Say Hello to My Little Friend

Little friends.

While giving the Holy Ghost to a young boy as a missionary, I added the words "my little friend," which would be just fine in English. However, since I was speaking French, my "petit ami" didn't hold the same meaning. I was told later that I had called the boy my boyfriend.

-Anonymous (you know who you are)

Choked

Are you choking or can I offer some other kind of support?

I cannot vouch that this actually happened; it may be one of those mission field urban legends, But just in case:
It is reported that an experienced missionary in the French missions sometimes picked up a brand new junior companion at the train station, pretending to have such a raspy voice and sore throat that he needed the new man to request cough drops from the pharmacist. The new guy, not yet having a vocabulary that included medicinal terms, carefully practiced what he was told was the French word for cough drops: "soutien-gorge" (literally: "support-throat"). The newcomer would approach the counter and announce that he was in need of some very strong, very powerful soutiens-gorges, while the senior missionary would watch from a distance . . . where he could laugh at the red-faced younger missionary who had to endure the pharmacist's sign-language explanation that a soutien-gorge was a woman's brassiere.

-Ardis E. Parshall

Some Balls Need More Dodging Than Others

Dodge Ball Night.

While I was studying in America for one semester, I was able to participate in activities with other students every Monday night. One night, we played dodge ball. There was one boy, Ian, who always threw the ball extremely hard. I was really scared to get hit by him, but someone else ended up hitting me. As I left the field, I said to a friend, "I'm so scared of Ian's balls!"

-Rebekka Weidmann

Hot Diggety Dog

Hot dog.

When my husband was posted in Germany, I was walking down the street one day when I decided to buy a bratwurst from a street vendor. Approaching the stand, I asked for a "heißen Hund." The smile on the vendor's face told me that the American term "hot dog" doesn't mean the same thing in German.

-Carol Seipert

A Party Pooper and a Happy Clam Walk Into a Bar

A German expounds on the confusion that is English.







(Thanks to Heather for the heads up on these YouTube videos.)

Long Tongue

Was his tongue this long?

When I made my first visit to the U.K., I wanted to tell one of my colleagues that he had a big mouth after he told others a secret I had confided in him. Unfortunately, I literally translated a Polish expression--"masz długi język" became "you've got a long tongue." He looked at me weird and I had no idea of the mistake I had made for quite some time.

-Karolina Szypkowska