Friday 19 June 2009

The confusion of languages

This is a (maybe slightly modified) story re-told. I first read this many years ago in a then already-old version of Tinkle.

There was an Englishman named Key. The children in England used to tease him sayin, "Mr Key, where have you lost your lock?" Exasperated he decided to leave the country and moved to Spain (I remember it as Spain, but Italy would probably be more accurate). He moved into a nice house and soon got a name plate made to be displayed in front of his house. Now the Spanish (or Italian) word used to indicate respect was don. Hence the name plate was Don Key.

Angrier than before he packed his bags and moved to France. Now the French word was monsieur. The name plate maker shortened it to mon. So our Mr Key becomes Mon Key. Finally giving up, he decided to move back to England and lived in peace once he came to sportingly accept the children's teasing.

2 comments:

MoToRhEaD said...

ossummm post.

Raga said...

hahahahahaha...... lovely