My one
(Dutch) colleague from school told me the other day that his parents and
younger siblings are visiting this summer.
The last
time his mom was here in the city, she went around to souvenir shops asking for
faggots, since her English isn’t good and his little (impaired) brother
collects miniatures of musical instruments.
(“Faggot”
is Dutch for bassoon; my guess is that the word must have meant ‘stick’ at some
point in a common Germanic ancestor language, since in old fairy tale collections
I’ve seen it used to mean ‘firewood’, in sentences like “Hansel and Gretel were
sent out to the forest to collect faggots for the kitchen fire...’)
3 comments:
How did people respond?
They were very very confused by her blithe use of the word.
Post a Comment