Caesar ate no scissors in his salad

Social media in Malaysia is buzzing with the latest news about salad served at a Parliament dinner.

The menu said: "Scissors Salad". The dish appeared: Ceasar's Salad.

Dessert was: Cream Brule. The dish: Creme Brûlée.

What went wrong? No one has come outright to say so, but it can be easily blamed on lack of proofreading before going to print.

The caterer obviously typed what he had heard pronounced, without checking with anyone. Unforgivable? Yes, because it is an important dinner.

Blame the poor standard of Malaysian English? That would be very mean. It can happen anywhere in the world! After all, the only English spoken around the world is bad English (according to my South African friend). Even the best of us can make mistakes. Let's take them as lessons to be learned quickly and not to be repeated ever again.

In the meantime, rest assured that the salad only contained vegetables and other food items, no scissors.

Bon appetit!

Fat or VAT?

My Malaysian Chinese friend working in the UK wrote this on her Facebook:

"Customer confronts me today and repeats "fat fat fat where is the fat"... Took a few seconds to realize he was looking for the VAT counter and thankfully directed him there instead of to the queue for roast pork."

English as it is pronounced by different nationalities.

From a linguistics standpoint, the letters 'v' and 'f' are very similar in sound. Blow air through your upper teeth while bringing your lower lip up to the edge of your upper teeth. Then make the sound for 'v' or 'f'. It is so easy to get the two sounds mixed up.

In some words such as 'verb', if pronounced 'ferb', would make no sense whatsoever. The hearer might even wonder if the speaker wants a 'herb' instead.

However, in my friend's case, she almost sent the customer to the wrong counter! Apart from the different pronunciation of 'VAT', her Chinese mind (aka foodie mind), was thinking about any kind of food that contains high amounts of fat. Hence, roast pork.

Moral of the story: try not to process everything you hear through your own cultural mindset. Take a step back and try to understand the speaker's standpoint before offering an answer. When that fails, ask questions. At all costs, try to avoid misunderstanding. At all times, keep a big smile on your face and show interest. When words fail, the smile melts the coldest heart.

Have fun listening to and trying to understand different pronunciations of English!

It's not always what you think it means

Before my trip to Munich, Germany, a friend posted this picture on Facebook. He was warning all of us non-German speaking friends not to be confused when entering the restroom. (If you know just a little bit of German, you will probably be wondering what the fuss is all about.)

To him, "Damen" means Gents because the German word contains "men".

"Herran" would then mean Ladies because the German word begins with "her".

Dead wrong!

It is exactly the opposite! "Damen" is German for Ladies, while "Herran" is German for Gentlemen.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I suddenly remembered that "dame" is a lady and "herr" means Mister. Would I have been confused with the signs anyway? Yes. It has been way too long for me to make sense of the words quickly. At the art museum in Munich, the toilet signs read "D" and "H". Which one would be for me?

My travelling companion said that on her previous trip, she actually waited outside the toilet for someone to come out, just so she would not enter the wrong toilet!

Thankfully, many of the newer toilet signs show the universal picture of a man or a woman - no words to cause confusion.

One final thought: if someone from Hawaii looked at these signs, he would automatically think that "Damen" is the Gents. In Hawaii, "damen" would be pronounced "Da Men"!

Have fun with languages!