The Hegemony of American Slang

Whenever my kids visit the dentist in Jordan they come back with funny stories about the conversations which the all-woman staff have while they are working on the kids teeth. Here is a guest post from Tayta recounting such a conversation:

Overheard in the Dentist Chair

We went to the dentist yesterday to get our teeth checked, and I was chosen to go first. The dentist, walking into the room with her assistant following, warmly greeted me. They began chatting, and I don’t think they stopped chatting for more than a second or two the entire time they were working on my teeth. As the dentist began the examination/cleaning of my teeth she said delightedly, “Your teeth, they are beautiful! Fantastic!” In the beginning, the conversation was directed towards me in English, but very quickly the dentist and her assistant switched to Arabic, and since I am a foreigner, I was not expected to know any Arabic. Little did they know that I understood the entirety of their amusing conversation.

Dental assistant: "Aw, she seems like such a nice girl, and she has such beautiful teeth! We should have her come some time just so we can spoil her, although, she doesn’t seem like the spoiled type.”

The dentist agreed, and then, changing the subject, she asked her assistant. “So what is this word ‘duh’?”

The dental assistant replied, “’Duh’? Well, it means: ‘Why are you asking? It is so, so obvious!’”

The dentist replied, “Hmm, that’s what I thought. You know, my daughter is saying it all the time now! She says it after every single sentence. Do you know what I told her? I told her,” Mama, why do you keep saying duh? It is not nice! If you keep saying it I’m going to…” (Relatives here have the custom of saying their name before the sentence when they are talking to kids.) After the nurse showed her amusement, the dentist went on,” You know what happened in the car the other day?”

The assistant asked, “What happened?”.

“I was in the car with my daughter and my son--and can you believe it?-- my son does not want to study for his exams! The exams are on the 20^th and he thinks that if he just studies on the 19^th he will have studied plenty. But I told him, “Mama, what will you do when you get older if you don’t get good grades on your exams? He innocently replied that he would have a car business and sell Mercedes and Rangers, but I told him, 'Who do you expect to buy the cars from you if you don’t get good grades on your exams?' And then my daughter said in English,” You guys. Duh!”

The assistant laughed and said with a little bit of surprise in her voice, “She said ‘guys’ too, along with ‘duh’!”

Awesomely Humble

Or is that humbly awesome? This post is dedicated to Active Son and all my senior-in-high-school friends who have labored or continue to labor over their college admission essays, seeking to distinguish themselves from the masses, while remaining winsomely humble--yet confident--in the process. No small feat for a 17 or 18 year old who is still in the process of discovering who they are. Below is a "college entrance essay" which made the email rounds back in the nineties. I enjoyed the authors satire so thoroughly that printed it off and have saved it for the past ten plus years. I dusted it off again a couple of weeks ago for Active Son, yet working on his essays, to enjoy.

It is now, of course, on the internet, with the information that while the author, Hugh Gallagher, was admitted to and graduated from NYU (1994), this was not his college entrance essay, but rather an essay he submitted to a writing contest in 1990. It won first prize in the humor category. And, the author is now a free-lance writer--no surprises there.

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently.

Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400.

My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the CIA.

I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.

On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prize-winning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.

I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

I think he gets it just right.

Comic Relief for Paganini

Most people probably don't need comic relief from listening to Paganini compositions now and then however I know that our family would have appreciated this video a couple of years ago when Oldest Daughter was playing this concerto hours a day and into the night. Paganini's infamous works for violin are what I refer to as "hyper violin" and they are anything but soothing and relaxing. Though I enjoy listening to Oldest daughter play a Paganini caprice now and then--how fast those fingers move!-- I can say that this 'artist's' rendition of Paganini mirrored my inner emotions a couple of years ago as I listened to Oldest daughter play this over, and over, and over, and...