Re: Spanish education

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Bob Greenwade
| Subject: Re: Spanish education
|
|     As others have pointed out, the same phenomenon happens in English
| (and, no doubt, many other languages as well).  I'd like to share one
| particular anecdote from many years ago.
|     An English comedian by the name of Frankie Howard was in
| the United | States for the first time, to work on the film
| "Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."  He had come across the
| Atlantic without any tobacco, and wanted to buy some cigarettes, so he
| approached a New York police officer and asked where he could get some.
| Unfortunately he didn't realize that the British slang word for cigarette
| -- "fag" -- is American slang for homosexual.

        Two of my uncles (one stationed in Alaska, the other in Washington)
said Canadians from the western provinces used to make the same mistake.
        I've also read that "fag" used to be a chick, "European sounding"
American slang phrase for cigarette. Then again, "queer" used to be "odd" or
"witty" ("queer blade" in the 50's was a compliment, almost always to a
bachelor, meaning handsome, fashionable, witty, intelligent, and quick), and
"gay" was "happy".