We’re still waiting for our equipment (router, DSL modem) to arrive … and it’s been, oh, more than a week since we placed our order with British Telecom. In the process of placing our order, BT has misspelled our name, given us a telephone number other than the one they told us they would assign, and has had us on hold for a grand total of about 14 hours. Our equipment was supposed to show up Tuesday, but looks like it won’t be arriving until sometime Thursday, as BT neglected to list our flat number when they addressed the parcel … so the package is sitting in East Kilbride, in a shipping depot.
We believe that events like this are merely part of an overall larger picture – one which can be summed up in the following quotes: “the internet isn’t worth a damn,” says the cab driver; “just come in if you have a problem, because we only check email on Tuesdays,” says the rental agency; “The Scots are actively resisting the electronic age,” says D’s Graduate Adviser; “Scotland is a third world country, really – it’ll take you three weeks to get broadband through SkyTV,” says the SkyTV salesman. This picture also shows up when examining our hunt for a flat, in that we sent out over 100 email / web inquiries, and received a total of maybe a dozen replies – with all but maybe two of those replies consisting of something like, “so sorry, we already rented that property last week.”
For someone coming from the heart of the tech field, accustomed to doing all business online and being connected 24/7/365, this has been quite a shock. Add to that the fact that registration is done in person – with a list of courses provided by the department at the time of registration, rather than published in a catalogue or on the web – and you’ve got one unhappy / confused student. It’s not that walking the .75 miles to the University is a problem (you can see it from our entryway window – it’s the tallest spire in the picture), but that it’s simply not the way D’s accustomed to doing business.
On the other hand, these differences must be part of what we came here to experience, right? Perhaps. We wonder at the underlying reasons for this resistance to technology … and also at its market saturation in certain other ways, such as text messaging. We also wonder at the seemingly optional nature of spelling and punctuation in the written word here.
The initial conclusion? The pattern we’re seeing adds up to the fact that the Scots are an extremely verbal culture, but that does not extend into the written word. We also surmise that the Scots dialects are possibly dependant upon body language and inflection to a greater degree than other dialects of English, simply because of the wide variation in pronunciation.
These are theses to be considered by a linguist, perhaps, or a sociologist … and maybe we’ll have to track one or both of those down sometime.
We have managed to weasel a web-page or two from the Philosophy department, however, and can point interested parties to descriptions of the two courses D will probably be taking this semester: Epistemology and Language. In addition to these two he’ll be taking a course in Research Methodology, for which there is no material available online, despite it being a required course for all students in this particular program. He’ll know for certain whether these are his courses after he registers in person next Tuesday.
– D & T
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Having just joined the electronic age myself, I feel a little hypocritical agreeing with you, but for what it’s worth, I do. Being able to conduct most of your business online makes such sense in so many respects — practically, economically, ecologically, etc.
I heard a sketch by Ben Elton once that reminds me a little of this. His contention is that Britons actually like inconvenience and things that aren’t practical. I have often found myself thinking that there is some truth in what he says.
A bit of culture shock from an unexpected place!