Of Skanks & Weirdos (Part II)

The Writer Catches Malapropism

W was a fellow writer and editor at my place of work. She and I would often engage in snippets of gossip as she sat in front of me and it was as easy as a spin of her seat to share the latest piece of unbelievable news. However, W had a rather comedic disposition herself. She didn’t always get things right. Well, she certainly wasn’t intentionally spreading fake news, neither did she have a single malicious bone in her. Instead, the poor girl had a very bad habit of mixing up her words.

Once, another colleague and I were sharing a conversation, what about, I can no longer remember. To our surprise, W jumped in and quipped, “Chardonnay!” There was a long pause. Firstly there was no alcohol in the office and it was 10 am in the morning, way too early to be drinking. Moments later, realisation hit us like a ton of bricks. Laughter broke out like never before and filled every nook and cranny. W wasn’t laughing. She was annoyed, because she couldn’t figure out the joke, knowing that somehow, the joke was on her. The phrase that W meant to say was “so-desu-ne” in Japanese, which was a way to express agreement and literally meant “that’s right, isn’t it?”

Another time, an evening after work saw us heading to the Orchard shopping belt to seek respite from a particularly harsh day. On the escalator heading down to the food basement at The Takashimaya Department Store, W suddenly piped up that she shall have “Tamagotchi” for dinner. Wait! We both paused for a minute, then realised that “Tamagotchi” referred to a toy. The word that W was looking for was “Takoyaki” which was a food item with part of a small octopus engulfed in a ball of flour the size of a golf ball.