Friday, June 13, 2008

Hizz Ormine?

For the last few days I've been speaking normally when speaking to people.

For the first few months I've been using what I believe to be a subset dialect of Kiwi and American English and speaking clearly and deliberately to enhance communication. I've recently stopped doing that just for fun. I've returned to speaking normally as if I'd speak to my North American friends.

I was picking up my prescription at the chemist across the street from work and told the girl "Hi, I'm here to pick up my prescription that was called in."

"Do you mean faxed in?" she asked me, kind of pedantically I thought. I took the question to mean that they don't allow calling-in of prescriptions here.

"Oh, yeah, faxed in from my doctor this morning."

"What name?" she asked.

I paused for a beat wondering if she meant his name---the doctor who faxed it---or my name, the guy who was picking it up. "His or mine?"

Now she paused a second. "Hizz Ormine?" she repeated unsteadily and then turned to go look it up, presumably under "O."

"No, no, I mean, I'm asking: do you need his name or my name?" I was feeling a little foolish at this point, thinking that I should have assumed she was asking for MY name. The question "What name?" kind of threw me off though.

It was a little awkward, but kind of funny. And it wouldn't have happened if I'd been more deliberate in speaking with only the subset of Kiwi and American English, but I've stopped doing that now... at least for a while.

And it IS kind of fun.

3 comments:

Sharon Vosmek said...

As I shared with Joanne last night, my Kiwi is only slightly better than my French. Suffice it to say I am horrible at both (and therefore clueless in several countries). Translation please!

Anonymous said...

I totally relate to what you are saying. You have a gift for expressing it well. You ARE going to compile all these into a book someday I assume?
m/b

Anonymous said...

Hizz Ormine! Haha...classic!
Next time you should try Hugh Jass or Holden McGroin.