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Show Language Troubles COMETIMES it's hard enough to learn how to say what we mean in one language. Suppose we had to express ourselves in two! The Indians of the West, the Spanish-speaking residents of the Mexican borders, and the French-speaking French-speaking Cajuns of Louisiana have their troubles with the tricky Eng-lish Eng-lish language. ! The Navajo language contained no word which could be used as a name for an automobile. So some of the Indians of northwest- 5 ern New Mexico started calling a car a "chugey." After that, it didn't take long to think of a name for a motorcycle. A motorcycle was plainly "chugey begay," In. other words, "an automobile's little lit-tle boy!" The Spanish-speaking proprietor propri-etor of a small shop on the Texas border, proudly exhibited his ability abil-ity to use the English language in the sign he hung on the front door. The sign said: CLOSE for the now OPEN at the then Then there was the belligerent small boy on a Louisiana playground play-ground whose English failed him m a moment of crisis. A bully hud thrown a rock which had whizzed past the small one's ears. Marching up the small one said: "Say, boy, did you chunk those rock by me? I ain't scared of you, even if you is two times my heavy and twice my high!", My, Oh My! A mother was addressing her young son. "Junior, why don't you improve your manners? You're a regular pig." Then the father piped in, "Do you know what a pig is, Junior?" Junior replied, "Sure, Dad, it's a hog's little boy." Overnight Visitor Boy Scout: "If you stay at the camp overnight you'll have to make your own bed, Dad." Dad: "Oh, that's O.K. I don't mind at all." Boy Scout: "Well, here's a hammer ham-mer and some nails. You'll find some boards over near that fenc." |