When nobody knows what anybody is talking about, the funniest conversations happen!
When you get to a certain age, your hearing, perception and understanding of a situation or even a word suddenly gets a little blurry, and the outcome can result in some of the funniest conversations imaginable!
My darling Roy and I were out with our older neighbours in Spain recently, and, after a little wine whilst sitting at a beach chiringuito, it was unilaterally decided that we were not going home, but would eat out in a little place called “Los Alcazares” . It is a lovely little seaside village in the Costa Calida, Spain, pronounced locally as “Loss Al cath a ress”, or as many ex-pats pronounce it “Loss Alca thar iz”!
Restuarant found (not difficult, there are around 30 in the area we were in!) and an evening ‘Menu del Dia’ decided upon (menu of the day, minimal choice, but great food and good prices) a discussion commenced about the first course of Chorizo Glaseado. As I speak the most Spanish of the four of us, I was designated as orderer of food and drinks, which I duly did, in my very best Spanish.
I was rewarded by the waitress saying that I was the only English person that she knew that had pronounced ‘Chorizo’ Correctly — I was ecstatic!
For years, a friend in the UK had insisted it was Cho risso. My neighbours (and indeed the guy on the ‘Come dine with me’ show, where 4 different people host each other and score their dinner parties), pronounce it Cho rit so.
The spainish use Z as both an ‘S’ and a ‘th’ and in the case of ‘Chorizo’ it becomes a ‘th’. So, the correct pronunctiation, confirmed by a native Spanish Lady, IS, as I have maintained for years, ‘Cho ri tho’ !
I haven’t been anywhere!
My neighbour looks at his wife and says ‘I haven’t been anywhere; where was I supposed to go?’
My Darling Roy and I stare at him, wondering which part of the conversation we missed.
‘What are you on about? Where are you going?’ asks his wife.
‘You just said , so he goes…’
‘No I didn’t. You havent been anywhere! Where do you want to go?’
‘Well, nowhere, where do you want me to go?’
They look at me questioningly, I am shaking with laughter, tears running down my face, I can hardly speak.
‘She said…Chorizo’ I choke out.
‘Who did?’
‘Your wife.’
‘Oh. Why did she say that? What has it to do with me going somewhere?’
I can hardly breathe by this point. I shake my head and dissolve into uncontrollable laughter, my head in my hands, covering my wet face.
‘No you silly old fool, we were talking about the food, the choreezo (there you go, another way of mis pronouncing it!) and how you say it.’ His wife is clearly exasperated.
‘Well why didn’t you just say that then?’
‘Oh, I give in! You never listen, and when you do you hear it wrong’
By this time, there are several tables of amused onlookers. I have just about dissolved, my darling Roy is wiping his eyes with a napkin — the husband is grinning at me like a cheshire cat, pleased with the response, whilst his wife is glaring at us all.
‘ Its all right for you lot’ she snaps, ‘ I have to live with this, 52 years of him not listening’
The husband rolls his eyes, and still grinning, silently mouths ‘Should’ve listened to my mother’ just as his wife says it — I reckon he has definately ‘heard’ that before!
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