Re: Lico, leicio, licio, hoffi, coffi. Was: Okay, so it *didn't* work

----- Original Message -----
From: <kam@...>

> I've got this picture of you getting your registers crossed and going
> into the "may God who hears my confession repay thee thy kindness ..."
> routine after buying a loaf of bread in the shop :)
Heh heh... more like this:  Going into a shop to buy a loaf of bread
and pulling out my carefully worked out Welsh sentence for the
female shopkeeper who says,

    'Ooh how lovely!  Now what was that again?  This is Swansea,
    remember, and we don't all speak Welsh.
    'You're American?  Never!  Why on earth would you study
    Welsh?  Do you have Welsh relations?'

At which point, blushing, I thought of that good-looking guy I
was dating from the Wlpan, and remembered in time that "Welsh
relations"  meant "Welsh family, Welsh connections"... (this is
almost twenty years ago, forgive me!)  They could never get over
the fact that I didn't have a filial EXCUSE to be studying what
they felt was a very low-profile language in the world.

I spoke and sang Welsh with my teachers and fellow students
in the pubs, where everybody was drinking a *peint* or more,
and conversation was usually limited to my studies, my family,
the weather, how I liked it here, and other things my vocabulary
could handle.

Ah, those were the days.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net

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