Music

DIARY: Icelandic singer in London, Snorri Helgason

Snorri Helgason | Tuesday 2 November, 2010 19:30

I didn’t mean to hurt you – I’m Snorri that I made you cry.

I learned English from TV and reading Blur lyrics with a dictionary. I have a pretty good vocabulary and can hide my Icelandic accent pretty well when I’m sober.
I’m a musician and so I get to travel a lot. I go to lots of different places and pick up the little differences in the mannerisms and vocabulary of each place. Right now I’m in Newfoundland and I find myself saying things like “oh yaah?”, “fur sure” and “eh?” all the time. I was in Austin, Texas for a couple of days last year and was throwing “y’all” around like crazy. Weird.

I recently moved to London and the first thing I started picking up there was that whenever I’d order something from a bar or a café or something I’d always get these weird looks from the staff. I was being chatty and smiling and everything but no matter what I did I’d always get that look and that feeling of guilt. It took me a while to figure out what it was. Actually I didn’t figure it out—it had to be pointed out to me by a rather pissed-off waitress that I had forgotten to say the magic word—“PLEASE”. Now you see… you don’t learn that from TV and Blur lyrics. OK.
Lesson learned.

That waitress got me so paranoid I started saying, “please” at least twice in every sentence. “Can I please have pint of Guinness, please… sorry”. And that’s another magic word ain’t it?—“SORRY”. What’s with you English and yer sorries?

Going to a market or walking down a busy street in London is like sorry—heaven. “Imsorry… Imsorry…Imsorry”. I was talking to an English friend of mine the other night and she said; “I’m sorry I’m saying sorry to much”. Riiight.

I mean—being nice and courteous is fine. Makes the world a better place. Just don’t overdo it. (Cliché alert!) It’s like the boy who cried wolf; what are you going to say when you really are sorry or your really need someone to do something for you?
So my preachy preach preach is; Britons! – just… relax. Stop apologizing for your existence.

And to London newcomers like myself – just start firing out sorries and pleases all over the place and you’ll be fine.

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