You've come a long way, babe.

My Eldest, Daria, is in NYC on business.
The other day, she tells us in an email, a guy at McDonald's asked her where in England she was from… He said no American says "Sorry" (rather than "Excuse me" and "take away" (rather than "to go").
"Shows we brung you up proper-like", replied my British husband proudly.
Good thing she gave herself away, as it were, at a McDonald's and not on a Nazi-infested train in 1944. Remember the scene in The Great Escape?


Truth is, my daughter's linguistic upbringing was a real mishmash. Our home was a way-station for English speakers of all kinds and accents: Lisa from New Jersey, Susie from Manhattan, Lynne from Coventry, Marion from Los Angeles, John from South Africa. Not to mention parents and grandparents with a wide assortment of backgrounds and accents. Daria has a good ear. Just plunk her for a week or two in a certain location, and she picks up the accent, with a vocabulary to go with it. Reminds me of the time she was about 12, on her way back from a short stay in London, when she asked a perplexed El Al flight attendant "where's the loo".

Happily, this babe has come a long way. (Without resorting to Virginia Slims…)

And speaking of cigarettes.

In the March 2010 issue of The Marker's health and life-style magazine with the unimaginative "Hebrew" name Active, on page 23, there's a full-page anti-smoking ad sponsored by the education (?) department of the Health Ministry. The photo shows a close-up of a good-looking, trendily stubble-faced young man, saying something like: "She looked great…[yadda yadda]… but when I leaned over to kiss her, I realized she stank like an ashtray. Ugh. Smoking really puts me off."

Interesting. I don't know what the percentage of women smokers is compared to men, and I'd like to think that the Ministry has a similar ad depicting a woman recoiling from the ashtray breath of a male smoker.

In ads from the 1930s, the situation, as you may well imagine, was altogether different. You have no idea how different. See below: the man blows smoke into the face of a goo-goo eyed beauty with heavily-mascara'ed lashes, who's staring up at her man entranced, and the caption reads: "Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere".



I wonder how far this attitude would get you with a woman these days :-)