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Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

From:Terrence Donnelly <pag000@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 11, 2000, 14:24
At 10:14 PM 10/10/2000 +0200, you wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Christophe Grandsire wrote: > >> Did anyone of you ever dream that he or she was a >> person from the opposite sex? >
Not the opposite sex, but I once dreamed I was a Japanese man, named Watanabe. I was a professor at an American college, and I was trying to arrange a date between an American female colleague and a Japanese one, Mr. Yosabe. "Our colleague, Mr. Yosabe, has formed a favorable opinion of you," I told her. She replied, "Oh, thanks, but Yosabe doesn't have jerve." What is "jerve", I asked. "You know," she replied, "excitement, liveliness." I replied "Ah-so" and at that moment knew exactly how it was used: a rapid intake of breath on the "ah" to hide my embarrasment for my colleague, followed by a long exhalation on the "so" to indicate my acceptance and understanding. I've never heard "ah-so" used, don't even know if it is used or just a stereotype, but it seemed perfectly right at the time. I went on to ask her to be kind to Yosabe, since we Japanese were a very sentimental people. "We can't even fasten a rivet without tears," I told her (whatever _that_ means!). -- Terry http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000 http://www.geocities.com/weseb_2000