Sunday, December 10, 2006

It's All About Communication

This morning I made my famous Beefaroni Omelet, or as I call it when I have company in the form of some woman who has flown in the face of reason and actually slept at my place, “Oeufs à la Ordure Blanche”. Ain't French beautiful?


Speaking of oeufs: in the course of trying to construct the French name for my omelet I ran across a headline in my old pal the Daily Scotsman: “Supermarket to sell free range oeufs”. Who cares what the article is about? Read it if you want. The part I like about the title is the mental image it forms for me: somewhere in the sprawling French egg ranch country there is a lush, verdant field of grass. In this field are scattered a bazillion chicken eggs. Nothing moves. There is dead silence. And the eggs freely range over the countryside, as only French eggs can do.


And speaking of foreign (to me) languages: I was thinking today while driving in to the redundantly-named Nina's Coffee Cafe that I really only know how to say two things in American Sign Language (ASL). The first phrase I can sign is made by holding the middle finger of your signing hand straight up in the air with the back of your hand pointed at the person to whom you are signing. This means in ASL, “You are more than somewhat annoying, and if I could time travel I would go back into the past your age in years plus one and give your father a pack of condoms and a booklet with lots of pictures and only a few big words that explains how to use them.” As you can see, ASL can be a very expressive language.


The other ASL phrase I can sign is “I love you.” Did I hear someone groan out there1? You make the sign by holding your palm facing the person to whom you are signing and raising the index finger and little finger straight up and extending the thumb out at right angles to the index finger (all at once). This sign is really a combination of the sign letters “I”, “L”, and “Y” which start the words of the phrase.


I use the ASL “I love you” when I'm sitting in a bar and am either too drunk or too lazy to get off my bar stool and go flirt with the pretty girl five seats down. Many times I get the other ASL sign I know back, but hey, it saved me a trip. I just wish I knew a third phrase in ASL: “Honey, I own a Lamborghini and a yacht and I'm taking my Gulfstream to Monaco in three hours and forty-five minutes, so get your cute little ass over here and enjoy a nice adult beverage with me prior to sexing me down in the Ladies' Room.” I'll have to ask my friend Julie, whose sandwich Garrison Keillor stole the other day. I wonder if I'll stammer with my fingers when I say it, like I do with my voice every time I try to tell The Big Lie.


Still on the foreign (to me) language topic: I started learning Portuguese yesterday. Really. I'm taking an online language course (actually two language courses -- Gung and Ho are my two middle names, which makes me the only person I know with two middle names and no first name). I can already say:


“O meu nome é Hulles. Falo inglês. Sou de Saint Paul, Minnesota. Queria um Cardhu.”


This means, I believe, “My nipples explode with delight.” (I didn't say they were good online courses.) If you really need an explanation of my desire to learn Portuguese, go here, here and here.


Oh yeah -- if you're curious about why I thought about American Sign Language while I was driving in, it's because I was assiduously practicing one of the ASL phrases I know with the other Sunday drivers out on the road this morning. Some of them even knew the same phrase. I would have pelted the bastards with some free range oeufs if I would have had a carton or two.


-- Hulles


1 What the hell did you think it was going to be: “Say, did you know that Patrick Roy was the youngest player to ever win the Conn Smythe Trophy?” This phrase, while true, would have at best limited utility in my life. Although come to think of it, the only way I'll ever be able to pronounce “Patrick Roy” correctly is to do it in ASL.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only Portugese I know are snippets I've pulled from the "Getz/Gilberto" album. I'm pretty sure that "vivo sonhando, Sonhando mil horas sem fim" means "my hovercraft is full of eels."

Casti said...

Hulles, congratulations:

Yeah: Valeu!!! : é isso ai!!!!

Bj do Brasil

Good luck in the studies!

Casti

Hulles said...

Lo - I checked this with Babel Fish and indeed, you translated it perfectly.

Casti - If ever a man needed an incentive to learn a language, you are it. Thanks for your wishes of luck. Bj's back at you. (I like Portuguese!)

La Espia T. said...

LMAO. BJ's ? Poor Casti has NO idea what she wrote. That's the fun of languages.

I still remember I had the hardest time getting comfortable using the verb "to bother" in spanish...it's "molestar."

"Don't bother me". "No me molestes." ack. I kept feeling like I was telling people and things not to molest me. Which in retrospect is not a bad phrase to learn. However its innocent meaning was hard to accept. I found that I didn't mind using it in the company of latinos, only when there were nonspanish speaking americans around.

"What is she saying?" man to woman.
"I don't know. Something about being molested. Poor thing." woman replies.

It's like finding out the word for grandma in swahili is cockring. (It's not, but I imagine its just like that.)

Anonymous said...

La espia t
Not to be bothered/not to be worried: not you be bothered/not you be worried. Certain words exist that sound of different form, for this reason the communication if it becomes a little difficult, therefore to molest, already it has a bad connotation… Is a little complicated same the translation.

Bj/kisses will be you la espia t

Casti in Brazil

Anonymous said...

Espia T



opsss... Não incomodar significa: Not to be bothered.

it understands?