Friday, October 19, 2007

Pillow talk

Ralf, the sweet guy I'm dating, speaks in a mixture of Singlish and Sindarin. It's a local patois that I find quite intriguing and very grassroots/blue collar. He's teaching me some Hokkien tht I hope to use for comic effect one day.

Sometimes I use English words that he's not entirely familiar with. He's always wanting to know what I mean, so will keep bugging me until I explain it in a way he understands. The other day I wrote on my facebook that I was "feeling ironic". He wanted to know what "ironic" meant. He said that he thought it meant "something a bit strange." So I tried explaining it, "It's like when something happens that you don't expect and it takes you in an unexpected direction."

He asked for clarification. I struggled to find an explanation for "irony". Perhaps I could draw something from literature, or modern poetry.

"It's like rain, on your wedding day," I ventured. What other examples could there be, I wondered.

"It's like a free-ride, when you've already paid," the words sprung to my mind brazenly.

"It's like good advice, that you just didn't take." Oh yeah, these were good examples. "And who would have thought, it figures," I finished.

I looked around cautiously, in case the literary gods would strike me down.

He seemed to understand the examples though.