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“What awesome?” Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life asked one night while we were sitting at Dick’s Cafe on Soi Twilight. Hanging with a gang of friends who’d joined me for the trip, we were into our second round of drinks and one of a pair of dykes, Helena, had used the word as an exclamation several times. The third time she did, Noom needed to know what it meant. He liked its sound, liked its exuberant use, but hadn’t a clue to its meaning. I explained, he tried it on for size, approved, and it became his favorite word for the next few days.

Communication, the experts claim, is important to having a successful relationship. Even one bought and paid for. Noom speaks fairly good English. I mean his vocabulary is of decent size; pronunciation and word choice is at lesser levels. We communicate well, as long as I keep words to under three syllables and drop unnecessary words from sentences. On his part, it all depends on how much effort he’s interested in exerting. At times it seems he barely knows any English, he strings together just enough words to get his point across. Or just grunts. Or nods.

Other times, when he’s interested in the conversation, it amazes me how eloquent he can be. One night over dinner, after an off the cuff comment I made, he started in on a political spiel. An hour later we were still talking and you’d have sworn he was a native English speaker. Not just by the words he used, but in his ability to use them to develop his hypothesis. The crux of his political rant compared President Obama and Prime Minister Abhisit. Noom felt they were both ‘good men’ but ineffective in their roles, relying too much on building consensus and not enough on being strong leaders. Sometimes I forget his work as a bar boy is a matter of choice, not education or lack thereof. His English is better than my Thai. And he has a smattering of Japanese, German, and Cantonese, too. But most the time he relies on bar boy English. Tinglish, if you prefer; if you want to move out of the bar world.

I admire that he has no hesitation in asking when he’s at a lost for an English word. Doing so borders on that vast no-no world of implying or inferring a Thai is stupid. I try to remember to never correct his English, but if he asks, I’ll supply the word he’s looking for. If it is a word for something he can point to, it’s easy. Other times it’s like playing an advanced round of Password.

Souvenir is one we’ve done a few times, and I catch on now fairly quickly. After a try or two to explain, he switches over to ‘you know, before’ referring to the hundredth time I’ve supplied the word for him. He usually retains words he learns. That one causes problems, even though he is quite fond of it. He did pull it out of his hat one night in Chiang Mai at the Night Bazaar while haggling over a dozen fake silver and wood hair pins. I knew they were not for him, and I know his family well enough to know the count was too high for their use too. When he got the price down to 5 baht each, I asked him why he wanted so many. “Souvenir!” he exclaimed. “For bar.” Nice. Not a typical Thai gesture, he was buying handfuls of small gifts to take back to his bar mates and friends on the soi (though I suspect a large part of that had to do with the status he’d get by handing out proof he’d been to Chiang Mai).

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One night as we lay together in bed chatting, he needed an English word and I was at a lost as to what it was. He’d started with wat and formed his fingers into a steeple, saying, “In you country.” So steeple was my guess. Wrong. He didn’t know that word, but knew it wasn’t right. He kept trying to narrow his idea down, I got further and further lost moving on to altar, temple, nave, synagog, mosque . . . we resorted to using Goggle Images. Him surfing the net nude was a bonus and I briefly considered a new career teaching English. But then molesting your students is not considered good form, so I quickly discarded that idea and went back to staring at his naked body while he searched for the perfect picture to illustrate the word he was after.

Church was the word he wanted, I had gotten too carried away. That was a lot of work for such a simple word. But he was happy once I hit on it; I never did find out why he wanted to know. It had nothing to do with what we had been chatting about, and it never entered our conversation afterwards either.

Some English words that Thais have universally adopted for general use can be confusing to a native English speaker. Both due to accent and word choice, though there is always some logic in their choice, as long as you stick to Thai logic. Sometimes their phrasing is cute once you figured out the progression to its use. Other times it makes little sense, and is just plain wrong. But once a Thai in some position of authority has declared it as the proper word to use, no farang opinion will ever change the locals’ collective mind.

‘Finished’ or in their pronunciation ‘finit’ is one favorite and odd-ball word visitors come across frequently. When shopping, if you ask for a size or color they are out of, you’ll get finit as a reply. Same same for a dish that is all gone at a breakfast buffet. And it is used if you showed up 10 minutes past serving time, too. When checking in at a hotel, if you want a double bed instead of two singles and there are no rooms to be had, you’ll get a finit. Occasionally it will also be the answer if you ask for a nonsmoking room when only smoking rooms are available, though usually they say yes and then check you into a smoking room anyway. No reason to learn a whole slew of appropriate phrases (i.e. we’re closed, we’re out, they are all gone, etc.) when one word will do the job.

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Sometimes it’s not their choice of words but pronunciation that causes confusion. Browsing the glass enclosed watch display at one of Bangkok’s department stores one afternoon, the salesclerk greeted me with a big smile. “Big dick count for you!” he promised.

I smiled, thinking it was nice that he noticed. Or maybe that was an offer I thought, checking out his package to see just how big we were talking about. “Really?” I said.

“Yes! 50 percent off all!” he replied, anxious for a sale.

He didn’t get the sale, I didn’t take advantage of the dick count. But I did get a laugh out of the exchange.

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Normally I’m careful to not correct Noom’s use or pronunciation and avoid the chance of broaching the world of stupid. But I have tried, on several occasions, to correct one common use among Thais that sucks. I can’t blame them for the confusion, rules of English are often contradictory. The first time it came up with Noom was early on in our relationship. We were by the Grand Palace, and knowing even though Noom lives in Bangkok there are many places he has not been to, I asked him, “Have you ever been to Wat Pho?”

“I ever been,” he answered.

Huh.

His reply, though badly phrased, was in the affirmative. That he had been to the wat. I think. But the phrasing was closer to what you’d use to say you had not: I’ve never been. Risking it, I tried for clarification stupidly giving him an either/or question to answer, “You mean you have been there, or you have not?”

Obviously the confusion was on my part, it was clear to him and he responded with a simple, “yes.”

Try again. I explained, “If someone asks if you have ever been somewhere, if you have your answer is ‘I have been’. If not, ‘I have not been there’ or ‘I have never been there’. Ever and never are not like yes and no, they are not interchangeable opposites.”

He didn’t take offense to my lecture. Instead he came back with, “I ask if you ever eat Thai food, you not say – and he carefully annunciated each word – I never had?”

Bastard. Typical of a Thai, he knew his ‘I ever been’ wasn’t correct, but it is to Thais and that’s all that really matters. To them. It may be your language, but it’s being used in Thailand, so their rules win. Then, with an accompanying smirk, still slowly sounding out each word with emphasis, he sang out, “I have never not been there.”

If he could sing worth a damn, it would have been an aria as he let go with his creative juices:

“I not been there ever . . .Never . . . Ever.”

“I been there not ever.”

“Never been there ever.”

“Ever been there not never.”

I really need to learn how to say fuck you in Thai. Instead, I relied on sign language.

Sigh.

Note to self: Never, ever, ever, try and correct Noom’s English again.

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