I pick up words from everywhere, it doesn't matter from where but I pick them up. I had a boss from Boston so you should hear they way I say quarter. I've said trousers for the longest time and of course love the word Wally. Basically if I spend enough time around you to hear the word I will end up incorporating into my everyday use.
Normally, this wouldn't be a bad thing unless you use the wrong word at the wrong place and time. Today was one of those days. It was just as bad as the time I ran around the Heidelberg Pharmacist museum using the brand new German word I learned. I ran around the museum pointing to everything black I saw and said schwanz. After about the fourth time the husband looks at me quite wide-eyed and asked me to repeat the word. He chuckles and says, "Honey the word you want is schwarz." As I am sure you can guess schwarz means - black, schwanz means - penis. Thank my lucky charms that there was no one German in the museum while I ran around shouting penis at everything I saw. I bet I would have been arrested for lewd conduct or something.
So you can guess where today's word debacle went can't you? I also pick up words from British TV as well as regional pronunciations of American words. Most of them sound pretty good and really throw Americans for a loop when I use them. So, frustrated at my computer I muttered bollocks and threw my hands into the air as a sign of desperation. My English co-worker gave me the most wicked look and suggested I pick another word. Curious, I told her that I'd seen it used during the early hours of the evening on UK satellite and thought that it only meant "oh crap, oh hell, hellsbells, etc." Much to my surprise, no, no it did not - in fact it meant balls. Yep, as in balls, nuts, stones, juevos or any other slang for the male bits. Needless to say I apologized profusely claiming ignorance and that it was used on a show so early in the evening that it couldn't have been that graphic.
I think I need a dictionary, one that is multi-lingual and contains mostly slang. That way I will save myself from any additional embarrassment of using words meant for the pub and not work.
And what is it with me always seeming to pick out the words that talk about (as one British friend put it) - the male dangly bits?
2 comments:
I think it's pretty impressive that your hubs knew what Schwanz means...I am sure there is a story behind that one.
I also like appropriating words...like the British "shite"...so much cooler than our version, and it can be used how we use BS...which is also how the Brits use bollacks, i.e. that's bollacks.
I have picked up a few things from my boyfriend's mid-West or wherever-Kentucky-is vocab: "That really burns my toast", and "Oh Lord" are two favs of mine.
Another annoying thing that I have picked up, is literally translating German sayings like, instead of saying, "I don't care". I'll say: "it's me equal" (es ist mir egal).
Incorporating words can be dangerous though. While in Berlin last spring I was the "guide" for a British friend. She had spent some time somewhere else in Germany and those girls were teaching her German. Man, that was bad! I am talking to somone after the concert and all of of a sudden hear "blah, blah, F*** you, blah" all auf Deutsch. My friend was trying out ALL of the German words she learning by stringing them all together in one sentence.
I am furiously explaining in German to the bartender that she is just repeating everything she knows, that I didn't teach her that one and she doesn't mean anything by it. I nearly peed my pants over that - and then stopped buying her beer for the rest of the night.
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