"I refuse to discuss religious subjects with you," he said.
To be ponderous over this anecdote grieves me--but you may not know that orthodox Englishmen usually don't kneel, as we do, after reaching their pews; they stand for a moment, covering their faces with their well-brushed hats: with each nation the observance is the same, it is in the manner of the observing that we differ.
Much is said about our "common language," and its being a reason for our understanding each other.

Yes; but it is also almost as much a cause for our misunderstanding each other.

It is both a help and a trap.

If we Americans spoke something so wholly different from English as French is, comparisons couldn't be made; and somebody has remarked that comparisons are odious.
"Why do you call your luggage baggage ?" says the Englishman--or used to say.
"Why do you call your baggage luggage ?" says the American--or used to say.
"Why don't you say treacle ?" inquires the Englishman.
"Because we call it molasses," answers the American.
"How absurd to speak of a car when you mean a carriage!" exclaims the Englishman.
"We don't mean a carriage, we mean a car," retorts the American.
You, my reader, may have heard (or perhaps even held) foolish conversations like that; and you will readily perceive that if we didn't say "car" when we spoke of the vehicle you get into when you board a train, but called it a voiture, or something else quite "foreign," the Englishman would not feel that we had taken a sort of liberty with his mother-tongue.

A deep point lies here: for most English the world is divided into three peoples, English, foreigners, and Americans; and for most of us likewise it is divided into Americans, foreigners, and English.