When my husband first moved to Hawaii from Glasgow,Scotland, I had to learn to understand his way of speaking and vice versa. This led to a lot of miscommunication between us. For instance, the Scottish word for flashlight is torch.
One day, we were set to go out but he wanted to do a quick check of the car because something wasn’t working right.
He asked me to hand him “the torch”. I was completely confused as torch to me meant something you see in Waikiki or at a luau. So I asked him, “What?” He repeated several times, and each time I did not get it.
Finally, out of frustration, he described what he was asking for, to which I replied, “Oh…a flashlight, why didn’t you just say so.” And he let out a long exasperated sigh and said, “That’s what I was trying to tell you…!”
Jereldeen Smith
