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...
Back in San Antonio, my friend Stacey had asked me to pick her up from the airport. It was full summer, and for those of you who haven't been in San Antonio in the summertime, you know that expression 'hot as an oven'? Well, I like to say San Antonio summers are 'hot as downwind from an exhaust pipe.' (Which means when you actually are downwind from an exhaust pipe, things get really unpleasant.) It's quite common for there to be a temperature difference of 35-40 degrees between indoor and outdoor air during a San Antonio summer. True story: I had a small heater at my work desk and turned it on in the summer, not winter, because the air conditioning was on so high in our building I froze to death at my desk. So anyway, I go straight from the gym to the airport to pick up Stacey. It's 10 pm but still around 100 degrees outside. Inside, it's a balmy 60 or so. Gotta give those tourists a false sense of comfort! I'm pacing a bit in the baggage area wa...
Comments
Best of luck in this tragic time. Take care,
Suz