But Grandma, What a Slippery Tongue You Have !!

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me yourears.
Language can be a tricky thing.
Especially when one is speaking in a tongue not originating from your mother.
Many a hostile development has sprung forth from that same tongue when slipped.
A slippery tongue is both a blessing and a curse.
In the last 5 years or so I have managed to pick up about an extra 500 Cantonese words.
Given that I have lived in a Cantonese speaking country for nearly 14 years in total, that's pretty appalling.
On average, I have learned 0.097 words a day.
I have to say though, that 5 years ago I could barely mutter much beyond " Good morning, please take me to the ferry pier" so these new words are a vast improvement.
Mostly I speak food and directions, but I have also managed along the way to learn some truly obscure nouns that enhance my life in ways as yet undiscovered.
For example, I know the word for 'petal'- which is 'fa-fa'.
It makes some sense as I have long known that the words ' fa yuen' mean 'garden'.
I learned the word 'fa fa' when an insane person I was working with on a production suddenly required hundreds of red rose petals 3 hours before opening. Rather than dick around trying to mime "please help me I am working with a crazy person so I need you to de-head 300 roses and can I have a discount?" I explained my problem to a Chinese friend who said " just ask for fa fa" which worked to tremendous effect.
Who knew?
I also have the word 'hau ma'- long a on the ma- which means Hippo- or 'water horse'- which is what Hippopotamus means in English too, via Ancient Greek.
Hippo is probably a word I will not need to often.
I almost never order them at restaurants.
But should I ever be on a river cruise on the Zambezi, and should the boat be filled with tourists from Hong Kong or Guangzhou, and a Hippo should appear I shall be able to shout " WAH, hi do ho di hau ma " ( Loosely " Wow, a big Hippo is here") and shall no doubt save the day as the Chinese tourists would have been looking in the opposite direction, and I shall become famous as a cunningliguist and they shall make a film about me that stars Selma Hayek playing the lead role.
Perhaps this is a useful word after all.
There are words I know that make me feel silly when I say them - the word for domesticated cat in Cantonese is 'meow'....well, that's what I am told......and the words for colouring in are 'wa wa' which is just silly for reasons I can not even explain.
Thanks to the shop G.O.D every foreigner knows at least one decent expletive.
They print t-shirts and bags with the motto ' Delay No More' which when strung together quickly in Cantonese means "Go fuck your Grandmother".
Which is nice.
I have used that once or twice at taxi drivers who piss me off.
But only after I am out of the cab.
I am not too sure about HOW rude this phrase is.
Which leads us to the nuance of language.
In the play I am currently directing there is a script instruction ( dialogue) using the words " God damned".
For me, these words hold no meaning.
I am Godless, so being 'God damned' would seem to me to be as useful as being Care Bear stared.
Although you should never break eye contact with a Care Bear.
I speak from experience.
However the lovely lady who needs to say these words has a perfectly legitimate issue with the phrase.
She DOES have a God in her life.
Being God damned is not something she dismisses as easily as I do.
So we have changed those - I would say harmless but she would say sacrilegious- words for an expletive which makes the idea of taking your toothless aging grandma for a spin in the sheets something you should pencil in every Sunday morning.
I have blushed.
Others have gasped.
One has questioned my sanity.
But we are sticking with it.
SHOCKUTAINMENT is one of my favourite newly made up words in the English language.
Along with 'fucktard', a word I use with gay abandon.
I just meet so many.
I have always been a fan of the word 'reconnoiter'- apropos nothing.
Just thought I'd share.
In the end, words are just words right?
Sticks and stones etc etc etc.
Unless they are written with a pen, which is mightier than the sword.
But everyone types these days.
So no harm done.
As Bill Shakespeare once said , it's all Greek to me.