Free That's Not English by Erin Moore

rivals that of the English, and causes the same kinds of social problems. But America is a much more religious country and there is shame associated with most pleasurable activities, especially drinking. Although Prohibition was repealed in 1933, some local communities opted to keep its strict regulations against public drinking in place, with the result that today there are still more than two hundred drycounties in America, and many more that are partially dry. Most of these counties are located in a single swath of the Bible Belt, but there are outliers. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan all have strict enough laws in most of their counties to qualify as partially dry, and even in liberal New England, deep in the heart of Cheever country, where WASP reserve requires some dousing of its own, there are still dry towns.
    America has always been more conservative and less relaxed than England when it comes to drinking. In 1832, Frances Trollope (mother of Anthony) came to America to seek her fortune and ended up writing a book about American manners instead. She wrote, “We [English] are by no means so gay as our lively neighbours on the other side of the channel, but, compared with Americans, we are whirligigs and tetotums [spinning tops]; everyday is a holyday, and every night a festival.” American attitudes to drinking vary by region. Whereas in Brooklyn a two-year-old’s birthday party could be held at a beer garden, eyebrows might go up in Albany, and in some cities you’d actually be breaking the law. Many Americans avoid drinking for health reasons, without the same stigma that this carries in England. And as much as Californians, for example, love their local wine, they have to be careful not to run afoul of ever-stricter drunk driving laws. On the other hand, drive-through liquor stores were certainly an American invention, and are dotted all around the South, near some of the same areas where regulations are most stringent. Americans are conflicted drinkers, to say the least.
    Prohibitionists once advocated punishments for drinkers, including giving them poisoned alcoholic beverages, banishing them to concentration camps in the Aleutian Islands, branding,whipping, sterilizing, and even executing them. Is it any wonder that, fewer than one hundred years later, American attitudes to drinking have not recovered? What would the purists say if they knew that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written to the tune of an old drinking song?
    This is why Americans envy English pubs. Pubs are safe and friendly places where everyone is made to feel welcome. You can have lunch, bring your kids (at least during the day). Visiting Americans might find the mixed drinks a bit stingy, due to strict standardization of measures (twenty-five to thirty-five milliliters is the maximum legal serving of spirits), but one could argue this is a public service, given the well-documented perils of gin. The beer is much more interesting anyway. For their part, the English in America might be surprised by the quality of American beer. Craft breweries are proliferating and giving the drinking public options beyond the very cold, very bland national brands in cans. They would be less impressed by the mixed drinks served in American bars, heavily iced and inevitably containing straws, which no English person over the age of five would be caught dead using.
    Where does this leave
cheers
? Perhaps because of visits to England, or the influence of English novels, television, and journalism, Americans have begun to adopt the “thanks/good-bye” meaning of late. As one American said, “I enjoy hearing [cheers] instead of the worn out ‘later’ or ‘see ya later.’ Like it or not, the Yanks and the Brits are cousins, and that’s that. Cheers!” Needless to say, not everyone shares his enthusiasm.
    An English banker living in New York groused, “I’m getting sick of my clients saying
cheers
to me. Americans say
cheers
like Dick Van Dyke