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A Few Funny Tales
It wasn't too long after I came to America that I got my first lesson on what NOT to say. We had made friends with the couple next door to us, Arthur and Lavonne, and we were staying up late one night playing cards with them. I knew that I had to get my husband up early for work so I asked Arthur if he didn't see our light on when he got up would he please come over and knock me up. There was complete silence then he sort of grinned and told me that if my husband didn't mind it would be fine with him. I got a well directed kick under the table and my husband's voice hissing in my ear that you don't say that over here. Well, honestly, all I wanted him to do was come over, knock on the door and wake us up. What was wrong with that for heaven's sake? After they stopped laughing they told me that it had a very different meaning in the States. It took me a while to live that one down.
Another funny thing happened when my neice, Linda, came to visit and my daughter took her out for a night "on the town". They went dancing and a guy came up to Linda, smiled at her and said "Hey, ya wanna shag? " Poor fellow, he didn't know what happened when Linda decked him one since "shagging" in England means "making whoopie."
On the same subject, when Carol, my other neice came to visit,we went down town one day and she saw a sign hanging on a building that said "Shag lessons inside. Her mouth fell open and she said "Gee, you actually have to have lessons on how to do the wild thing? "
When my sister came over here for the first time back in 1973 she was writing in her diary and suddenly called out to my hubby "Hey, do you have any rubbers?"He just grinned and told her to be careful who she said that to over here. She blushed a little when he told her what rubbers are in the States because in England they are simply erasers.