WONKY WORDS

Lost In Translation

Know What I’m Sayin’?

I grew up in a multilingual household. My family would think nothing of using the “best” available word in our arsenal. Even if that meant a sentence comprised of words from several languages.

I thought this was normal.

We knew other families with the same “condition”.

One friend told us she was on her back patio when her husband opened the window upstairs and asked her something in their linguistic mishmash.

“Eat your fuck!” She hollered up to him innocently.

It was the uptight neighbour pulling her newspaper back above her eyeglasses, that gave away the misinterpretation.

Sometimes a more suitable word pops into my brain virtually eclipsing the English word.

This is not helpful to my boyfriend John. Particularly when I yell, “John — will you please grab me the verdemshowk?”

He is quite familiar with my brain’s betrayal at this point. So John adds to the fun by “guessing”. “The dildo?” He quips. “The egg timer, perhaps?”

“No! The plunger!” It finally comes to me in sheer desperation. John races to the rescue just in time.

On top of all this, I’ve always been a naïve goody-two shoes. Which leads to further miscommunications. Like the one time for a work event when someone suggested we go with an urban concept.

“What’s an urban concept?” I inquired. Turns out it was a cool new band. Who knew?

Knowing the latest slang or how to properly use social media is also not my bag.

So when someone comments on one of my posts, I usually have to consult Google to investigate the meaning. When I go to acknowledge what they said, I often end up replying to myself instead. Ugh!

My other problem is, I don’t realize what idioms I’ve translated into English.

Like when I commented on someone never being satisfied by lamenting, “You give him a finger, he wants a hand!” And learned it’s “inch and mile” in the English version.

A friend of mine said her in-laws always used to say something about putting your foot on the table, instead of putting your foot down.

I make these same blunders in other languages. Like when I told my family halfway across the globe that I was naked instead of hungry, in their tongue.

So yeah. You never know what’s going to come out of my mouth. Hopefully, someone will get it.

I’ll leave you with this. If you think the first photo should warrant washing one’s mouth out with soap, check out this alternative below.

Thank you for reading my story.

Thank you to brilliant editor Jennifer McDougall

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