What? : words, accents and other narratives on verbal confusion

Yesterday, I was asked if I was Canadian. I've never been asked if I am Canadian. Apparently, the librarian was trying to place my accent.  I proceeded to explain that I was American and it depends on  where a Canadian is from that would determine how similar or different their accent is from an American's accent.  I said, "People from the western US and western Canada  tend to have fairly similar accents." (Although I am sure there are a number of linguists who would likely debate that point.) She was amazingly patient with my ethnocentrism. 

That's how life goes around here. It's not uncommon to hear 2-3 different languages on any given day  Slowly, Ryan and I are starting to notice the differences between British, New Zealand, and Australian accents. One crazy thing. . .New Zealanders have a thicker accents than the other two. If English is NOT a person's first language AND they have a New Zealand accent. . .holy moly! It's like, "What?" 

Sometimes, when I go to meetings, I just sit there and daydream because the person speaking has a thick multilingual accent and I cannot understand them for the life of me. I want to concentrate, but my brain just blanks out. 

At the store, I stopped a stranger and asked her a question. I needed someone to explain to me how the video rental (hire) store worked because it was not clicking in my brain. After we chatted for a moment, she said, "How are you doing with the New Zealand slang?" 

I couldn't focus on her question. She was standing so close to me that I thought I was going to fall over trying to back-up in micromovements. Slang exists, but it's manageable.  Sweet as. . .

What is more funny to me are meaning confusions like the following:

After dropping Suzanne off from a play date, a new friend said, "Just hang these [tights] in your water closet and they should dry up quickly." Her tights were wet from playing outside.

"Water closet?" Ryan and I said simultaneously. 

Ryan, recalling that somewhere someone said a water closet was a bathroom in England, said, "Oh, hang them in the bathroom?"

She laughed, "No, hang them in the water closet."

We stared at her blankly. 

She began speaking outloud to herself. "Damn culture, I don't know another word for a water closet." She proceeded to explain that there is a closet in most New Zealand houses that have a water heater inside. Inside that closet there will generally be two wires for hanging wet items on to dry. 

"Oh, we wondered what those where!" I said. Ryan and I had just discovered the "water closet hanging lines" two days before. 

We laughed and laughed. Then we explained that in the States, the water heater is in a closet, but one generally doesn't put things in the closet nor are there wires for drying anything. 

SO. . .another funny thing. Hell and damn. Not swear words in New Zealand. 

This week we met a man who has family that lives in Utah and is a member of the LDS church. So, he completely understands the pressure  and expectation not to use vulgar language in the Mormon culture. 

He told us stories that had us rolling on the floor! Here are two of the numerous and hilarious stories he told us:

He said, 20 some odd years ago he went to Utah to visit his sister and brother-in-law. He attended an LDS ward in Alpine with a huge amount of men. During the priesthood meeting, someone asked him a question. He answered like  this, "Oh, hell. I don't know what the damn answer is to that question."  He was floored when the entire meeting took a collective breath and looked at him with gaping mouths.  Then he remembered he was in Utah. . .NOT New Zealand. 

He said he had a sense the hells and the damns being bad words from his youth at Church College, and LDS run high school, when he attended. Every year they would send new teachers or administrators from the States and every year they would go the rounds about whether or not it was okay if the students at the school used the words hell and damn. 

One administrator, with an intense drive for reform, was particularly hard on the students and told them they would have none of "that talk" at Church College. In the same meeting, he encourage the students to participate in an upcoming rugby game. The administrator said something like, "I want to see you boys out their playing hard, and I want to see you girls out there rooting for the team!" The student body was shocked and then started laughing hysterically. Another teacher or administrator immediately stood up and whispered into the ear of the speaker. He turned bright red. Rooting has an intense sexual connotation in New Zealand and Australia.  

Talk about serious verbal confusion. Glad the worst of my experience so far has been water closet :)