I'm not saying you're wrong...
I'm just saying I'm right.
Oh yeah, my beau LOVED that line when I fed it to him last night. *snicker*
He's Canadian.. no wait.. there's more. I know you just shook your head and thought "well, there ya go. You are a Southern woman, he's a Canuck. What do you expect?"
Both of us are, surprise surprise, a bit umm detail oriented aka geeky. (No comments from the YIM peanut gallery please. This is no life altering revelation to those of you that know us. ;)
As a result of ouranal retentiveness cultural differences, we've many conversations on pronunciation and general 'what the hell are you talking about, what is that?'.
For example:
The pronunciation of the last letter of the alphabet. Is it Zee or Zed? Where I am it's Zee. The first time he said Zed my poor brain damn near backfired as I tried to figure out WTF he was trying to say!
There are so many things related to winter to leave me puzzled. What I consider to be winter and what he does are two different things.
Why do you have an electrical plug sticking out of the grill? .. So you can plug the car in? Do you have a hybrid? What do you mean it's a block heater? Don't you have anti-freeze in there? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT GETS SO COLD ANTIFREEZE ISN'T ENOUGH, you live in the freaking MAUI of Canada!!" (please insert the rising tone of hysteria at the end.)
Toque.. what is a Toque?.. Oh you mean a knitted cap? Yes, that's what we call them. It's not a toque, it's a knitted cap.
Even vegitation is not safe. Do you know how hard it is to explain what Crape Myrtle tree, Kudzu, or Spanish Moss is to someone that's never seen it?
And then there's food. I don't know if I can live in a land that doesn't have hushpuppies (aka corn dodgers). No.. not shoes!
"So Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens - there ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked right"
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885.
Served most commonly with fried fish, which I don't eat incidentally, they are little balls of corn meal-ly goodness. Put some diced onion in the batter and, sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln, I could eat myself silly on just hushpuppies.
Thankfully that's about the only food I love that he doesn't understand. Other things he's not heard of are Okra, mustard greens, collard greens, black eyed peas. How do you manage to avoid being devoured by bears or gored by moose if you don't have the New Years feast of greens, black eyed peas and rice? (it's a superstitious luck/good fortune thing)
I'm telling ya.. if he'd have not known what Pecan or Key Lime Pie was this whole getting married thing might have been off. I'm just kidding honey! (sorta)
-----
And for the record.. It's Zee
Oh yeah, my beau LOVED that line when I fed it to him last night. *snicker*
He's Canadian.. no wait.. there's more. I know you just shook your head and thought "well, there ya go. You are a Southern woman, he's a Canuck. What do you expect?"
Both of us are, surprise surprise, a bit umm detail oriented aka geeky. (No comments from the YIM peanut gallery please. This is no life altering revelation to those of you that know us. ;)
As a result of our
For example:
The pronunciation of the last letter of the alphabet. Is it Zee or Zed? Where I am it's Zee. The first time he said Zed my poor brain damn near backfired as I tried to figure out WTF he was trying to say!
There are so many things related to winter to leave me puzzled. What I consider to be winter and what he does are two different things.
Why do you have an electrical plug sticking out of the grill? .. So you can plug the car in? Do you have a hybrid? What do you mean it's a block heater? Don't you have anti-freeze in there? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT GETS SO COLD ANTIFREEZE ISN'T ENOUGH, you live in the freaking MAUI of Canada!!" (please insert the rising tone of hysteria at the end.)
Toque.. what is a Toque?.. Oh you mean a knitted cap? Yes, that's what we call them. It's not a toque, it's a knitted cap.
Even vegitation is not safe. Do you know how hard it is to explain what Crape Myrtle tree, Kudzu, or Spanish Moss is to someone that's never seen it?
And then there's food. I don't know if I can live in a land that doesn't have hushpuppies (aka corn dodgers). No.. not shoes!
"So Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens - there ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked right"
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885.
Served most commonly with fried fish, which I don't eat incidentally, they are little balls of corn meal-ly goodness. Put some diced onion in the batter and, sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln, I could eat myself silly on just hushpuppies.
Thankfully that's about the only food I love that he doesn't understand. Other things he's not heard of are Okra, mustard greens, collard greens, black eyed peas. How do you manage to avoid being devoured by bears or gored by moose if you don't have the New Years feast of greens, black eyed peas and rice? (it's a superstitious luck/good fortune thing)
I'm telling ya.. if he'd have not known what Pecan or Key Lime Pie was this whole getting married thing might have been off. I'm just kidding honey! (sorta)
-----
And for the record.. It's Zee
posted by Anonymous at
12:23 PM
6 Comments:
I also live in the states, and a couple years back I was working with someone from Europe. The project we were working on had the acronym ZOA, which of course is "zee-oh-aeh." (Hm, it's hard to type out our pronounciation of A -- a harsh sound.) But to him, it's "zed-oh-ah" (short A) and after working with him for a year, I started calling it that too. It was easier for me to say zed-oh-ah, than for me to say zee-oh-aeh and have him "translate" it into the letters he knew.
By
zandperl, at 12:50 PM
There ought to be a law against introducing somebody to okra, and I say that as a Virginia native. Gah :)
By
Anonymous, at 1:48 PM
what's even worse that Okra.. pro Bush spam.. gak.
Jolly I agree with you. I think okra slime is quite possibly one of the nastiest things on the planet. But to not even know what it was.. weird.
By
Anonymous, at 1:54 PM
It's even worse if you have an extremely thick accent. Which I do. So not only are you having to explain what stuff is, you're also having to try to translate yourself.
By
Amanda, at 10:40 PM
Where in Canada is he FROM?! Of course, we've heard of (and eaten) okra AND collard greens. Hmmmm...
You DO have to plug your car in around here, though. If you rent and pay your own utilities in an apartment building, you have to watch for nasty neighbours who plug into your outlets. I once had a guy steal my electricity and tell me it wasn't stealing, because the outlet was PROVIDED outside to plug a car into. And since I wasn't using it.... I had to resort to gluing the outlet cover closed. Well... I had to, dammit!
(PS... "Zed" is only awkward when singing The Alphabet Song...)
By
Anonymous, at 9:22 PM
Les.. which oddly enough is my beau's name.. My Les is from the Okanagan. He did clarify this to say he'd at least Heard of okra.. but never seen or eaten it.
By
Anonymous, at 11:43 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home