This Little Otter Went To Market

I have a variety of different friends from different countries which I have collected over the years like stamps, and so I understand the perils of multi-lingual conversations (one of my Brazilian friends, for example, cannot understand the difference between the words "beach" and "bitch", which has made for a surprising and confusing sentence on more than one occasion). However on a day last week, my Portuguese friend and I had a phone conversation which was as follows:

Portugal: So, there is a guy at my work. He was off for a while but he came back today. 

Me: Okay.

Portugal: And now he's dead.

Me: ..I'm sorry?  He's dead?

Portugal: No! His father.

Me: ...His father is dead?

Portugal: No!

Me: I am so confused.

There was a brief, puzzled silence on both sides of the phone.

Portugal: He had a baby....?

Me: Oh, he's a dad! I get it now. 

I started learning Portuguese recently (you know I'm a language whore, with my Latin and my classical Greek, and my casually pointless favourite French phrases - currently "parce que j'ai le jeux, mes chiennes!" For those of you who don't speak French, it basically means "because I've got game, bitches") but it came to my attention quite quickly that it is mostly an annoying language, full of unnecessary extra grammar and names that don't make sense. I asked my Portuguese friend about this one day.

Me: Okay so, Monday is 'segunda-feira' in Portuguese, right?

Portugal: Yes.

Me: Which translates as what?

Portugal: Second Market Day.

Me: (gaping at her) Second...?

Portugal: Market Day.

Me: Right. Tuesday is 'Third Market Day' and so on until Friday, which is 'Sixth Market Day', yes?

Portugal: Yes.

Me: Okay. But Saturday and Sunday are called "Sabado" and "Domingo"?

Portugal: (clearly worried about where this is going) Yes?

Me: Why?

Portugal: Why what?

Me: Do you not see how ridiculous that is?

Portugal: What do you mean?

Me: Why are Saturday and Sunday not called "market day" too?

Portugal: They just aren't... Maybe there were no markets on those days.

Me: Okay, but if there wasn't a market on Sunday, then why call Monday "Second Market Day"? Presumably it's actually the first market day?

Portugal: No, because Sunday is the first.

Me: (pinching my nose) Then why not call it that?

Portugal: I don't know!

Me: (narrowing my eyes) Your language is stupid. I'm going to blog about this. And possibly write a letter to your government.

The Word Is Not Enough

I tend to be rather a girl when it comes to things like clothes. I believe in having a variety to choose from, especially when it comes to items like jackets or t-shirts, because you never know what kind of occasion might present itself and I always like to be prepared. Other Half tolerates this, sort of, if by tolerating you mean constantly eyeing my wardrobe and making reproachful noises. I do find it very hard to throw things out as you never know when they might come in useful. I tend to rate clothes on a sliding scale, and anything I haven't worn for more than a year and that is dangerously close to becoming "vintage" (by which I mean having more holes than material) has to go. It's only fair to the other clothes.

As you know, I live my life by various sequences, including the Scale of Awesome and Scale of Lame, which can sometimes be time-consuming but is always worthwhile. However, there are many other ways to rate things and sometimes activities may have their own scale. I have one such mental chart for fun. Fun comes in four stages:

1. Frolicking - you're having an okay time.  Perhaps you're enjoying a nice coffee on a sunny afternoon, but the coffee is too milky and you know if you tweet about it later it's going to come off all passive aggressive.

Example @pitandpendulum - Starbucks is meh. Why do I even come here?  #totallywhining

2. Capering. - you're having a pretty good time. Perhaps you've partaken in some food and are enjoying a nice light chat with your friends. You may well tweet about this, depending on how delighted you are. Twitter is full of tiny snapshots of life just like this.

Example @pitandpendulum - Nandos does a decent sauce selection. #omnomnom

3 Cavorting - you're having a damn good time. The banter is flowing, you feel sexy and insightful and funny and all the other things you want people to think you are. You will definitely tweet about this, possibly aimed at people who are, even now, sitting across the table from you, because this is the kind of drunk activity that seems hilarious at the time and you will regret in the morning when you look at your phone and see that you sent 200 tweets in one hour and they were all utterly pointless. Remember, friends don't let friends tweet drunk. It's for the good of everyone.

Example @pitandpendulum - Hey YOU. Yeah, you. You're awesome. No, really....no, dude, I think you're awesome. #wittyhashtag

4. Romping - this is the best most Epic Fun Time in the whole world ever and you will never ever forget the joy of this moment. If you tweet while romping, you're definitely going to overshare but it's probably worthwhile, because whatever is happening is giving you the greatest and happiest feeling you will experience for as long as you live.

Example @pitandpendulum - Someone just paid me a million pounds to make out with Laura Dern! WIN! WIN! WIN! WIN! #greatestdayever

This lets me segue, rather uncomfortably, into made-up words. I segue about as well as I flirt - with awkward, jerking advances that usually end in disaster - but I award myself points for effort and for being tragically self-deprecating for entertainment purposes. Throughout my childhood and even now that I am a fully-fledged (in mind, if not in height) adult, my dad insists on using ridiculous words like "opperchancity". He finds this highly amusing, and so do I for the most part, so I've decided to list some of them here in the hope that eventually one or more will become common in everyday usage. 
 

Opperchancity - (noun) An opportunity which you only have moments to grasp before it is gone forever.

Used in a sentence: "John knew that buying the beige Volvo with the wooden side panels was an opperchancity he'd be mad to pass up"

Excribe - (verb) Best used when none of the words you know are enough to describe something properly; when mere words do not encompass the magic of a moment.
Used in a sentence: "The feeling I got when I saw that double rainbow... I just can't excribe the joy I felt."

Stample - (verb) To trample while moving in a swift stampeding motion.
Used in a sentence: "The panicked crowd stampled over the grass like a herd of wilderbeest, crushing everything in their path."

 

Procrasturbating - (verb) To meander around on the internet with no purpose

Used in a sentence: "Dude, I was procrasturbating last night and look what I found! Pictures of kittens in hats!"

If you have word suggestions you'd like to contribute, let me know. I'm totally open to new opperchancities.