A few recent adventures in my Mother Tongue: 1. My friend G. said, “I demanistrated him. Wait, what’s that word I mean? You know, make him less of a man?” It took us about five minutes to pull it out of the deep recesses of our English brains: emasculate. But ‘demanistrate’ is so poetic, is it not? And I think if you can defenestrate, you should also be able to demanistrate. (Okay, I know fenestrate and defenestrate are not actually opposites. But still. It sounds nice.) 2. T.’s parents were here from California this past week to visit him, and it was really fun to meet them! His dad and I were talking and he asked me, “How much longer have you been here than T.?” And my subconscious brain said “Say wha’? That’s a much more complicated grammar structure than I’m used to hearing!” And my tongue said, “A year ago.” Which is, of course, not the right answer. His dad had a brief, ‘Oh, so you’re a little bit slow, aren’t you?’ moment I’m sure. At least I recognized my mistake right away...
Comments
Of course, being China that standard could be different.
Micah, not enough words is the problem! Every word means about 100 things. Ask David.
Mindy/Marianne, I trust you both on this. Either that or it has magic properties. Your explanation is more likely.