Anna of little.red.boat collects animal noises in other languages and has a friend who collects the phrase, “I want to buy some Velcro,” for what to me are unfathomable reasons.
Since one of my sophomore year college roommates, Nancy Paz* taught me how to say give me a kiss in Polish, I’ve collected the phrase in as many languages as possible. You never know when it might come in handy. I have them written down on a little slip of paper in a treasure box, a list that includes Arabic, Finnish, and Greek. Off the top of my head, without looking, I can say it in Polish, Swedish, French, German and, of course, English.
Whenever possible, I had people write down how to pronounce it, so I don’t always know how it’s actually spelled.
There’s no reason for telling you any of this except that I read Anna’s article and it made me think of my little phrase collection. If you don’t like it, kyss mig i baken.
Which reminds me of another story! O the segue!
When I was first learning Swedish, Anders refused to teach me any bad words. This is because he’s naturally polite and also because he probably didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to be able to indulge my natural pottymouth tendencies in a language his parents understood. Finally, I wormed out of him the proper way to say kiss my ass in Swedish (see above). Around about the same time his mother was taking an English class, due solely to the fact that she was worried about being able to communicate with me. Since she was nearing 70 at the time and has no natural gift for languages, this was a MAJOR deal. She quite proudly announced to Anders over the phone (we were still in the States at the time) that she had learned an important phrase, and after he ended the call, he put his head in his hands and groaned.
Me: What?
Anders: I can just see it now, your first conversation with my mom…
Märta (in English): May I see your passport, please?
Liz (in Swedish): Kiss my ass!
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An essay by Kate, inspired by Maggie the Beagle who could teach us all a thing or two: How to Enjoy Grass
Now I Don’t Need to See the Movie: Hilarious recap of Van Helsing in 15 Minutes (via esmecat)
*Paz is short for a really long, confusingly spelled Polish name that I can never remember because we always called her Paz.