate bid to make a sale, he found it odd that here in Malta shutters would abruptly come down just as you were making your way inside. People were in no hurry to end their telephone conversations even if you were standing in front of them, looking like you might need to buy something. They'd just give you a look which sort of said: "If I could, I'd blow a big bubble with my gum until it burst in your face."

I wonder why I did that - switch to Maltese just then, when I was describing the lackadaisical sales girl (yes she was a girl in my head) who wouldn't let you into her shop at seven minutes to seven (yes, that was also the time on my wrist watch). It reminds me of the piece Mark Anthony Falzon wrote last Sunday about what he termed the 'division of labour between English and Maltese - the way we unconsciously or consciously switch languages, depending on the particular situation we find ourselves in.'

What I didn't quite 'get' (I have a very odd sense of humour, mind you) in that piece was what Falzon meant by the line 'She had gone to Sacred Heart (pronounced 'haaht', irrespective of how the rest of the sentence is pronounced), he was ambitious and aspiring, so they spoke English.'

Words like 'party', 'dart', 'heart', 'cart', 'carpet', 'start', 'large', 'convert', 'Mark', 'four', 'more', 'bore', 'bird', 'birthday' and 'aspire' all have a silent 'r', whereas words like 'sacred', 'browse' and 'very' don't. And this has little to do with going to the Sacred Heart or with being aspiring and ambitious. Because I am quite sure that the Sacred Heart Convent is teeming with students who pronounce the 'r' in 'party', 'heart' and 'four'. It is quite simply a matter of rhotic and non-rhotic accents and the post-vocalic 'r'.

Americans are largely rhotic and would pronounce the 'r', but the Americans don't speak Received Pronunciation (RP) English. RP English, sometimes referred to as BBC or Queen's English, is uniquely prestigious - 'received' conveys the idea of accepted and approved English. Now, oddly enough, an American would definitely get away with the heavy R, but in Malta it's considered very non-U.

I've been meaning to write about this, and although I am quite sure Falzon was being tongue-in-cheek, I'm glad he gave me the springboard to do so. People who opt to speak in English are already given a hard enough time for not speaking Maltese. The last thing they need is to be berated for doing so correctly. And it's high time we call a spade a spade.

If we insist on attacking people whose Maltese falls short of what is deemed acceptable, then let's hear it for the other side too. Why should newscasters confuse the letter 'a' with the letter 'e'? 'Acceptable' is pronounced 'exceptable'; you flush a loo, you don't flash it. The skin on your body is your 'flesh' not your 'flash'. But the little light that goes off when you take a photograph is a 'flash' not a 'flesh'. The pen you write with is not a 'pan'. And the pan you fry your egg in is not a 'pen'.

Ultimately you can say what you like, of course, and whose business is it anyway if you want to say bowl like the 'Bauli' who make Panettone, not bowl like the Maltese for wee-wee? But if that is the case, then it works both ways, and everyone should just leave everybody else alone.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com