Fluent, Except When I'm Trying to Gut Someone

I probably shared at some point that my teen mom unceremoniously ripped me from the bosom of my birth land when I was a mere two years old. I was one of many Pier 21 immigrants. With a wooden trunk made from leftover coffin wood (I'm not sure whose), and the clothes on our backs, we travelled across the sea. We left a town where the dialect can only be described as the Newfie of Germany (no disrespect intended toward either my hometown or the most magnificent of Canadian provinces).

Some would argue that the language you learn first, stays with you. I would argue, nonsense. In my younger years, I remembered a few words of questionable accuracy and even more disturbing taste. These were often interspersed with what soon became my main language, English. My family's one visit to Germany when I was a child, did nothing to help me regain any confidence in the lost language.

For various reasons over the past decade and a half, I have visited Deutschland almost every other year. (Note my Germanic "Deutschland". Impressive eh?) . At first, I was nervous about attempting to converse with anyone in the public sector, never certain whether I was using correct terminology or a corrupted, even rude version of a word. I often asked if they spoke English first, before struggling to assemble a thought in German. When I was forced to make the effort, it usually sounded pretty good. Then, I'd be sure to fish for compliments by explaining that I don't really speak the lingo. Eventually, and fairly quickly, I became what I would describe as fairly fluent.

I decided that perhaps the language you learn first, doesn't necessarily stay with you, but is familiar and sitting in the hidden recesses of the brain. The sounds, the intonations, the phrasing may be ingrained during your formative language development years, and even though they're not used, can be retrieved when needed.

I found it curious that some of my relatives, all of which had now moved away from the original hometown, had developed different dialects. Each one spoke in a unique way, and yet we all laughed over certain words, and phrases we remembered from the past. What made it even funnier was that their children and grandchildren had no idea what we were talking about much of the time. So the peculiar words from my childhood weren't so terrible after all.

In return for their hospitality, I liked to treat people to a restaurant meal during my visits. The last time I was there, my cousin's wife was finally brave enough to take me aside and speak to me. She made me aware that a phrase I had used on every trip up to now, was not quite acceptable and clearly didn't translate as I had imagined. At that moment, I discovered that it's not only Google translator that comes up with ridiculous offerings when I use their function. I also learned that it's not always a good thing to try to translate a word or phrase verbatim.

Who knew that when I offered to "take people out" in German, it had a different, more disturbing meaning? Not only that, it's not even what you might think. Apparently, I was offering to eviscerate, clean out, or fleece people. Wow, I had choices...each one worse than the last. The only choice I didn't have was to treat them to dinner.

Hopefully, I'll remember this small linguistic detail on my next visit. Who knows, perhaps someone will even clarify some of my other awkward turns of phrase. On the other hand, maybe they'll just compliment me on what surely can be considered almost fluent German. 

My Expanded Vocabulary

I  learned a lot in 2013. My personal dictionary has expanded yet again. Although I seem to pick up some of the latest language fads on my own, I also like to peruse Aaron Peckham's Urban Dictionary in an attempt to keep up with the newest buzz word, or perhaps I should say sweet or rad word.

There is some language in existence that doesn't become commonly used until there is an event which triggers the need. For example, bailout. Whereas this might have once referred to leaping from an aircraft and hoping that the parachute opens, it has taken on a new meaning in this century.

In 2004, the word of the year was "blog". I didn't participate in this phenomenon until a number of years later. So today's blog is about new words or at least some which have been unfamiliar to me.

I believe that there have always been weird invented words. Dr. Seuss made an extremely good living creating words. Just a few that instantly come to mind are snoods, sneetches and the now all too famous grinch.

It's whether words catch on and become commonly used which determines if they end up in any type of dictionary. Some have fallen by the wayside. After all, who uses sardoodledom or pecksniffian in their everyday speech? Even my spell checker doesn't recognize these and is currently underscoring them with hostile red squiggles. On the same note, I haven't heard a lot of people saying the 2004 word of the year, "w00t". Although I don't participate in a lot of gaming events that would require this word, I have seen it used in written form on Facebook.

With the almost daily advances in technology, we are constantly adding to our vocabulary. Who knew what apps, hashtags and tweets were a few years ago? When I wrote a column using the word "selfie", hubby said, "Change that because nobody knows what you're talking about."

I now gladly rub his nose in the fact that selfie was the word of the year for 2013. Of course, had Miley Cyrus created the now infamous Robin Thicke dance display a little earlier on, twerking might not have been such a distant second choice.

I think that previously existing words that have become part of many people's vocabularies this year revolve around weather phenomenon. I for one have certainly experienced more than my share of shocking night time awakenings from ice quakes or as scientists term them cryoseisms. I have also learned that a large pocket of cold arctic air is termed a polar vortex. It seems many have been affected by the shift south of the cold air this year and this has caused people to easily use this now very common expression.

So, like it or not, the language is changing. Whether we opt to keep up with it is sometimes our choice and other times simply a necessity.

What now?

Reading was sometimes a struggle. Writing never was. Ever since first grade, when I proudly deciphered the word "funny" in my "Dick and Jane" reader and printed said word all over a large white sheet of paper, I've been hooked. My first real success came a few years later when the teacher displayed one of my stories for Open House. It recounted an unfortunate incident involving my mom, a huge bowl of freshly brewed jello, a partially open fridge door and a linoleum floor. I was eight and it was funny. The teacher was impressed. My mother wasn't.

In high school, I encountered my first "stickler". She was quite a wonderful English teacher to whom I am indebted to this day. We flogged grammatical rules and parsed sentences ad infinitum. I'm fairly confident that this repetitive activity led to my affinity for the book, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."

Although I never had a huge interest in penning the next great American novel (or Canuk novel as it were), I often wrote for enjoyment during the early morning hours when my world as a single mom was most peaceful. I saw myself as a bit of an Erma (that's Bombeck not La Douce) and so I began to slog, or should I say blog about daily events that struck me as odd, annoying or amusing. There were many.

It has sometimes occurred to me to offer my services to the local newspaper as a "proof reader". Unfortunately, prerequisites are rigid. Accuracy in spelling, grammar and punctuation are not necessary. A degree in journalism is.

So here I sit in the hopes of gaining some insight about where I might fit into the literary world. As I try to find "my voice" I will write about what I know best...my thoughts on everyday life, my experiences, my gripes and my history.