This is Part 1 of this topic. With Part 2 to come … eventually. Once I get around to compiling a list. And I think about it every day. Really, I do.

Today, we address the following phenomenon: In a newsroom where everyone speaks English … why are about half of all declarative sentences answered by one-word questions such as “pardon” … “sorry” … and “huh”?

Because, like all global languages, English has a batch of accents, and we have lots of them at the newspaper.

Some of which I can barely understand.

The newsroom has perhaps two dozen editors and reporters for whom English is a second language. Arabic speakers, Hindi speakers, Urdu speakers, etc.

Oddly, I understand most of them fairly well. Maybe because people who speak a language well but not idiomatically … are generally understandable on the wide spectrum of accents?

We also have one or two natives of Ireland, a few Aussies and Welshmen, and maybe even a South African or two. Some of those are tough. And the Scots! That can sound like moon-man talk, when the Scots get going.

But, overall, the people whose English gives me the most trouble are … English. In part because we have more of them than anyone else.

Yes, we’ve all heard the stories about how England is one crazy patchwork of separate and distinct accents. Allegedly, an Englishman with keen ears can listen to one of his countrymen for a few sentences and peg his hometown within 20 miles. It’s that specific to an area.

Yanks, however, cannot differentiate between Yorkshire and Lancashire nor something known as Geordie. We are lucky if we can pick out the BBC accent (generally understandable) or the posh London bray.

The English also have the Cockney accent (think Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins”) … though another Englishman tells me Cockney is disappearing quickly, back in London. Sounds ‘orrible.

So, anyway, this is a typical encounter in the newsroom.

Co-worker from England: “Bonnet shambolic holiday fixture headline, sassy lads?”

Me: “Oh, absolutely.”

Then we return to our respective corners and try to work out what was just said between professionals. Any “key” words involved. (“I definitely heard “headline,” and don’t we have a story in features about sassy lads … or was that about the guys on the web desk? Hmm.”)

Happens all the time. All the time.

I am under no illusion that my English is easy for Englanders to pick up. I am a lower-middle-class SoCal native, a gerund-clippin’, yep-and-nope mutterin’, contraction spewin’ (it’ll, where’ll) guy prone to, like, you know, Valley Girl verbal ticks.

And among other Yanks, we have at least one Panhandle Florida accent, and a few Texans … though, thank goodness, no one from Joisey or Philly or Bawston. (Not even Americans can figure out some of them.)

The easiest folks in the room to understand are … the Canadians. And we have a batch of our friends from the Great White North. Sometimes, they can pass for Americans (and, c’mon, you know you all want to do it) until they stumble over the classic shibboleths: “about” and “against” — pronounced uh-BOOT and uh-GAINst. If you’re from Canada.

A long time ago, someone decided that newspapers ought to be known as The Daily Miracle, because we start from scratch every day and somehow you get a newspaper on your doorstep the next morning.

In this newsroom, where everyone speaks “English” but no one understands all of it, the Daily Miracle seems like setting the bar too low. What is bigger than a miracle? The Daily Transfiguration? The Daily Reincarnation?

That’s us. Because not only are we chasing deadline and elusive sources and tight head counts, we’re making believe we understand what our co-workers are saying to us for eight hours at a pop … when only about a third is getting through. And so far, in my seven months, anyway, no fistfights have broken out. A miracle, at the least.

Later on, I promise I will do a post on bizarre words the Brits insist should be used instead of obvious and sensible American words. But for now, I’m going to tip the rubbish from my lorry — biscuits and crisps, mostly — into the skip.

• Thanks, George Bernard Shaw