Me Knows Better Than to Say This… but I will. Ireland… great country… great language… still not sure what they are speaking. I asked the young lady at the hotel reception desk about getting on the Internet. Her reply was classic Irish brogue, “Aye… you can get-on the Net.”
“So what do I have to do?”
“Easy, I give you this card, it has a password and I charge your room.”
“Great, how much is it?
“Well ninety minutes is six points, and twenty-four hours is ten points?”
“Excuse me? How much?”
“Six points or ten points.”
“I am unfamiliar with the point system. What does that mean?”
The receptionist looked at Jimmy with a very perplexed look and repeated the prior statement this time trying to enunciate the words more carefully, “Six points or ten points.”
Jimmy was doing mental gyrations, unsure if this was a modified currency for the hotel where they didn’t use a monetary system, but rather a point system… until it dawned on him that she may have said something different.
“Oh, you said – ‘poings.’ What is the value of a ‘poing’ if I choose to do it?”
Again, another perplexed look before she repeated it, “Sir, it’s poings.”
Jimmy tried to pretend he knew what a ‘poing’ was so he asked, “So what is the going exchange rate of a ‘poing?’” hoping to go back to his room to calculate the cost.
The receptionist had a blank look on her face so Jimmy looked to the end of the counter to see the bellhop smiling and barely controlling himself trying not to bust a gut laughing.
Then the young lady said in her best attempt to enunciate the word as slowly as possible, “That would be… six or ten… poings… Sterlin.”
The additional word “Sterlin” still did not register with Jimmy, then a moment later, it finally dawned on Jimmy, the brainiac, that the receptionist… yes the one with the strong Irish accent… was not saying “poings” but rather ‘pounds.” She had been trying to tell Jimmy that the cost was ten British Pounds Sterling.
Jimmy has heard better English in Chinese.
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