God Bless You and the United States of America

For some reason, I have such a fondness for the sayings and mixed up idioms of those for whom English is a second language. I think this is because I often mix up syllables in words (there's even a word for it: Spoonerism), or like to make up new words (epinerdis anyone?). Oh how I love the poetry of a new phrase or the images that come to mind when a mixed up phrase is used. Like the time my friend A (daughter of immigrants, she kind of inherited this trait) said, “She is one cool glass of water,” and instead of thinking of a tall thin girl, I imagined a glass filled with ice water with a head on top and some arms poking out the sides.

This may be one of the reasons why I married a man with foreign born parents, so I can bask in the beauty of words lost in translation. I would share some here, but my in-laws may someday find this site. Despite the fact that I write about the state of my cervix, I do have some boundaries, people!

My first real experience with this was when I worked in the undergraduate science library during my final year of college. One of the daytime supervisors was a Polish woman we’ll call L. She was a character, and to look at her, she really had no place in a science library.

5 feet (if that) and all cleavage, she favored tight clothes and high heels, despite being somewhere in her mid to late fifties, although she would never admit her age. In fact, she liked to put people on the spot by asking them how old they thought she was; any year in the 40s brought a big smile. Her husband was a Stanford professor and they had a long distance “open” relationship. She smoked like a chimney, as did I, she liked to talk, I liked to listen, so we got along famously.

My favorite thing about L was that despite living here for over 30 years, she had a very thick accent. I think this was a point of pride for her, as her brother, who was only a couple of years younger than she and emigrated at the same time, spoke perfect accentless English.

Anyhoo, L mixed up words all the time, like saying “I give you an inch, and you take my leg!” to the man with the 6 month overdue textbook who wanted to wave his fines. My favorite was when someone said something sweet to her, and she said, “God Bless You and the United States of America!” I thought it was a one time deal, but she said it frequently and something about it sent me into fits of laughter. So now, every time I think “God Bless Blank” I silently, and sometimes not so silently, add “. . .and the United States of America!" And every time I say, think or write this phrase, I make sure to do a thick Polish accent in my head.