dan (07/23/82)
This little quip exemplifies the terrible problems that foreign student have when trying to understand us Americans. A friend of mine invited me over to his house one evening, and while I was there I noticed a sheep-skin that was draped over a large armchair. When I commented on the quality of the skin to me, he told me about the time he had a chinese friend of his over. His chinese friend had asked him, "What kind of animal skin is that?" My friend told him that it was the skin of a sheep. This reply seemed to confuse his chinese friend, for he scratched his head and looked at my friend very peculiarly. The chinese friend then asked, "You mean, like sheep go on water?" (with hand motions for a ship moving on water accompanying his question). Dan Ulrich Library Systems Dept. pur-ee!dan ps. By the way, if anyone has any other interlangauge homonym anecdotes then please post them. There should be some out there about Americans misunderstanding non-americans, too. I want to give equal time...