Languages and Celebrations - 14 June 2022

 Well, I'm back after a relatively long silence here, largely because of a slight annoyance that built just enough to need to be posted.

I have an ear for languages and accents - it's a gift, really; and it makes me think of Pentecost often. I've never really noticed a downside to it.
Until recently, that is.

I listen to a lot of classical music on the radio, and over the years I've heard many hosts mangle names of pieces, performers, and even instruments. Usually it's no big deal, but finally, this morning, the constant mispronunciation of French names and words really got to me. I said to the radio, "Clearly you never took French class in school;" then quickly added, "or if you did, you didn't do very well, or have forgotten most of what you learned."

It took me back to when I was first taking piano lessons, and Mrs. Rathbun, my teacher, told me that she had taken German in school so she would know what all those words meant in musical scores. Words like allegro, segue, andanta, piano, forte, all those ... oops ... Italian words.
I have decided that she made that mistake very honestly. She was playing the works of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms - why would she think they wrote directions in Italian? of course it was German. Of course, it wasn't.

My daughter-in-law was born in Iraq, moved to Malta and Germany before ending up here in the States, so she's a model of multilingualism. I asked her once what language she uses to talk to herself. She looked at me like I was a loony and said that it's always in English.

Hmm. I talk to myself in a mixture of French and Russian stirred into the English. I even talk to Billie in French on our walks. (yes, only English and French. Speaking Russian in public these days doesn't seem like a good idea. Thanks, Putin.)

So now on to celebrations.

Today is the birthday of the Army of these United States, so Happy Birthday, Army!

It is also Flag Day, sometimes spelled Fleig Day. That's because my late friend and coworker, Ed Fleig, used to host a party for some of us in the erstwhile McCann-Erickson media department on June 14th because it was Fleig Day. He was a great guy, and I miss him.