Monday, July 24, 2006

The Friar fails linguistics

Most of the day today on our work trip I have been running errands in the van. I am the driver on the trip so it meant lots of errands and such while everyone else does home renovation for victims of Katrina. However, I did get to the owners of one house. He was describing how being handicapped and being in a FEMA trailer is not the most healthy thing when trying to get healthier. And then he pointed to his son, and in a deep Southern African-American accent pointed to his son and said what I thought was "That is Harry, and he is our autistic child"

So I went to talk to Harry, and after one minute of carrying on a conversation with him (or trying) he said a bunch of things that did not really make sense, and said something I did not quite understand. Then I realized that I need to get a better ear for the accents in these parts, because he identified his son not as ARTISTIC but AUTISTIC.

I am a moron.

5 comments:

Len said...

But you are "our" moron. :-)

Anonymous said...

That's a great story!!!! Very funny. I think I've made similar mistakes in the past! autistic / artistic.........very similar. Easy mistake!

Oricon Ailin said...

Awww, you're not a moron. It was an honest mistake. I used to have a very Southern accent and people had a hard time understanding me.

You are doing a wonderful thing and I know that the people down there appreciate all you are doing! God be with you and bless you always!!

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of a story my mother tells when she asked dad to get the condiments - and he didn't even consider that meant ketchup and mustard!

Mel said...

Maybe you needed to hear wrong to go up and talk to him. My sister is the "2nd mom" for an autistic boy, and he gets ignored by people too much. I'm sure the boyappreciated that you talked to him and tried to engage him in conversation

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