Quirks

Ah, the day is starting out well. I had a good sleep, a nice breakfast, and Rudy Guiliani just told the nation that Trump did pay the hush money to Stormy Daniels. Lol. Thanks, Rudy. As one commentator said, 'Is there anyone in this administration who has not kicked himself in his own nuts?' 

But anyway ...

I had in my mind this morning something my second wife said early on in our relationship. I don't remember what the situation was that she was addressing, but I remember her saying "I haven't did nothing wrong." That tickled me at the time, and it still does. I love the little peculiarities of language and how they survive despite the rules of grammar. 

"What's wrong with it?" my wife said, naturally a bit offended by my laughter. "It's true. I haven't did nothing wrong!"

Where to even begin? But really, in some sort of way, there was nothing wrong with it and everything right with it. I found the wording delightful. It was her. It was her upbringing. It was her linguistic background. It had flavor. And she spoke this way naturally. I have to work at it, because I grew up in a home ruled by a grammar Nazi, and then became one myself.

My third wife, though born and raised in Indonesia, speaks English with better grammar than my second, but must suffer my laughter at the problems caused by her accent. Again, I find these little quirks delightful and endearing and I truly don't mean to offend her. 

There was the incident, for example, when she told me that she and her coworkers were going to dress up for a party like parrots. 

Parrots? How does one dress up like a parrot? I asked her to repeat herself several times, but sure enough, she was saying 'parrot'. 

Well, when she emerged from the bedroom in her parrot costume with a patch on one eye, a red bandana and a plastic sword, I realized she had been saying pirates. 

At another time, much earlier on back in Portland, she was lying on the bed looking at a booklet of community college classes, and said "Oh, I want to take this one! Da greasy king." 

"The greasy king?"

"Yeah."

Well, I went over and over this in my mind. What, or who, was the greasy king? Had I missed a major figure in history? Or did this have something to do with ancient Greece? 

Finally, given that I wouldn't stop talking about it, she had to show me the course book she was looking at. 

"Oh! Degree seeking! Hah! I get it. Da-gree-see-king!"

An accent can do amazing things to words and phrases. I know this because Indonesian speakers here will often find my pronunciation, and therefore my meaning, quite perfectly puzzling.

Just one more. I remember that when I first met my second wife and we had begun to date (though, given her situation at the time, she wasn't really free to date), I said "I love you." Receiving no verbal response, I asked "Do you love me?"

"Well," she said ... "I don't not love you."

Figure that one out, grammar fans!