A dining faux pas and other minutiae

A. While working for a month at IBM Sweden in Lidingö (a suburb of Stockholm) in February 1969, my new friend Gunnar Göhl invited me to his house for a home-cooked meal. At the end of a delicious and very satisfying meal I sat back in my chair and said, in appreciation, "I'm so ful!". Gunnar's wife's eyes grew very wide and she looked confused. She turned to her husband for an explanation. Gunnar was laughing uproariously.

I was confused as much as Gunnar's wife, whose name I do not recall.

After regaining his composure, Gunnar explained to both of us that the Swedish phrase "jag är så mätt" (pronounced yah air so met) is what Swedes say after a meal, but Mrs. Gunnar interpreted what I had said as "jag är så full" (pronounced yah air so full), which means "I'm drunk" and not a single drop of alcohol had been served or consumed!

So much for after-dinner pleasantries.

Precision in word choices is important, and it becomes even more important when an ocean has been crossed. I hope the negotiators who are trying to end the U.S.-Iranian conflict will choose their words ver carefully.

B. In Albanian families (I married into one), when one has eaten a satisfying meal one does not say "I'm so full," one says "barku me cepa" (pronounced bar-koo meh sep-puh), literally "stomach with corners" or "my stomach has four corners", which is the equivalent, I suppose, of saying "I'm stuffed" in America. A word to the wise: Do not say "I'm stuffed" in the United Kingdom as it means something different over there. This is a G-rated (that is, family-friendly, all ages welcome) blog, so we will not delve into the possibilities.

C. I don't know if people in other countries do what I'm about to describe or even people up north in what used to be referred to in the American South as Damn-Yankee Land, but it is definitely a thing in the American South. I'm referring to family nicknames. For example, in Eudora Welty's well-known short story, "Why I Live At The P.O." she refers to her father as Papa-Daddy. Miss Welty grew up in Mississippi. I can attest to the fact that the same sort of thing happened in Texas, where our family lived from the time I was six years old. Before that, our family lived in Rhode Island, up in the northeast corner of Damn-Yankee Land, where anyone east of the Connecticut River is called a Yankee's Yankee. Let me just interject here that so many Northerners have moved to the South that nobody uses that terminology any more. By the way, the difference between a plain old Yankee and a Damn Yankee was simple: A Yankee was a person from Up North who visited the South. A Damn Yankee was a person from Up North who came to the South and stayed. Those days, thankfully, have gone with the wind. But I digress.

When I was growing up in Texas, my stepmother's older sister Cleo over in Carrollton was called "Auntie Mama" by the entire Williams clan, which consisted of five brothers and five sisters and all of their children. In my own town of Mansfield my mother's friend Sally Huffman was called "Aunt Sister" by her nieces and nephews (Helen, Jane, Joe, Charles Ray, Judy, and Jim) but they called their other aunts by their names: Aunt Jesse, Aunt Ruth, and Aunt Pete (Gertrude's nickname, I don't know when or how she acquired it) but I never heard any of them say "Aunt Sally".

One can only conclude that people are, how you say, funny.

Do you have any minutiae, interesting or otherwise, that you care to share? Please be my guest.

Until next time, I remain
rhymeswithplague