Things I've learnt today

[Doggy Styles]

Hi DS

Yes, indeed. It is a lovely part of the world. I'd never been before.

I did something today that I've never done before. I played golf. Well, pitch and putt. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Did you get a few holes in when you were out here?

I've never been before either.

Yes I got a few holes in, but the crazy variety. It's good fun isn't it, getting your angles right, putting it in the right tunnel, that kind of thing.

I had a go at the water sports as well. Wow, some of those rides can be hairy! Have you had a go at that?

[Dactylion]

Get up fire mountain and find the camels and vinyards, I'll be there in 4 weeks flogging myself!

I hope that doesn't mean turning tricks

[Gittins Gal]

I've never been before either.

Yes I got a few holes in, but the crazy variety. It's good fun isn't it, getting your angles right, putting it in the right tunnel, that kind of thing.

I had a go at the water sports as well. Wow, some of those rides can be hairy! Have you had a go at that?

No I haven't tried any watersports. I was tempted to get some sailing in and, indeed. I've just been watching a couple of Hobie Cats out in tge bay being sailed right on the edge. One of them, in fact, did a spectacular pitchpole.

I hired a bike today and did a little tour around while the other gals stayed in and caught up on their soaps (cough,spit).

Got a nice mounnin bike for 11 euros a day. Place was run by a lovely little Vietnamese girl who has spent most of her life in Belgium.
We were chatting away and I had one of those linguistic moments where a word doesn't quite translate the way one imagines. I asked for a lock for the bike (cerradura) and she gave me a very strange look because cerradura pertains to the type of lock found on a door or gate so she really hadn't a clue what I was on about. Of course, in English, the word lock is much more generic and if I went to a cycle hire shop and asked for a lock for the bike they'd know exactly what I was on about.

The word I wanted, incidentally, was candado.

At least what I said didn't have a rude double meaning. One must never use the verb coger in Latin America for instance as, while inc Spain "coger el autobus" translates innocently as "to take the bus", in South American Spanish the verb means "to rape".

I seem to recall the Portuguese word bicha means a queue either in Portugal or Brazil but means poof in the other country.

I'm sure there's a whole load of these words with dubious double meanings in different languages.

[Doggy Styles]

Oh the trials of language GG!

In the late 1980s I worked for a communications company called GPT. We had a senior manager who was the grandson of an ex-Prime Minister, and he was just as loquacious as his famous forebear although, in his case, always full of bonhomie. No black dog with him.

Some of the other senior chaps in GPT thought he'd been parachuted in to their world because of who he was (true) with little common sense or ability (unfair I thought because he knew the political game and was a masterful meeter-and-greeter). So they decided to open offices in France, and they sent this chap to France to set it up and run it.

The problem he found (which they already knew) was the way the French pronounced the letters GPT. It's "j'ai pété", which is French for "I have farted". I'm guessing that it broke the ice at meetings! Anyway, this chap is doing rather nicely now as a CEO elsewhere.

Edit: Sorry, I'm wildly off-topic. So I'll end by saying that my knowledge of Spanish is scant, and I hardly needed any in Tenerife.

[Gittins Gal]

Oh the trials of language GG!

In the late 1980s I worked for a communications company called GPT. We had a senior manager who was the grandson of an ex-Prime Minister, and he was just as loquacious as his famous forebear although, in his case, always full of bonhomie. No black dog with him.

Some of the other senior chaps in GPT thought he'd been parachuted in to their world because of who he was (true) with little common sense or ability (unfair I thought because he knew the political game and was a masterful meeter-and-greeter). So they decided to open offices in France, and they sent this chap to France to set it up and run it.

The problem he found (which they already knew) was the way the French pronounced the letters GPT. It's "j'ai pété", which is French for "I have farted". I'm guessing that it broke the ice at meetings! Anyway, this chap is doing rather nicely now as a CEO elsewhere.

Edit: Sorry, I'm wildly off-topic. So I'll end by saying that my knowledge of Spanish is scant, and I hardly needed any in Tenerife.

Fantastic story DS.
I Guess the Black Dog reference gave it away as to which former PM he was related too.

No, can't imagine you'd need much Spanish in Tenerife.

All the people who work in hospitality here speak English but, to be fair to them, they do indulge my rather schoolgirl efforts to speak Spanish.

I always find it rather rude when I make the effort to speak the lingo and they reply in English. Because I enjoy learning languages, I actually find this business of English being the innernational language rather tiresome.

[EternalOptimist]

Of course, you dont have to go abroad to have problems with language.
I was brought up in the North West and when we said 'Next Monday', we meant the one in three days time. (i.e. it was always an integer <=7)
Imagine my Chagrin when I joined the army and met some woolly-backs who meant the monday after next in ten days time. (i.e. it was always an integer >7)


I never did find out what they made of 'the monday after next'


woollies eh ?

[Gittins Gal]

Of course, you dont have to go abroad to have problems with language.
I was brought up in the North West and when we said 'Next Monday', we meant the one in three days time. (i.e. it was always an integer <=7)
Imagine my Chagrin when I joined the army and met some woolly-backs who meant the monday after next in ten days time. (i.e. it was always an integer >7)


I never did find out what they made of 'the monday after next'


woollies eh ?

I'm with the Wooly Backs on this one, whoever they may be.

The Welsh?

[EternalOptimist]

I'm with the Wooly Backs on this one, whoever they may be.

The Welsh?

no no no.
They are Welsh What-Old-Greg-Saids.
A woolly-back is a personage from outside Liverpool but who aspires to be a scouser. Like close, but no cigar. like

[d000hg]

I've never been before either.

Yes I got a few holes in, but the crazy variety. It's good fun isn't it, getting your angles right, putting it in the right tunnel, that kind of thing.

I had a go at the water sports as well. Wow, some of those rides can be hairy! Have you had a go at that?

very good DS

[Gittins Gal]

Inneresting little fact I learned tonight when we went out for dinner.

I don't know if any of you have ever come across the chimichurrya saue before.

I'm sure I've seen it in various establishments across the metropolis but it was on the menu tonight.

As an accompaniment to a steak.

Now, our charming waiter (from Asturias) told us that it was invented in Argentina by a gentleman called James (Jimmy) Curry but the locals couldn't pronounce his name properly so his eponymouse sauce became Chimichurry.

Ain't that what travelling is all about?

Wonderful stuff, just wonderful.