by David Deans
Note to language instructor: familiarize students with the basic situation above before having them act out the following possible complications that might develop. A list of words and phrases the student may find useful can be found below.
a) Tell the gondolier that you don’t want to go ashore yet. Ask him to take you out into the lagoon so that you and your wife can lie back on the cushions and watch the sunset—after all, it is your honeymoon!
b) Tell the gondolier that you will drop him ashore and take the helm yourselves, promising to return his gondola safely to the quay when you’ve finished with it.
c) Tell the gondolier that returning so abruptly to shore is making your wife feel seasick. Ask him to divert his course to the nearest pharmaceutical outlet.
d) An insistent gull has landed on the prow and is spoiling your view. Ask the gondolier to kindly remove it.
e) The gondolier’s mother phones him on his cell phone to tell him that his spaghetti is on the table and that if he doesn’t hurry up he will be late for the kickoff.
f) The gondolier’s mother has now appeared in person on the hump of an old bridge with a bag of freshly laundered clothes. Tell the gondolier to ignore her and to speed up his punting.
g) Your gondola has just had a minor collision with a hearse-boat carrying a shiny black coffin (the deceased having fallen to his death by falling from a window). You must now wait for the carabinieri to come and take a statement of maritime mishap.
h) You are the gondolier. Tell the passengers that you think a leak has sprung in your boat and that you’ve forgotten to bring life jackets….
Some useful words and phrases. The translation is given in each case to help you:
nullis amor est sanabilis herbis = there is no herb to cure us of love (Ovid, Metamorphoses)
ho paura degli squali nella laguna = I’m afraid of the lagoon sharks
semel in anno licet insanire = once a year it’s okay to go crazy
terra sis illi laevis/fuit illa tibi = earth, lie as light on her as she trod on you…(Ovid)
ho sentito che la partita sará rimandata à causa di un piccolo incidente inaspettato = I’m told that the match has been unexpectedly postponed
per fortuna trasmettono su Canale 5 i punti salienti dopo il telegiornale = luckily you’ll get the highlights on channel 5 after the news
tu quoque, Brute, filii mihi? = you cook, my brutal files?
psittacus mortus est. Psittacus novus die vivat! = the parrot is dead. Long live the parrot!
And don’t forget:
Un cetriolo va affettato con cura, condito con pepe ed aceto, ed infine buttato via, come buono a niente. (Dr. Johnson’s famous comment on cucumbers, from Journal of a “Trip” to the Hebrides.)
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Trust a thoughtless, birdbrained amateur like Bob T. Hash III to put that crass-beaked scavenger on the gondola prow (scenario d). In my version, the gull has been banished to some godforsaken landfill; while the honeymooners now proffer nutty tidbits to a lovable parrot.
As part of my own invaluable fieldwork research for this exercise, I took my wife for a spin round Duck Pond on a hired rowboat ($3.50/hr.). It may be true, to Duck Pond there is little of Canaletto or Turner—no golden church domes or ancient peeling palace façades on the shore. But the views of the golf course and, on that particular evening, a quite spectacular Venus were not to be sniffed at either. There was the timeless sensation of bobbing on water. You will see that in my version I have been able not only to eradicate Bob’s nautical errors and footballing faux pas but to recapture some of the appropriate spirit of romance.
“Twenty-two degrees centigrade,” said Matilda, on our little research trip, wetting her finger and sticking its glistening Lady Macbethian pinkness above her head, “with a light two knot south-westerly…”
“Darling, have I told you about this quarter’s sales figures?” I said.
“They are dramatic. You told me about them at breakfast.” As she said this, Matilda fluttered her eyebrows and did a three-quarter turn of the oar blade.
“It’s becoming clear: someone has been tampering with the sales figures after all…. You know, I’ve been thinking again about our honeymoon in Venice. It was the most aqueous, Venice-like honeymoon I’ve ever been on.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I’m afraid it might actually make three. Did you not notice how that red-clad dwarf kept popping up on the canal walks—look out, there’s a quince—No, hang on, look out, we’re going to get stuck in those reeds on the shore—Here, let me punt!”
And indeed, the vessel’s prow had nosed its way inadvertently into a floating temple of lilies. With our hire time running out, we appeared to have become enlodged in the crepuscular bower of a weeping willow, an oar floating off into a new example for the Everyday Accidents and Domestic Mishaps page. Thick velvet cushions lay in abundance on the leakproof planks of the hull….
Gosh, all this work is making me hungry again!
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An Invitation to Dinner
Mr. Brambilla is on a business trip to Prague. After a busy day finalizing the terms of a contract, he and his wife, who has accompanied him on the trip, have been invited by Pan Novák, his Czech associate, to the Nováks’ apartment for an evening of dinner, relaxation, and cultural exchange.
The Brambillas, having showered and changed for the evening back at their central hotel, now find themselves dropped off by taxi (the cattleyas at Mrs. Brambilla’s decollation having suffered a dislodgement, involuntary or otherwise) at a modest block of apartments located in a quiet outer suburb of the city. But apart from a small dog (presumably a longhaired dachshund) yelping behind a neighbor’s door on the communal landing (set off by Mrs. Brambilla’s clattering heels), the block of apartments would appear to be eerily uninhabited. It is something of a surprise, then, when a door opens to reveal a period hat stand, a shoe rack, and the hospitable Nováks.
The two business associates shake hands warmly and introduce their wives in the vicinity of the shoe rack. (Note to student: playing the role of Mr. Brambilla, apologize, in Czech, for being a little late. Explain how the traffic/taxi driver/hotel administration is to blame.) Mrs. Brambilla presents Paní Nováková with a packet of gift-wrapped pasta and a jar of Genovese pesto, which are placed on a little table to the side of the shoe rack. (Now take the role of Mrs. Novák: express gratitude for the presents in Italian.) Introductions over and gifts presented, the Brambillas naturally expect to move out of the narrow windowless hallway and forward into the body of the flat but at the same time are conscious of a certain reluctance to do so on the part of their hosts, who remain pointedly within the orbit of the shoe rack. Mr. Novák now explains how in Czechoslovakia it is customary for people coming indoors to remove their shoes at the threshold, where they exchange them for a pair of interior carpet slippers, depositing the street shoes on the shoe rack, where they can be readily identified and thus retrieved on departure, on surrender of the slippers. This applies particularly to residents and, while not so rigorously applicable to visitors, is available to them if they so wish to follow the system and for whom these nice pairs of interior and soft African gray carpet slippers of various sizes are at their ready disposal. (You are Mr. Brambilla. Explain—from now on in English—to the Nováks that while in Italy there does exist a penchant for flip-flops on floor tile, your wife will not take kindly to being seen in the ugly footwear currently on offer. You might like to remind your hosts that you have already brought them a present—hinting at possible further bribes if the ritual be waived.)
The be-slippered Brambillas have now moved through into the Nováks’ living room, where they sit on the settee nursing small glasses of Becherovka. Mrs. Novák is passing round a tray of pickled gherkins (okurky) and cucumber (okurek) with a variety of lard-rich mayonnaise dips. (You are Mrs. Brambilla: compliment your hostess on the deliciousness of the gherkins. Ask your hostess for the recipe for the dips.)
By th
e third glass of Becherovka and round of gherkins our guests are beginning to wonder when dinner will be served. Since their arrival, except to replenish the tray with gherkins and dips, Mrs. Novák has not been through to the kitchen to check on anything that might be roasting in the oven, or to stir something that might be simmering on the stove. In fact the only signs of dinner so far are a bowl of coleslaw sitting on a kitchen counter visible from the settee, and a faint, rather distant smell of something piscine.
Just as the Brambillas begin to entertain the possibility that the gherkins and cucumber dip tray are meant to be dinner, they hear a strange splashing sound presumably from a bathroom. (As Mr. Novák, explain that somebody, such as their delightful daughter in the mantelpiece photo, is not taking a bath.) The party is invited to come through into the tiny narrow bathroom to investigate the source of the splashing noise.
It should be said that Mrs. Brambilla is no stranger to horror movies—there is nothing she likes so much as to thigh-clamp an armrest and gasp at a monster crawling out of the depths. Yet little could quite have prepared her for the sight of the boorish, humorless pond carp treading the murk against an imaginary current of mud in the Nováks’ half-filled little bath. (As Mrs. Novák, reassure your guests that, so long as they don’t put their hands into the water, the carp will not bite them.)
Suddenly Mr. Novák, glowing with pride, announces he will go fetch the kladivo. The Brambillas, remaining squeezed into the tiny bathroom with their hostess and of course having no idea what a kladivo might be, make polite conversation by asking her if her pet carp has a name and then ask her what is a kladivo. Mrs. Novák tells her guests that the carp is nameless and apologizes that she doesn’t know the word for kladivo either in Italian or English, but says they’ll soon see one for themselves. She then asks her guests if they would like to keep the “duše” to take back for their children in Italy. (CULTURAL TIP! The duše is the fleshy air sack gland inside the head of the carp, located, apparently, to the rear of the brain. In many ways a forerunner to the executive stress toy, the duše is cherished by Bohemian children as the soul of the carp.)
While the condemned dinner spends its final earthly moments mooning about in the murky bath, obliviously dreaming of its pond far from the maddening limelight and waggling its shoelacelike tentacle things, there comes from some cupboard in the Nováks’ apartment the sound of someone rifling through a metal toolbox. (As Mrs. Novák, translate into Italian for your guests your husband’s shouted question: “Where did you put that carp hammer, darling?”) Mrs. Novák shouts back that it is probably under the sink in the kitchen where he left it. With culinary pride she informs her guests that in a few moments the carp will be served with a side dish of larded dumplings.
Presently, Mr. Novák, brandishing the “kladivo na kapra,” returns to the bathroom. On his reappearance, as if sensing a great and imminent danger, the carp executes a sudden hairpin turn at the tap end of the bath, rounding it off with a violent tail thrash that splashes the hem of Mrs. Brambilla’s evening dress with droplets of the foul-smelling water. Taking little heed to the distress this has caused his guest, Mr. Novák now kneels down at the shore of the bath and begins rolling up his cardigan sleeves….
Some useful Czech phrases:
bez okurky, prosím = without pickled gherkins (Am. Eng.: “pickles”), please
zouvat se = remove one’s shoes
botník = shoe rack
backory = slipper, backers
ten kapr nekouše = the carp doesn’t bite
ješte jednou okurky, prosím = another helping of pickled gherkins, please
kladivo = hammer
Ahoj, kam jsi dal to kladivo na kapra, milácku? = Where did you put that carp hammer darling?
You might also like to inquire of the Nováks where they performed their daily ablutions in the days leading up to the slaughter. Discuss in class.
Finally, as Mrs. Brambilla, suggest it is time to put on the water for pasta—“De Cecco, Farfalle (93), pasta di semola di grano duro; cottura 12 min, 10 al dente.”
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If only Bob could have brought to his leavings the sane, sober, professional tone—in short, the sheer gravitas—that his endorsed successor would later bequeath to the scene!
The problem I’d like to highlight here, in Bob’s version—leaving aside for a moment the grammatical tomfoolery and the shameless ransacking of foreign tongues—is a question of factual verisimilitude, or rather a lack thereof, a tendency toward the factual al dente, if you will, on the part of my mentor. Where I will boldly go “into the field” (that row round Duck Pond), Bob is simply too often unwilling or—more accurately—quite simply too lazy to carry out anything beyond the most perfunctory research. The factual discrepancies found in the carp exercise are symptomatic of a more general attitude of sloppiness toward anthropological matters throughout. That warren of cobbled, betaverned backstreets, the old wooden waterwheel revolving slowly into the night with droplets of water cascading from the blades (catching silver pearlets of Bohemian moonlight), the yellow monkish glow from a solitary scholar’s window at the monastery library at Strahov—all that of course rings true. But now look closer at the foliage on the lindens: lime-green, sap-rich—existent!—thereby inverting the earth’s magnetic poles to transplant a charming mitteleuropean yuletide tradition right plonk in the middle of summer, when in all likelihood the Nováks would have scurried off to their country cottage to brew up the samovar under the cherry tree, gorging themselves not on carp but on cucumbers and lard.
If Bob had actually taken the trouble to set foot in Prague (as opposed to throwing his Frisbee into the Nováks’ garden around meal time and sneaking up to their dining room window with his notepad), he would know how (notwithstanding centuries of its laying concerted siege to the Czechoslovakian larder) the gherkin has still to be introduced to those faraway shores. He would know also that the miniature leviathan meets its end not by means of the bloody bludgeoning, to the brink of which the above ichthyophagous scenario brings us (no doubt potentially injurious to the bathtub itself), but with a straightforward tug on the plug chain.
We remember, in addition, how parrots exist uniquely in Forward with English! Out of no doubt noble intentions, Bob and the picture book artist had installed in the above a genetically modified toucan, placing it in a cozy corner of the Nováks’ residence. Noble but mistaken—for the genetically modified toucan has a reprehensibly cavalier attitude to the intricate usage of the Czech system of cases, a failing that could easily sow confusion in the tender, impressionable ears of lady learners especially. Said interloper (the cheek!) has now been air-brushed out of the above, and released into the vast arboreal greenhouse of the local botanical gardens in Belmont. Its removal in no way diminishes the overall didactic value of the exercise.
Please note also how in my own final version of this section I have added strategically placed bowls of unsalted peanuts to go with the aperitifs. All references to carp have been removed.
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Comprehension Test
Read over the story so far and then answer these questions. On the answer sheet, mark the letter corresponding to your choice (the answer key will be found at the back of the book). The first question has been done for you:
1. Señor Gonzalez went to the airport because
a) the airport was handy
b) he was going on an important business trip
c) it was an unscheduled flight
d) the seat belt sign came on during takeoff
e) he did not go to the airport
The correct answer is b. He was going on an important business trip.
2. Bert was at the newsstand in the Alpine resort because
a) Bert liked mountains and lakes
b) the Belmont Gazette was on sale there
c) he was on vacational employment
d) he was ubiquitous
e) he knew the route to the hotel
3. Miss Scarlett is late for w
ork because
a) she has been caught in a traffic jam
b) she has been abducted by space aliens
c) she is stuck in the elevator
d) she has had a skiing accident
e) she doesn’t arrive in the office till nine fifteen
4. Construction engineer Jack suggests Bob take up Swahili lessons because
a) it will look good on Bob’s resume
b) Jack is Swahili
c) Bob is Swahili
d) Bob has money to burn; Jack gets an (undisclosed) commission
e) it is always a good idea to take advantage of a special offer!
5. The new edition of the Forward with English! course book has so far failed to appear in the shops because
a) the shop manager has decided not to stock it
b) nobody really wants to learn English these days
c) the current edition has been such a great success
d) the new course book is in the shops after all
e) Mr. Gleason, the printer’s assistant, has put things on hold till some last-minute amendments arrive
6. I’M A GREAT GUY got promoted because
a) he deserved it
b) the company was expanding its facilities
c) he was responsible for launching the new socially responsible package for the valet overnight suit press we agreed on at the workshop