Lost in Translation in America

May 5, 2008

A frequent cause of linguistic confusion is a phenomenon known as "false friends."  These are words in two languages that have a common root, so they sound similar.  However, their meanings have diverged over time to the point where they have come to represent slightly different things.  For example, the English word "dish" is related to the German word "Tisch," which means "table."

Sometimes false friends can even occur within a language.  For example "shirt" and "skirt" come from the same root word.   "Skirt" was borrowed into English via the Old Norse word "skyrta," which originally meant shirt.  The related English word "shirt" was borrowed from Proto-Germanic "skurtijon" for short garment.  (I know, it sounds like I'm saying it backwards but I'm not.)

This reminds me of a story my Spanish teacher once told me.  He was in his tent in a Latin American country when one of his Hispanic students came to see him.   The fact that she happened to be a very pretty young woman did nothing to lessen his surprise when she stepped into the shady and intimate quarters of his tent and asked him unabashedly, "May I molest you?"

The Spanish verb "molestar" means "to bother."   The young lady simply meant to ask if it was okay for her to "bother" him.

Something similarly embarrassing happened to me during my first semester at an American college.  I met a class mate in the hallway dressed up in a nice new suit.  Out of my mouth flew the words, "Hey, nice costume!"   It so happens that the word for "suit" in Swedish is "kostym," which I too quickly translated into "costume."  Needless to say, my friend did not appreciate his nice suit being referred to as a costume, and my attempts to explain myself fell on deaf ears.  Oh well, what can you do?

Another time during my college years in America, a friend and I went to a sports bar for a couple of beers.  The place had a sand volley ball court.  Two gorgeous young blondes were hitting the ball over the net to each other.  Seemed to me it would be more fun if there were four of us.  So naturally, I interrupted them and asked, “Can we play with you?”

Two things happened.  My friend started laughing, and one of the girls, to my astonishment, said “no.”  However, to my relief and added confusion, she followed it up with saying, “but you’re welcome to join us in the game.”

What happened later is history, which brings us to the confusing topic of beds.  The term “twins” refers to two individuals.  The word “double” in any other context refers to “twice as large.”   Whereas, last time I checked, a “queen” or a “king”, although of royal blood, were still only single individuals.

You’d think by the time I eventually got married, I would have mastered this confusing bed nomenclature.  But oh no!  When I called to book our first hotel room together and they asked me if I needed a king size bed or a twin, I happily told them, “It’s for two so we’ll need the twin, please.”  I was met with stunned silence.

A similar confusion occurred when a friend asked if a truck in a story I was telling him was a “semi.”  As you may know, semi is a Latin word that means “half.”  So my brilliant linguistic mind instantly translated what he said into “half truck,” i.e. a really small truck, not even a regular sized pick-up.  And I responded, “No, I’m talking about a big truck.”  Fortunately, my friend was very smart and amazingly enough, was able to see through the weird twists and turns of my convoluted, foreign mind.

Finally, there’s the time I flew to Las Vegas.  This time I traveled solo.

I have to preface this story by explaining that where I come from, the body of water formed by a dam is also referred to as a “dam.”  The term “lake” is only used in reference to a natural body of water.

That said, prior to my first visit to Vegas, I had heard so much about the famed Hoover Dam and was in excited anticipation of seeing it.  Upon the plane’s approach to the glittering desert city, I looked down and saw a huge body of water stretching on further than I could see, both ahead and behind us.  I thought that had to be it, because to my way of thinking, it was clearly not a natural lake but a dammed up river, hence it was a “dam.”

However, second guessing myself or perhaps just wanting to make conversation, I none-the-less asked the lady next to me to confirm what I already believed I knew.  “Is that the dam?” I asked her.  To my astonishment, she replied, “No, the dam is much further up ahead, that’s the lake.”

I sat in amazed silence for a few minutes and pondered her reply while studying her acclaimed “lake.”  Could that really be a natural body of water, I kept asking myself – what I would have referred to as a “lake.”

I looked and looked and grew increasingly aggravated about the claim that it was a “lake” as more and more evidence down below clearly indicated that it was a man-made body of water, a swollen river in a dammed up canyon land.

Finally, I ventured to ask her one more time, “Are you sure that’s not the dam?”  This time, she appeared annoyed, perhaps thinking I must be loco, as she replied with emphasis, “That’s not the dam, that’s just the lake.”

We both decide then and there that the other was crazy and we better not speak another word until we got off the plane, or risk suffering the consequences.

By now, I’ve been in this country for 14 years and things like that happen much less frequently but they still happen.   Such as my co-worker saying to me the other day, “Wassup, dog?”  And me replying, “Why are you calling me a dog?”

Just one more example of something lost in translation in America.

- By webmaster

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