English understood

Some of the most important observations about countries and cultures, civilizations and societies, traditions and beliefs, have been made by outsiders. With their foreign eyes and ears, they are able to experience things in a completely different way. A classic example is De la démocratie en Amérique, written in 1835 by a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville. Along with being a seminal text on economics and sociology, Democracy in America is still regarded by many as the best account of the US political system ever published.

When it comes to the English language, it is often the Irish and the Scots who provide us with key insights. It's not their language, of course, but both peoples have spent hundreds of years trying to speak it, and it's this "outsider" status along with their "insider" role that helps them to really understand English. In this short video clip, Scottish comedian and actor Billy Connolly points out that some English words are completely, uniquely, totally English. This means that they don't have synonyms and they are almost impossible to translate, too.