I know I have been blessed with access to a good education. I’m indebted to the nuns who taught me to read phonetically and emphasized the importance of spelling and grammar and syntax, all without the benefit of Common Core Competencies. I’ll be eternally grateful to the Florida University System that saw fit to provide me with full scholarships so I could get my undergrad degree and the Federal Government that provided me with low interest student loans so I could get my graduate degree without spending the next 30 years in debt.
Taken together, the nuns and the Florida University system also nurtured my innate love for the English language, but the downside is that, given my love for the proper use of language , I cringe internally when people mangle my native tongue. I would never correct them — I learned early on that correcting people is not the best way to make friends – but I have to admit that talking to people who butcher the language sets my teeth on edge.
This is why I hate talking to Mickey. He’s the husband of a good friend of mine, and he mauls the Mother Tongue mercilessly; initially I was ready to cut him some slack because I assumed he was a non-native speaker, but his accent is not from some obscure Eastern bloc republic, but from the Bronx. Next I excused his convoluted English because I assumed he was uneducated, but the man has a PhD in psychology. So he has no excuse.
The first time I met Mickey he was whining that his receptionist had walked off the job in the middle of the day without notice. “What a day,” he said. “I just wanted to go to bed and curl up in a feeble position.”
I smiled and offered a platitude “I tell you I’ve had it,” he said. He lowered his voice confidentially. “Entry noose, I’m ready for a career change.”
I was confused. “’Entry noose?’” I said.
He gave me a condescending smile. “That’s French,” he said. “It means ‘between us.’” I nodded, appalled. “You don’t know that?” he said with a chuckle. “You must have gone to school in Florida.”
When I admitted that I did go to college in Florida Mickey felt compelled to expound on the superiority of New York’s University System compared to Florida’s. “You learned nothing?” He said. “You ought to sue to get your tuition money back. There’s no statue of limitations.”
After that I determined to minimize my contact with Mickey but I saw him at the gym and he cornered me and told me that he hired a new receptionist but that she was always late for work. “I am not going to put up with that,” he told me firmly, “so I had to nip her in the butt.”
“I’ll bet that got her attention,” I said politely and he nodded vigorously.
“It certainly did. She sure don’t want me to do that again!” Then he got reflective. “But she quit the next day,” he said, “so it was a mute point.”
The next time I saw Mickey was at a Christmas party. I was talking to my friend Carlos when Mickey approached. Carlos saw him and cursed in Spanish. “This guy annoys me,” said Carlos, fleeing, and then Mickey was at my side.
Mickey was still having issues hiring a receptionist. “Every time I hire one she quits a couple days later,” he said bitterly. “People in Florida have no work ethic. It makes me nauseous.” He sighed. “Oh well, what can you do? Saliva!”
I couldn’t help myself. “’Saliva?’” I said.
Mickey sighed. “I forgot you went to school in Florida, he said patronizingly. “’Saliva’ is French. It means “’that’s life.’” And he walked off, shaking his head.