One of the benefits of being a native-born speaker of a language is that you get to witness the looks of incredulity and wonderment when something ‘obvious’ to you is presented to a student of the language.
Example:
My GP and I laughed the other day when discussing, whilst diagnosing me with potential whooping cough and me commenting that I am strictly NFR*, a colleague of hers who speaks immaculate English but is not a native English speaker.
The non-native doctor was fulfilling their obligations in the outback of Australia and, as luck would have it, had the good fortune to be able to call upon another colleague (a ‘native’) for advice.
Dr A (non-native): “He says he’s ‘crook’. What should I do?”
Dr B (second-generation Australian): “Tell him to come in”
Dr A: “Why? What does ‘crook’ mean?
Dr B: “It means he’s ill. Tell him to come in”
Dr A: “He’s a farmer and he says he’s really crook”
Dr B: “You’d better send out the flying doctor, then”
Dr A: “Why?”
Dr B: “Because when a cockie tells you he’s really crook, it means he’s lost a limb or something”
At this point you can imagine the poor Dr A’s bewilderment!
Let me explain thus far:
- ‘crook’ = ill
- ‘very crook’ = very ill
- ‘cockie’ = farmer, a human being not known to whinge about their ailments, so if they say they are ill they really are
- ‘flying doctor’ = the Royal Flying Doctor Service, a volunteer organisation that flies medicos around the outback, picks up ill farmers and transports them to hospitals where they can be fixed up and made better (hopefully, if they are gotten to in time)
So, we have a non-native doctor who speaks perfect Oxford-educated English, but not Australian English, and is now imagining a doctor with wings flying out to farmers, their parakeets or their cockroaches in the middle of the outback.
No wonder so many foreign students leave here as perplexed as when they arrived!
