Crisps and a Fizzy Drink

Although English is spoken in Vancouver and London, it's a very different type of English. There are different words for the same nouns, different rules for subject/ verb agreement, different meanings for the same word, and even without considering accent, different pronunciations of the same word. I could fill many, many pages of this blog just going through all the ones we've noticed so far, but I won't turn this entry into an sociological grammar expedition. Instead, I'll just show you tonight's TV-watching snack: chips and pop, or as they're known here, crisps and a fizzy drink.

There are way, way too many types of crisps here, and some of the flavours can get pretty fancy, but as with many food items, we've found that reading labels really helps--odd ingredients crop up where we least expect them, like aspartame to sweeten some crisps and many non-diet fizzy drinks. Canadians might also be scratching their heads over the confusing ginger ale pictured above, labelled "Canada Dry" and "Schweppes." In Canada, these are marketed as competing brands of ginger ale (even though they are actually owned by the same company), so seeing both brands on one label is strange to us. Also surprising to us is that ginger ale is marketed as a mixer for cocktails, rather than a beverage in its own right--it's usually not in the aisle with all the other pop; instead, it's in the "mixers" section, next to the alcohol, which was part of the reason that it took us so long to find it the first time! The winner of the explain-to-me-how-this-belongs-here? contest has to be microwave popcorn though. In which section would you expect to find it a grocery store? If you guessed "crisps" or "snacks" or (and here I started to get desperate) "crackers" or "cereals" or "granola bars," you'd have been like me, walking up and down the aisles in vain. Finally, a Sainsburys employee showed me where it was shelved: "candy and sweets." I didn't point out that microwave popcorn doesn't contain any sugar, the very definition of candy and sweets! I was just happy to finally get my hands on the stuff . . .