ABSTRACT
An English gentleman—deer stalker tweed jacket and all—climbs out of his Range Rover in a quiet village in the heart of Wales. He is lost. He is also weary. He has driven all the way from London to attend a weekend champagne and caviar party at the country retreat of some of his urbane friends from the city. Above all, he is irritated: he is lost because some inconsiderate vandal had painted out all the road signs. He enters a small store to ask directions of the proprietor, who is just finishing a phone conversation. In purest Oxford English he asks, ‘I say, my good man, would you be so kind as to tell me the way to Aberystwyth’. The middle-aged shopkeeper smiles congenially and answers politely. But in Welsh! He has clearly understood the question (after all, he was just speaking English on the phone), and is quite obviously giving directions. The English gentleman tries again—accentuating the clarity of his Oxford accent. After all, he thinks, perhaps the shopkeeper didn’t really understand—rural folk like the Welsh are perhaps a little ‘slow’. The shopkeeper again replies in Welsh—perhaps with a discernible accentuation of the Welshness of the reply.
