Yesterday (as always), I look the bus home from school. Buses are sort of the kneecaps of Prague’s public transport system. Trams and metros have space to stand and sit. Buses, on the other hand, appear to have both, but in fact can only seat about 4 people while rendering all standing people in the discomfort of a Roman torture device. And so, yesterday, thirty people waited to see which 4 of us would be comfortable.
Amazingly, I was one of those people. (I threw an elbow at a woman distracted by the pram she was hoisting.) I tucked myself into a corner and pulled out my book for 12 minutes of bliss. Nobody needs me, I can’t be asked any questions, and it’s just me and 12 minutes of Ancient Celtic Europe. What more perfection could there be for a man after a long day of Englishing.
Something is pulling me away from Celtic Europe. But what? My eyes wander. There’s a gaggle of girls in the four-seat area ahead of me. They’re young and lithe and thus incapable of discomfort. They lounge upon each other like ferrets and speak with the confidence of those who think they know everything but don’t know shit (i.e. teens).
But it’s a sweatshirt that catches my eye. The back of a girl’s shirt reads: Few orgasms would probably fix everything!
I pride myself on not being a Grammar Nazi. As a matter of fact, in the last few years, I also pride myself on not being an actual Nazi. But that’s a different post. Having long been in the English teaching game, I am in the camp which places more emphasis on understanding than on grammatical perfection. Yes, I die inside when I see a native speaker write that ‘there dad isn’t being cool’ or ‘I could of done this hours ago!’ But I summon the strength to not involve myself, and after a few drinks of whatever brown liquor is nearby, move on with my life with a kick in my step and tears in my eyes.
But here is a case in which a person very clearly has made her opinion public: let’s all have orgasms, it’ll help things! A concept which is difficult to not agree with. However, and it’s a pretty big however, the grammar of the pithy little quote renders the opinion to its opposite.
‘A few orgasms would probably fix things’ means very obviously that if more people had orgasms things wouldn’t be so bad. A few means ‘some’ or ‘a number of’. Rather ‘Few’ instead of ‘A few’ makes the quantity negative and small. So she has exclaimed to the world ‘almost no orgasms would probably fix things’. I am guessing – nay, hoping – that this is the wrong message and that she does not intend to say this. On the other hand, she might be part of a fundamental religious group which hates joy and thinks we should be punished for it.
I have a black sharpie in my bag and I toy with just writing ‘A’ write before ‘few’ and fixing the whole thing. I stop toying with this idea, when I realize that I am also trying to explain in my stretched-out B1 Czech why I just invaded the space of a 16-year-old and damaged her sweatshirt. The sharpie remains at home. I go back to my book.
This is not an isolated incident. There are people in this country making money producing shirts with ‘almost English’ quotes on them. ‘Be better, Be Biggest’ or ‘Sexe man!’ Worse still are the ones that get through; I once spied on a young girl walking through the mall: ‘Warning Gives Great Head’. She can’t possibly know, I thought.
But now, there’s something worse afoot. English has joined the ranks of Japanese and Chinese to become a preferred language of the tattoo. I was worried about a student’s performance in her test when I noticed her forearm motto” ‘Only the Strong Survive’. Well, I stopped worrying after that. My last hair dresser’s ribcage told me that she has ‘No regrets’, a sentiment I wish I could have concurred with after the cut. And ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ was wonderfully ironic on the chest of the cashier who wanted to slice my throat after my avocado wouldn’t ring up.
By the time my bus drops me off at my stop, I have come to terms with things. It’s all just words. What does it matter? The girl with the sweatshirt seems OK, happy even, and this despite the world’s apparent lack of orgasms. But if she can get over it, then so can I.
I will servive.
