Today I've been thinking about communication. It is so easy to misinterpret what someone says. Or to conveniently forget a verbal agreement that has been made. Or to speak without first thinking carefully about your choice of words.
My husband has informed me, many times, that I need a social filter. I've known this pretty much my whole life. When I get comfortable, I say the first thing that comes to mind, and this generally leaves my audience thinking I am a bit weird. I blame my imagination for this. The curse of a creative soul, I call it.
What I love about writing is that it usually allows the author to fully express themselves in language so rich and thought out, it leaves no room for misinterpretation. Well, if done well, it shouldn't.
As a terrible verbal communicator, I love being able to write and express my thoughts and ideas in a way that comes out looking....well...coherent! None of this babbling craziness that leaves me looking like I'm new to the English language, wanting to scream, "THIS is what I'm trying to say!"
Here's an example. Not so much to do with babbling craziness, mostly just my inability to regain my dignity after a circumstance regarding language barriers. Rather hilarious, I might add. I get the giggles every time I remember this wonderful moment in my life where I ended up looking like a complete idiot.
About seven years ago I took part in a missions trip to Tijuana, Mexico, and Los Angeles, California. This was actually my fourth year participating in such an expedition (I live in British Columbia, Canada, so it was a 24 hour drive to reach our destination), and though I didn't know much spanish, had a small understanding of a few key words.
Now, I don't know if any of you like to make up your own nicknames for things, but I have a habit of doing so. And once it is in my head, it sticks there. Such as my rather creative nickname for dogs. I like to call them 'pepinos.'
What, you might ask, is a pepino? Well, in spanish, a pepino is a cucumber. I first heard the word on a Veggie Tales movie, and I guess it just stuck with me. Why I decided to translate that to equal a cute and cuddly canine friend, I'm not sure. Maybe it was the similarity to 'puppy.'
Anyway, in my mind, pepino = dog.
In Tijuana, there are a LOT of dogs. It actually broke my heart to see the little scruffy creatures in such a state of despair, and how the people down there treated them like rats, not pets. I do not judge, for the people there live in extreme poverty. I just love animals and hate to see them suffer any type of cruelty.
So here I am, in hot and dusty Tijuana, and our team has gone to a little village on the outskirts of the city to play games with the kids. It is a bit chaotic with kids running around, and their parents and grandparents joining the fray to inspect what all the fuss is about, and of course, a thousand dogs (almost) yipping and yapping and stirring up the dust so that it is even harder to breathe.
I'm watching the craziness and trying not to faint from the heat (I'm a redhead, white skin, unaccostomed to the sun), when the CUTEST little dog trots by and gets my heart a-fluttering.
"Oh, pepino!" I squeal in delight, for this little fella is adorable in every sense of the word, despite his flea ridden fur, or the dirt caked all over his face.
Immediately after uttering such a declaration, I turned to see four little old Mexican grannies who were within earshot, clutching their bellies and laughing at this ignorant, white foreigner who had just called the dog a cucumber. My face turned crimson (more than it already was from the sun) and I sputtered a few intelligible protestations before realizing it was a lost cause. Skulking away, I debated whether to drag our one interpreter from his more important duties so he could come and explain the misunderstanding. I wanted to shout, "I KNOW that pepino means cucumber!!" They probably would have still not understood.
Oh well. Maybe I at least gave them a good laugh, and a story to tell their children as they tucked them in that night.
I still call dogs, 'pepinos.' And the trend is catching.
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