Croatian Linguistic Biff Spells Success for Soccer Team.

[sechan19]

According to this article, a British Opera singer made a slight mispronunciation while singing the Croatian National Anthem at a soccer game last Wednesday. Rather than singing the line, "we love your mountains" he instead sang, "my penis is a mountain." Croatian fans claim that the humor in the situation enabled Croatian teammates to relax and directly contributed to the team win.

Has anyone else noticed just how easy it is to refer to human genitalia via the innocuous mispronunciation of a common word in just about every language ever? If that's not proof of a higher power (albeit a higher power with a wicked sense of humor), I just don't know what is.

Expect a holiday week recap in the next couple of days.

Comments

[reteva.livejournal.com]

Of course, I realize that I can't know every language ever (sadly). I was just exaggerating for emphasis. And I wasn't referring to people's dirty minds but rather the tendency for extremely hilarious (and usually ribald) mistakes to occur when attempting to speak a foreign language as being the basis for a belief in a higher power.

This opera singer, who probably speaks no Croatian, was able to mispronounce the phrase "we love your" and thus speak "my penis is." That means that those two phrases are, if not really close, at least close enough for that kind of gaff. And I've made similar mistakes in Spanish and French. (And eventually, I'm sure I'll make them in Japanese, too!) Come on, son. Laugh! It's funny! ;)

and mountians do move

[alonewolverine.livejournal.com]

according to jacob, who's happens to be a huge soccer fan, that game was a big deal. Most of England and Croatia were probably watching. So awesome. Gawd, could you imagine if that had happened on American television? I would have been rolling on the floor.

Re: and mountians do move

[reteva.livejournal.com]

And Americans across the country would have been outraged. Most Americans have no sense of humor. That's actually one of the things I liked best about this story. I think it really shows the affability of the Croatian people - that a foreigner made a huge gaff with their National Anthem, and they laughed it off with aplomb. We could all learn a valuable lesson from such diplomatic grace.