Last Saturday, we were honored to have Major Steven A. Givler join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network to talk about Memorial Day and his experiences in Iraq. Major Givler has a book coming out in June called, Notes of Joy And Sadness: Letters And Paintings from Operation Iraqi Freedom. You can listen to the interview with Major Givler here.
After learning of our fondness for all things trivial, he e-mailed a true tale of multi-national (as well as multi-lingual?) trivia that appears in his forthcoming book:
Happy Australia Day 26 January, 05
In one stroke on 26 January, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillips claimed Australia as a British colony, and established a thriving industry (a penal colony) on its shores. Not bad for a day's work.
So impressive, in fact, that Australians have been celebrating the day ever since. Unaware of this, I was making my appointed rounds at work tonight, when I was collared by a couple Aussie colleagues (they refer to me as a "mate.") and dragged to a party in a tent adjacent to where I work. Along the way, in order to compensate for the shocking gaps in my knowledge of History, I was apprised of the significance of this important date, said apprisings arriving on high-volume beer-scented blasts delivered directly into my ear, the loudness the result not so much inebriation, as of a myth that has arisen about my being slightly deaf.
My hearing is perfectly fine, but I seem to have great difficulty with the Australian language. Some claim it's similar enough to our language that a native English speaker should be able to understand it, but this, of course, is completely silly. They are separate and distinct languages, and while they may share some curse words, they have little else in common. I know this to be true, but I seem to be in the minority. Because of this, I frequently find myself asking Australians to repeat themselves. As a result, my "mates" have formed the opinion that I am somewhat hard of hearing.
Far from causing them to shun me, this mythical handicap of mine seems to endear me to these kindhearted people, and they go out of their way to talk to me, asking, "How're ya goin' mate?" and - well I don't know what else they say, because I can't understand a word of it. I nod and smile and make what I hope are appropriate remarks from time to time, and I seem to be doing pretty well, because I'm often rewarded with a bone-crushing slap on the back, broad smiles and a stream of throaty vowels that sound as if I'm listening from under water.
Times like these make me miss (even more than usual) my wife. They remind me of my first year or so in South Carolina, where her ability to translate Gullah, or whatever people were speaking to me, saved me from several beatings, and impressed on me the certainty that my life would never again be complete without her in it.
She is not here though, so I get by as well as I can, which means I have become a master of reading body language, facial expression, and contextual elements of conversation too subtle even to be named. These clues provide me insights into the inscrutable utterings of my friends here, and allow me to "participate" in discussions that are completely beyond my understanding. An aside: How is it I can appreciate these modes of nonverbal communication when I cannot abide a mime?
My skills of interpretation failed me tonight in the tent though, when my hosts were playing an enthusiastic game of Australian trivia. Not only did I not know any answers, I could not ascertain the meaning of a single question. At one point in the heated competition, it was the turn of my "mates" to answer a question. Whether in the spirit of inclusiveness, or because they themselves were unsure of the answer, I'll never know, all I can say for certain is that, after the question was posed, they all turned to me, and beerily shouted things like, "Gowedan givatraymate!"
Well, there I was. A close-packed throng of inebriated amateur rugby players blocked the path to the door ahead of me, while all the men stood behind me. No way out. A quick survey of all my body language skills told me only that every ear in the bar was inclined in my direction, and that the fate of my team rested on my shoulders. A hush fell over the mob. Of such situations, international incidents are made. I raised my beer and shouted, "To Australia!" and, in the pandemonium that ensued, bought a brief respite, but it was over all too soon. Once again, the place fell silent, and I felt myself being crushed under the burden of the prestige of the United States. I ran through my small vocabulary of authentic Australian words and flung one out in desperation. "Dingo," I gasped. My team erupted in cheers, joined after a slight delay by our rivals, who were unhappy to lose a point, but glad to know that an American was so well informed about their country.
Later, when things died down, I happened to see the list of questions lying on the bar. Apparently the one they had put to me was, "What was the first non-native species introduced to Australia?"
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