P128
BY JEAN TURNER
CN
III CROSS-RUTTED
D
ear Editor,
Nice to see some fresh blood,
but can someone tell the new guy
that here in the USA people speak a bit
different? Know your audience. No one
here understands his weird figures of
speech.
We recently received this email from
Mike Hannas of Seaside, California, with a
subject line reading, "Please tell the FNG
he isn't in South Africa anymore." Well,
If you haven't already been introduced to
our FNG (Fantastic New Guy), please allow
me. Rennie Scaysbrook is the new Road
Test Editor at Cycle News. The resigna-
tion of Paul Carruthers late last year left an
opening in the Cycle News offices, and
quite logically, we replaced one Aussie
ex-pat with another. Rennie started with
us earlier this year after transplanting from
Sydney, Australia, and while he's doing a
bang-up job riding and abusing any two-
wheel machine we point him at, it seems
his other worldly English is throwing off
some of our readers.
I'll admit that some communications
were a little lost in translation here in the
office, at first. During a discussion about
testing at Glen Helen in the summer heat,
Rennie replied that he'd had his share of
racing in "40-degree weather." We couldn't
figure out what his reference to riding in
near-freezing temperatures had to do with
a Southern California July, until someone
offered, "he means Celsius."
But when we're not thrown off by his idi-
oms, or confused by his foreign system of
measurement, we're thrilled to have a guy
like Rennie around. His sense of humor is
"bloody good," and I, for one, was pleased
to hear that "Cheers, mate!" is actually
something Aussies say quite frequently.
He's living up to most of our preconceived
notions of a true outback native. I watched
him whip my laptop charging cord up into a
neat bundle with snake rasslin' vigor (or so I
assume), although he has yet to offer me a
vegemite sandwich.
AMERICAN
SECOND LANGUAGE
"WHILE HE'S DOING A
BANG-UP JOB RIDING AND
ABUSING ANY TWO-WHEEL
MACHINE WE POINT HIM
AT, IT SEEMS HIS OTHER
WORLDLY ENGLISH IS
THROWING OFF SOME OF
OUR READERS."
Mike, I don't know that Rennie has ever
been to South Africa, but I can only assume
you mean "place far away from here where
they speak English, but they still talk funny."
(They're interchangeable to us, I know, but
the Australians seem to think they're pretty
different from South Africans. I guess we'll
have to take their word for it.)
