Growing up, we kids heard my grandmother curse at us in Dutch when she was frustrated. We always asked her what the word or phrase meant. She said it was something like, "smarty pants, you think you know everything." Turns out what we thought was "bah-fur-dickey" is Potverdikke, which is a mild curse because it's a play on "God damn it," which is Gotverdomme.
I find this especially funny because my dad used to always yell, "God dammit!" followed by my mom: "Arnold!" While shopping today, I asked what the French name is for bok choy. It's basically "Shanghai cabbage," choux shanghai. LMAO. So far today, I've spoken with a Korean man, a Chinese woman, a Japanese woman, two Frenchmen, a British woman, and ended the night with a Dutchman (who answered the family cursing question) and his Romanian wife.
The good life!
On our way home, I spoke for about 10 minutes to a drunk Frenchman on the metro. [Meanwhile a young man was laughing at either my broken English or the drunken man's state--or both!] He missed his stop because we were talking, but he said it's just because he's been drinking too much. He ended by saying "Welcome to the good life in France!" and then we say our au revoirs.
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