My mother is a German immigrant and my father was a career Army guy who retired when I was three years old and bought a house near a large military base. So growing up I knew a fair number of families with a similar profile.
A friend of my mother's went to the doctor for a vaginal yeast infection and he prescribed vinegar douches. In French and German BOTH, douche means shower.
This lovely lady was confused and asked him how that would HELP and, also, how do you get the vinegar in the showerhead?
My mother sews beautifully and some of her friends also sewed. When I was a teen, mom and I and another German friend of hers went to a sewing notions store to get supplies.
Her friend needed elastic for a waistband. I think in German this is probably called gummy a la a favorite childhood treat: Gummy Bears. They are rubbery sugary candy shaped like little bears.
Notice how at the start of the sentence I said elastic and I later said rubbery. Yes, you may have guessed where this is going: My mother's friend LOUDLY wandered the store asking "Where are THE RUBBERS?" while my mother quietly died in a corner somewhere and pretended she didn't know her.
Primate groups often have the equivalent of "words." One alarm call may mean "lions" and another may mean "big birds." They both effectively mean "Danger! Run for cover!" so it may not be super important that you get it exactly right.
A researcher once obeserved an adolescent learn the wrong "word" or alarm call for a particular threat because that idividual saw one thing, the group saw some other thing and "confirmed" they were using the word properly and they never figured out they were doing it wrong.
I had the highest SAT score -- that's an American college entrance exam -- of my graduating high school class. The man I married graduated high school with me and the verbal portion of his SAT was higher than mine but the math portion was a lot lower, so his overall score was lower.
He could argue rings around me and did and it was used to routinely take advantage of me for much of the marriage. We could argue about something for days in part because we were both articulate and well read and absolutely convinced we UNDERSTOOD each other when we often didn't understand each other AT ALL.
We once argued about a sum of $500 for three days before realizing we weren't discussing the same thing at all. Our arguments were very lawyerly and nitpicked the exact words used and we each were inclined to dig in our heels and insist we KNEW because we were there and heard you say it.
Our tactics were designed to "win" by making the other party "lose." They were not only poorly suited to achieving actual understanding, they were actively counterproductive and actively undermined reaching some kind of understanding or meeting of minds.
We were both nineteen when we got married, so "young and stupid." I refuse to do this kind of thing anymore.
Men and women often seem to IMAGINE they understand each other when they frequently seem to not actually understand each other at all. They often seem to think they "speak the same language" because they both speak English (or whatever) and this seems to frequently not be true.
This delusion seems to frequently result in them not merely talking past each other but SHOUTING past each other. And when it doesn't get results, they scream louder and accuse harder rather than try to find some path forward on meaningful communication.
A friend of my mother's went to the doctor for a vaginal yeast infection and he prescribed vinegar douches. In French and German BOTH, douche means shower.
This lovely lady was confused and asked him how that would HELP and, also, how do you get the vinegar in the showerhead?
My mother sews beautifully and some of her friends also sewed. When I was a teen, mom and I and another German friend of hers went to a sewing notions store to get supplies.
Her friend needed elastic for a waistband. I think in German this is probably called gummy a la a favorite childhood treat: Gummy Bears. They are rubbery sugary candy shaped like little bears.
Notice how at the start of the sentence I said elastic and I later said rubbery. Yes, you may have guessed where this is going: My mother's friend LOUDLY wandered the store asking "Where are THE RUBBERS?" while my mother quietly died in a corner somewhere and pretended she didn't know her.
Primate groups often have the equivalent of "words." One alarm call may mean "lions" and another may mean "big birds." They both effectively mean "Danger! Run for cover!" so it may not be super important that you get it exactly right.
A researcher once obeserved an adolescent learn the wrong "word" or alarm call for a particular threat because that idividual saw one thing, the group saw some other thing and "confirmed" they were using the word properly and they never figured out they were doing it wrong.
I had the highest SAT score -- that's an American college entrance exam -- of my graduating high school class. The man I married graduated high school with me and the verbal portion of his SAT was higher than mine but the math portion was a lot lower, so his overall score was lower.
He could argue rings around me and did and it was used to routinely take advantage of me for much of the marriage. We could argue about something for days in part because we were both articulate and well read and absolutely convinced we UNDERSTOOD each other when we often didn't understand each other AT ALL.
We once argued about a sum of $500 for three days before realizing we weren't discussing the same thing at all. Our arguments were very lawyerly and nitpicked the exact words used and we each were inclined to dig in our heels and insist we KNEW because we were there and heard you say it.
Our tactics were designed to "win" by making the other party "lose." They were not only poorly suited to achieving actual understanding, they were actively counterproductive and actively undermined reaching some kind of understanding or meeting of minds.
We were both nineteen when we got married, so "young and stupid." I refuse to do this kind of thing anymore.
Men and women often seem to IMAGINE they understand each other when they frequently seem to not actually understand each other at all. They often seem to think they "speak the same language" because they both speak English (or whatever) and this seems to frequently not be true.
This delusion seems to frequently result in them not merely talking past each other but SHOUTING past each other. And when it doesn't get results, they scream louder and accuse harder rather than try to find some path forward on meaningful communication.