LONDON - In a land where language defines the culture and words are often measured as carefully as pound sterling, the things that come out of President Bush's mouth are often met with either bewilderment or horror.

So when Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain meets with Bush today at Camp David in Maryland, the words they exchange will matter a great deal in how the British public reacts to Washington's diplomatic push to gain support for possible military action against Iraq.

The cowboy talk doesn't really wash - not in old England, or really anywhere else in Europe - and some observers contend that Bush's folksy Americanisms have more than a little bit to do with the mounting opposition in Europe to his military threat to topple the regime in Baghdad.

Many Britons recoiled, for example, when Bush said Wednesday that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq had ''crawfished'' out of previous agreements with the United Nations to allow weapons inspectors back into the country and that Hussein was ''stiffing the world.''

Or again in the aftermath of Sept. 11 when Bush dragged out his Texas drawl to say that ''those folks'' in the Taliban, well, he was going to ''smoke 'em out,'' and that Osama bin Laden must be taken ''dead or alive.''

''I wouldn't say it shocks us,'' said John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and a media commentator on language and its modern usages. ''To some extent it even interests us. But most often it simply puzzles us.''

Simpson added: ''What's perhaps troubling is that behind the colorful cowboy expressions there are ideas that are presented in black and white, in a with-us-or-against-us tone. I think the British and much of Europe believe the case must be made and hopefully made eloquently.''

An opinion column in Thursday's editions of the Guardian, a left-leaning national newspaper, read:

''It may be wise for Mr. Bush to rethink his choice of words before he addresses the United Nations in New York on Sept. 12. Apart from threatening to plunge the simultaneous translators into meltdown, such language feeds the image overseas of Mr. Bush as a hopelessly inarticulate, trigger-happy cowboy.''

Michael Waldman, a former speechwriter for President Clinton who now teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government on ''Communicating in a Time of Crisis,'' has been studying Bush's language and how it is perceived in the post-Sept. 11 world.

''The language may just be swagger, but it also suggests that we don't care whether the rest of the world stands with us,'' Waldman said in a telephone interview from Cambridge. ''It's hard to see how that could make sense. A preemptive war is going to be a hard sell, and Bush will need to choose his words very carefully.''

Waldman said ''cultural nuances that might make us simply roll our eyes can make others all over the world gnash their teeth. His use of the word `crusade' to describe the war in Afghanistan is an example of that. The Muslim world was up in arms.''

As Bush prepares to make his case against Hussein to the international community during the UN General Assembly next week, his choice of words will be critical, Waldman and other analysts said.

''There is in fact quite an open mind among people about whether it is right to attack Iraq or not,'' Waldman added. ''But he is facing a job of persuasion that is on parallel with the task that President Roosevelt faced prior to World War II. It is a big moment, and the words will definitely matter.''

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

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