Oct 09 2008
in which I am a little geeky about language
In Turkey, I joked–although actually this is completely true–that while most people there don’t know a lot of English, everyone who wants to sell you something knows how to say at least three things: “No problem,” “Yes please,” and “Excuse me, lady, lady, excuse me, lady!” I figured the “yes please” in particular was just a weird bit of broken English, but our Turkish guide used the phrase too, like if one of us wanted to get his attention in the van; that was his response, instead of, I don’t know, just saying “Yes?” or some other more standard colloquialism. His English wasn’t perfect, but it was very good, so we decided that must be something that didn’t translate properly from Turkish.
But yesterday I heard somebody at the post room use the exact same phrase–instead of, say, “Next customer, please,” he said “Yes please” so the next person in the queue would come forward. So does that mean it’s a British-English colloquialism and it transfered into Turkish English because British English is the most common version of English there? I have no idea, but it’s interesting.
