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Aug. 9th, 2002 11:03 amThis started out as a reply to this, but then started to get too long.
1. I went to college with a man named Paul who went to Paris for a semester. When he returned, he maintained a London rock star accent (?!) for several months, but mainly around cute chicks. I had a couple of brief conversations with him in which he forgot to turn it on. Once, at a meeting of the local SCA chapter, Paul was impressing newbies with dashing tales of the Pennsic Wars, naturally using his accent. I turned to Doug, a closer friend of Paul than I, and expressed my exasperation at the accent. "Well," said Doug, completely serious, "he was in Europe, you know."
2. One of my old roommates when I lived near Central Square years ago had a close friend who came to visit us after a year in Spain -- our apartment was, in fact, her first stateside location in which to decompress. Parents of another roommate (a fellow Ohioan) were also visiting, and inquired politely where she had been in Spain. "Se-VEE-yeh," she said, and was perhaps perplexed that they had never heard of this famous city, like, you know, in the opera.
I don't know if I was a jerk when I got back from Greece or not. I'd like to think I wasn't; but if I was it was mainly only my family that suffered. It probably would not have occurred to me, however, to tell everyone that I had been living in Athina.(*)
(*) I did run into my old music teacher from high school the summer I got back. (**) I told her I had been in Greece. "What part?" she said. "Athens," I replied. That's when we realized we were having different conversations. She had expected me to reply Danny or Kenickie or Roger or something.
(**) I had to work at Wendy's that summer. Two of my co-workers, on different occasions, asked what language they spoke in Greece. "Greek," I replied. One woman was surprised. "I thought they spoke French!"
The other co-worker asked me "if you could understand it."
"If you speak it, you can," I said.
"Well, I mean, like, people from Australia, you can't hardly understand them when they're talking."
"No... it's a different language."
"Okay, how do you say 'hi' in Greek?"
"Yeia sou."
"Oh," he said. "So it's not like English at all!"
1. I went to college with a man named Paul who went to Paris for a semester. When he returned, he maintained a London rock star accent (?!) for several months, but mainly around cute chicks. I had a couple of brief conversations with him in which he forgot to turn it on. Once, at a meeting of the local SCA chapter, Paul was impressing newbies with dashing tales of the Pennsic Wars, naturally using his accent. I turned to Doug, a closer friend of Paul than I, and expressed my exasperation at the accent. "Well," said Doug, completely serious, "he was in Europe, you know."
2. One of my old roommates when I lived near Central Square years ago had a close friend who came to visit us after a year in Spain -- our apartment was, in fact, her first stateside location in which to decompress. Parents of another roommate (a fellow Ohioan) were also visiting, and inquired politely where she had been in Spain. "Se-VEE-yeh," she said, and was perhaps perplexed that they had never heard of this famous city, like, you know, in the opera.
I don't know if I was a jerk when I got back from Greece or not. I'd like to think I wasn't; but if I was it was mainly only my family that suffered. It probably would not have occurred to me, however, to tell everyone that I had been living in Athina.(*)
(*) I did run into my old music teacher from high school the summer I got back. (**) I told her I had been in Greece. "What part?" she said. "Athens," I replied. That's when we realized we were having different conversations. She had expected me to reply Danny or Kenickie or Roger or something.
(**) I had to work at Wendy's that summer. Two of my co-workers, on different occasions, asked what language they spoke in Greece. "Greek," I replied. One woman was surprised. "I thought they spoke French!"
The other co-worker asked me "if you could understand it."
"If you speak it, you can," I said.
"Well, I mean, like, people from Australia, you can't hardly understand them when they're talking."
"No... it's a different language."
"Okay, how do you say 'hi' in Greek?"
"Yeia sou."
"Oh," he said. "So it's not like English at all!"
