One of the things that commonly happen when you're a foreigner in England are embarrassing misunderstandings, often based on sexual double meanings.That usually happens to me with women.
I think this is because English is so different compared to Italian in the way you structure sentences, and because it's sometimes difficult for a foreigner to have a correct prononciation, so when Italian people in London gather they like to laught telling these anecdotes one another .
DISCLAIMER: This is something that just happened to me, and it contains some vulgarity I can't avoid. If you follow reading, some of you could feel offended.
There is a TV series I like called Hustle, produced by BBC , and I decided if the DVDs are not too expensive I'll buy them.
I get to the information point of the store and start cueing. The guy at the computer is visibly gay.
The man before me is the classic Londoner with a bad mood, smoker and big time beer drinker who you know will send you to f*** **f as soon as your glance will cross his.
This fellow asks the information guy for a certain DVD he doesn't know the title of. The guy tries some combinations with no results, the customer loses his temper and argues he's not finding that effing DVD on purpose, and going away, he calls him fag.
Which is strange in London, because here homosexuality is something people are used to and don't care about, so the guy feels angry and humiliated.
After a few seconds to recover, he smiles at me and pretends everything's fine.
Understanding his feelings, I try to be more gentle than what I'd usually be, and I ask him:- Do you have the DVD, Asshole?
Between the instant I complete the sentence and the one a killing glance raises in his eyes I get aware of the missunderstanding, and very shyly I say to him:
- Ma-maybe I pronounced it a little bit bad...
P.S. for my Italian readers:
HUSTLE, pronounced ASSOL, is the name of the TV series.
ASSHOLE, pronounced ASSOL, with the A that slightly waves to an E, is offensive, and you should be careful in using it.
you'd think in such a multi cultural city they'd be used to mispronunciations. I've just worked with no less than 2 south African ADs (who re quainted me with SA terms my old flatmate taught me, a French DOP (who would describe some set ups as "patetic" and a Spanish Gaffer (whose fav swear word seemed to be "bullshit")
ReplyDelete