Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version)

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When you have two languages within a single relationship there are always going to be moments of unfortunateness. Such as the fact that, after she came to live in England, it took me about ten months of pointing out her error — time and time again — until Margret finally sorted out in her head which way round the meanings of 'orgasm' and 'orgy' were. Ten months, I may add, during which she made an awful lot of friends. For my part… well — in German you often make a plural by adding 'en': ear/Ohr — ears/Ohren, republic/Republik — republics/Republiken, etc. So, it's perfectly natural, then, that I would assume the plural of 'Bus' (bus) was 'Busen'. OK, so, yes 'Busen' does mean something else entirely — that is NOT MY FAULT.

However, there are times when, far from being assaulted by language-based misunderstandings, I actually close my eyes, knit my hands and call on a succession of gods to pleeeeeease make what I just heard be, genuinely and completely, simply an Anglo-German semantic quirk.

Would you like me to give you an example, or are you impatient to go straight to the Guestbook and write, "this is just, like, sad n stuff, like, y dont u just split up n stuff if u dont get along????????!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?! :-( ~~tammy~~ idaho"? Are you sure? Okey-dokey, let's do the example first, then.

I was in the kitchen the other day, making myself a cup of tea as a break from the intense and demanding effort of having worked on a script for a full forty minutes before my mind meandered away into counting the holes in the ventilation grille on the front of my computer, playing tunes by slapping the sides of my face while varying how open my mouth was and, ultimately and inevitably, wondering if Alyson Hannigan, wherever she was now, was naked. As I fished out the teabag and made one, final effort to come to a decision regarding the Alyson Hannigan thing, Margret returned home from work. She dumped various bits of her day about the place until she had only a carrier bag left. From this bag she pulled a plate of cold, cooked meat covered with cling film and moved over to put it in the fridge. Before she did so, however, she peeled back the film and folded a slice into her mouth. She offered me the plate — I took a slice too. She made to turn to the open fridge once more, but then offered me the plate again in a 'Before I put it away?' fashion. I took another slice. She then put the meat away and closed the fridge door. As I stood there chewing, she swept off towards the living room, saying — distractedly, without looking back — "Eat it whenever you fancy. It's Pam's husband."

Yes, you read that correctly.