Monday July 27, 2009 
Monday July 27, 2009 “The blue bowl broke.”
I still remember how irritated I was when I came home from work and found my housekeeper’s note next to the remaining shards of my favorite casserole. “Who are you kidding,” I muttered to myself, tossing bits and pieces of blue ceramic into the trash. “Yeah, the blue bowl broke. All by itself. It must have grown little legs and in a suicidal moment, thrown itself off the counter.”
I was still ranting and raving (these were in my pre-Paxil, unmedicated days) when Scott got home. “What's wrong with you? Why are you making such a big deal out of a $40 piece of cookware, “ he asked me. A good question, I had to admit. And when I got down to it, my temper tantrum really had little to do with the dish (although in my own defense I must point out that it was the casserole I bought to replaced its deceased twin which met a similar fate a few months ago). In the end, it wasn’t the dish - it was the note. The note in which, as I saw it, our housekeeper took no responsibility for the act. “The blue bowl broke.”
Scott proved once again that he is both wiser and more compassionate than I. He reminded me that our housekeeper was from El Salvador, and her note was not avoiding responsibility – it was simply a translation from the Spanish way of explaining what happened. In this case, it was the bowl that broke, not her.
Oh fine. That’s what speaking another language will do for you, I grumbled to myself. Prove me wrong in both English and Spanish…
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Scott saved an article for me out of Scientific American about language. He gleefully pointed out that the article used an almost identical example to illustrate how grammar and culture shape communication.
This confirms for me that people who speak more than one language have a real advantage in life – not just in getting around the globe but in thinking through problems and understanding others’ perspectives. Carolyn and Juan Carlos are raising Lucas to be bilingual, that lucky baby. JC speaks only Spanish to him, and Carolyn speaks only English to him. That way the baby will learn to speak with correct accents in both languages. (Although heaven knows how growing up in England will play all this – Spanish with a British accent? Brilliant!)
Words are the heart of how we relate to each other, and I’m quite grateful that I’ll be able to communicate with my grandson in English (American with a slight Midwest twang). Because heaven knows I’ve already insulted enough people with my poor Spanish.
So in a rather clumsy segue weakly linked with words and their reflection on the communicator and audience, I'm doing some name changes. Because words, rather than my company, are what I’m identifying with these days, I’ve changed my twitter name from tmacatsun to tmacwords. And I’m going to be moving to a new blog on Wordpress called tmacwords. Stay tuned for the URL once I get it up and going (and a thank you to all of you bloggers who have been offering advice on how to transfer our blogs from Sun to a new site).
Until then, continue to tune in here for McKenzie adventures, warped insights and editorial comments. But no Spanish. If we're both lucky.
Posted by terrymckenzie ( Jul 27 2009, 11:41:34 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [4]
