Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Jimmy's Basic English Deficiency

Me Knows Better Than to Say This... But I will.  OK, now that I've confessed to not hearing and understanding the differences between "Meat" Vodka and "Mint" Vodka, I can mention another time when what I thought I heard did not match what was actually said.

While waiting for a flight out of Taipei on China Air, an announcement came over the public address system for what we thought was to apologize for the longer than normal delay in boarding.  The Taiwanese airline employee started speaking in broken English with a heavy Mandrin accent, "We would ike to apahagize fo the incompetence."

Immediately one of my fellow passengers asked, "Did she just say they were apologizing for their incompetence?"

Another guy sitting across the aisle chimed in, "No, she said 'incontinence.'"

Either way - no good.

However we later figured she was trying to say, "We apologize for the inconvenience."

Jimmy hopes this hearing deficiency doesn't create another international incident.  Either that, or there is an opening for some English language courses in Taipei.


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