The other day I was in our sales room with my two guy co-workers- one from Liverpool and one South African. With this new hair cut I'm in constant need of hair accessories. As a joke I said out loud, do either of you guys have a bobbie pin?
South African: "a what?"
me: a bobbie pin
SA: a baabie pin?
me: no, a bobbie pin. like for your hair? I was kind of joking
SA: no..but what did you call it? baabie?
me: bobbie
SA: baabie? or boobbie?
me: bobbie
SA: baabie? or boobbie
me: it doesn't count as two choices if you are just saying the same thing twice
SA: right, but baabie...that's like the doll
me: no, that Barbie
SA: baabie?
me: BARBIE! how long are we going to do this for?
SA: ba-rrr-bie?
me: yes. kind of. But you sound mentally handicapped when you say it like that
SA: Hahah...that's how you sound!!
me: well I really walked into that one, didn't I?
Another incident occurred when on of my british colleagues told us he was quitting to take a few months to travel (this happens all the time in this country. People heart their holiday) and then starting at his new job as a big, bad investment banker. I asked him where he was going and he said he planned on heading to San Francisco. I immediately went on for about twenty minutes talking about how great it is, my best friend used to live there, my friend got married there, you have to do all this stuff, blah blah blah. I then asked him where else he was going.
British Guy: Well I was planning on spending two weeks or so in San Francisco and then head east
me: Oh awesome, where to? Chicago? New York? DC?
BG: No, not that far east. Probably like Las Vegas and Yo-sem-ite (you have to sound it out that way to get how he said it)
me: hmm Yo-sem-ite...I've never heard of that. Where is it?
BG: I think its a national park, lots of big trees
me: Do you mean Yosemite?
BG: oh shit..is that how you say it? wait, say it again so I don't sound like an idiot
me: haha too late! but its Yosemite, like Yosemite Sam?
BG: who?
me: you know! that crazy 49er from Bugs Bunny?
BG: I don't think we got that here
SA: We even had it in South Africa!!
This Thursday is BG's leaving drinks. My parting works are going to have to be Yosemiteeeee so he goes to America with a bit of the upper hand.
3 comments:
this is by far my favorite post EVER! who is the SA guy? hmmmm.....who is the BG leaving??? geezz...i need to freaking pay attention. perhaps that is part of the problem???
Bobbie. Barbie. Yosemite. HA!
hahaha, i know how you feel. i was the only american in my office with about 6 other irish, so they would constantly be making fun of how i say places and even the random names i would call things. it was one of the things i loved about living abroad, all the different names and sounds for things.
Two cultures separated by a common language. Show them a map of NJ and point to towns like Parsippany, Piscataway or Metuchen, ask them to pronounce these names and then sit back to enjoy the laughs. To paraphrase the Simpson's Comic Book Guy - BEST BLOG POST EVER!
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