“Serving overseas as a small-town boy from America is intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me from our last 20 years overseas!”
—Matt
Guillotining Office Supplies
I never hated English class in school when growing up, but never found any pleasure in grammar and punctuation either. I probably like to think that I speak and write “American” and do a little “English” too. In our Amish-Mennonite communities, it is amazing how seamlessly people can jump between English and German as needed.
Living overseas has meant learning and living in multiple languages. It helps (or better said – “forces”) me to understand my mother tongue (English) better as it is my base to learn another language. The hardest has been learning a second language that I then use to learn a third language. The brain wiring goes haywire for a synapse challenged person.
Learning languages is beautiful they say, but it ruins you for board games like Scrabble, Scattergories, or Boggle as you get lots of word confusion. However, spelling and vocabulary have taken on a new meaning with technology. Social media has changed the way people spell. The growth of new products and services means that vocabulary grows exponentially. One could no longer learn all the new vocabulary words in a given language let alone the ones they never knew to begin with.
Language mishaps with new words happen regularly overseas and today it was the word “paper cutter” for me. I had documents being printed and I needed them cut in half. I was at first confused when the worker said she couldn’t deliver the documents cut at the midpoint as her “guillotine” was broken. Our country overseas is known for their historic torture and removal of people and they use torture and execution device names for their common day items. I think most people over here are more comfortable that paper is now “guillotined” and not people.
Something similar ever happen to you? Contact me and let me hear your story!
mattsmishaps@gmail.com
Matt’s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN 46741
