Friday, April 7, 2006

Eaking-Spay Ussian-Ray

Disputations mentions Pig Latin which reminds me of this funny story about my brother.

Once upon a time, he and some other Americans were learning Russian on the U.S. Army's dime (he later went into Military Intelligence, but that's another story). The other students at the language school were all German. The instructors were Russian.

The instructors would not allow the Americans to speak anything except Russian. However, they would allow the Germans to also speak German.

Naturally, this unfair discrimination angered the Americans. With native ingenuity, they came upon the answer. They spoke Russian ... in Pig Latin.

This confused and enraged the instructors. They could tell it was some sort of Russian but couldn't figure it out. They also never could understand how all the Americans instantly knew this new language.

Who knew that the "talent" every American schoolchild picks up with so little trouble would be used to such good effect?

My brother. He's a clever one all right!

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