The New York Times carried a short, eye-catching article describing how Egyptians often use the expression inshallah (God willing). The expression has long been used when referring to future events (“Will there be a good harvest?”), but today is often added when replying to most any question (“What’s your name?”).

As the article makes clear, inshallah is a display of faith and a badge of piety. I would add that inshallah is also a sign of belonging, of community.

The article is more than an exotic travel piece, and inshallah is more telling than, for example, the clothes people wear on the streets of Cairo. Especially when viewed from a hyper-secularized environment, like the New York Times newsroom or the streets of Paris, inshallah is a meaningful cultural difference.

But what about near neighbors? France and England are geographically close, but a world apart in many ways: what side of the street motorists drive on, what you eat for breakfast, what language you speak, when the workday begins and ends, how a law court works, whether children wear a uniform to school, what you watch on television. Some of these differences are purely conventional (coffee or tea), others are cultural, a tag akin to inshallah.

When thinking about culture, how can we separate what makes a difference—to mutual understanding, to a view of the world, to the success of a business venture—from the myriad little differences of everyday life?