Dec 16, 2002
Shhh!
Coming home after nine from Olympia, there was a man on the train speaking rapid spanish with a short woman. He was in his mid-thirties, with salt-and-pepper hair, heavy-set with an orange t-shirt and a large gold cross around his neck. At one point, he picked up his mobile phone on the otherwise quiet train and dialled a number.
“Can I speak to tha chef?” he shouted into his mobile phone. “Tha chef! Chef!”
You’re reading this and silently pronouncing it the french way, softly, sssheff. But he didn’t. He said it the way it was written, cheff, like cheese, chicken and choo-choo train.
The person on the other end of the line clearly didn’t understand. “Chef! Tha chef!” the man shouted into the phone over the rattle of the train.
The man tried italian “Parle italiano? Posso palare con il chef?” Still the same pronounciation, hard spitting, ch. No response.
The man tried spanish “El cocinero! Chef!” he rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation “Chef! Chef! Cocinero! Hijo de puta madre!”
I so desperately wanted to lean over to him and say “shhh” – not as a signal to be quiet, but as an indicator of pronounciation.
