The Gentle Giant’s English is pretty good for a non-English speaker because he is very well read. The problem with this, however, is that as he’d got all his basic English from books, he would occasionally produce a time-frozen turn of phrase such as “perchance”, which is archaic or literary in usage.
Another quaint turn of phrase came from another German-speaker, this time an evening class student, Burkhardt, a young man in his early 20s who spoke good English otherwise. We were going from the college to somewhere and had to cross a slightly complicated junction which had six different roads leading off it. We were trying to get from Road 1 to Road 4. The usual way would have been to cross Road 1, walk to Road 2, wait for the lights to change, cross Road 2, walk to Road 3, wait for the lights there to change, cross Road 3, walk to Road 4. This would also have taken more time, however. I knew the timings of the traffic lights at that junction very well, so at the right moment, I made for Road 4 diagonally from Road 1. Taken completely by surprise, Burkhardt trotted along close behind me but still found time to protest, “This is most unorthodox!”
I think it is also no coincidence that they (Burkhardt, and the Gentle Giant in blog entry When in Rome…) are both German-speakers: brought up to obey rules to the letter.
(London, 1987/8)
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