The frog and I speak a language understood only by ourselves, where sentences may start in French, end in English and include some words which hover somewhere in between. I’ve adopted some of the frog’s more endearing mistakes because they amused me: faulty plurals (feets, sheeps), creative past tenses (“I’m feeling hanged over”). He also does a very convincing faux Yorkshire accent when he says “fancy a cuppa tea luv?” and slips into it automatically (as do I) when he spends time with my family.
Mother called last night and asked the frog if he had any idea what she could get him for his upcoming birthday. I would give anything to have been a fly on the wall to see her reaction when he said that he could do with a pair of handcuffs.
Strait-laced mother must have been struggling to process this unexpected/unwelcome revelation about our sex life and his request was met with a protracted embarrassed silence. I was too busy choking with mirth on a sour cream and onion Pringle to put either of them out of their misery.
He meant cuff links.
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bum, I missed this one! fantastic. ah the joy of english spoken by foreign spouses! (of course, we are the foreign ones aren’t we?, but you know what I mean)
I’ll have to remember some of my dh’s (he could come up with plenty of mine, the best was that I used to say in front of m-i-l “ah look, the baby’s having a shit” instead of “doing a little poop” or something inocuous. he didn’t correct me for about a year.)
vit 08.19.04 – 2:00 pm
Comment by Vitriolica Webb — October 8, 2004 @ 8:27 pm
OOOh was just catching up on your blog and had to put in my two cents. I don’t remember exactly which american my Frenchie was talking to when he made this gaffe, but was trying the explain the card game “Asshole,” in which a playing card is placed on your foreskin, for all to see. Sadly, the word he was really looking for was forehead. I really really really wish I’d been there for that one!
ViVi | 09.06.04 – 9:57 am | #
Comment by Vivi — October 8, 2004 @ 8:28 pm
My ex ordered “a bloody steak, please” in a very nice restaurant in Cambridge :-)
The waiter was somewhat taken aback.
(“saignant” in French, for “rare”)
Comment by Steph — October 18, 2004 @ 5:33 pm