Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Yet Another Language Blooper

Yet Another Language Blooper.

Today in my Topical Discussion class we were talking about our home countries/states/and cities. We answered questions like, “It is an agricultural district or industrious?” Well I was sharing about how a lot of people in Texas have land and some of them own cattle. My grandpa, in fact, was very much a cowboy.

So that is what I thought I said. Apparently, judging by my teacher’s expression I didn’t say that. The word in Arabic for cowboy is “raa9ii baqar,” meaning, “Sheppard of the cows.” I guess the “raa9ii” part of my sentence got lost somewhere and instead of saying that my grandfather was a big-time cowboy, I said my grandfather was a big-time cow!

Well, Grandpa, I am really sorry. That hasn’t happened before and I don’t plan on it again. You actually come up quite often when they find out I am from Texas. I always get to tell the story about how I really do know a real, live cowboy, just like on TV. :)

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