A MISUNDERSTANDING.
Slight mistakes in speaking a foreign language or in understanding it when some one else speaks it arc commonly nothing more than amusing, but a member of. the Alpine ClulJ mentions the following instance, which might have serious results.
He was climbing one of the Alps with a guide, who persisted in talking bad English instead of indifferent French. ' ■
"My guide," he says, " had just, crossed a snow bridge over a wide crevasse, and turned;-to' await, me oir the farther side. I asked him if it was weak. He answered, 'No
strong.' " Naturally' I attempted, to walk across it instead of crawling. I had almost reached the other side when the bridge gave way, ami after a delirious scramble to save myself, I subsided helplessly into the crevasse.
"However I did not go far and when I had crawled out, with snow down my neck and tip ray arms and in all my pockets, I'discovered that my'friend had meant ' Not strong.' I strongly enjoined him to reserve his English henceforth for use in-the valleys." .
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Bibliographic details
Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 222, 19 September 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)
Word Count
176A MISUNDERSTANDING. Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 222, 19 September 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)
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