Saturday, November 15, 2008

In da hood

I have developed a bad habit of listening in on people's conversations on public transport. While eavesdropping is not considered a polite hobby, I justify it to myself by thinking that it is good 'hörverstehen' practice.

Normally, I don't understand a lot of what is said, but yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to two 14 year old boys whose mother tongue is 'Merkin.

It was all 'dawg', 'motherf@#$er', 'bitches' and contained very little agreement between subject and verb with respect to number or tense.

I managed to keep a straight face for most of the journey, but after a particularly colourful passage of conversation, I couldn't hold in my laughter anymore.

They got off at the next stop.

Which was a shame, really - the conversation was just getting interesting.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your comment on Glasgow Daily photo - much appreciated! I laughed at this story - I'm another one who can't help listening in! I have a friend with a blog which consists almost entirely of conversations he has overheard, it's hilarious!

Anonymous said...

When he was about 18 months old - the Caspi-man and I sat opposite a girl on a train who was speaking on her 'handy'. Her side of the conversation was pretty much "Scheisse! Scheisse. Ah-uh. Scheisse..." at various pitches for a good 10 minutes or so. After that - this was not only one of the Caspi-Man's first words, but also one of his favourites. (Try explaining that in the playground!!)