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Jan van Steenbergen scripsit: > "Good heavens, I'm never going to make it to the last train! Now I'll > have to spend the rest of the night at the station! Oh poor me!" > > "Well, don't be too worried about that, dear. Why don't we go to > my place and a nice, hot cup of coffee? I can show you my stamps > collection, too. And if you like, you can sleep there as well. Be sure > that I'm not trying to get you anywhere! If I had a car, I'd certainly > love to bring you home." Recte "get anywhere with you". > "Well, okay then. I guess we could do that. We haven't much of a choice, > have we?" Oddly enough, 25 years ago it was I who kept missing the last bus, and it took a long time for my future wife to believe that I wasn't doing this as a ploy, but simply out of sheer geekiness: that long ago, the geek stereotype didn't enjoy, shall we say, nearly so much understanding by outsiders. > When you finally are sitting nice and cosy at two ends of your > bed-annex-couch with a hot chocolate, you will read her some of > your poetry In my case, it was reciting Lewis Carroll's poetry. Of course it helped that she was an English major (at college, that is, not of a regiment!). > Be a good listener, too. Yes! > Of course, if somewhere during the process the lady speaks: "Please > Mr. Thalmann, I am an innocent young thing, and I am definitely not > waiting to be abused by a male chauvinist pig like yourself! Behave, > you naughty boy!", you might as well offer her your bed right away > and take the couch for yourself. Umm, I realize you're handicapped by doing this in an L2 (which is pretty amazing to begin with, IMHO), but *that* wording could only be a come-on, not a rejection, in this our English tongue. -- The Imperials are decadent, 300 pound John Cowan <jcowan@hidden.email> free-range chickens (except they have http://www.reutershealth.com teeth, arms instead of wings and http://www.ccil.org/~cowan dinosaurlike tails). --Elyse Grasso