The thing that threw people off about Oscar--and that sometimes got him in trouble--was that, like many people who spoke English as a second language, he omitted the 's' on his plural nouns. For example, "I have three son and two daughter."
Most of the time, it wasn't a big deal, but because of his profession as a glove manufacturer, his tendency to not mark plural nouns with an s caused some funny looks, especially when he was talking about work:
"Making glove is my family business."
"It was my father who first taught me how to make glove. At first I was horrible! But he didn't give up on me. I copied his style of making glove and rose to the top of my profession. He continued to make glove every day until the day he died. Even when he had 87 year, he could still make glove like someone half his age."
To a glove maker from Italy: "You make glove like no one I have ever seen. I would be honored if you would make glove for my company. At the least, I hope you will post a video of your skill on YouTube so that all people around the world can watch you make glove. Maybe someday we make glove together, eh?
"I would gladly give up all my fortune for a chance to make glove with my father just one more time. But I can rest easy knowing I have taught my own son how to make glove just like my father once taught me."
And on and on until today when Oscar retired from glove making and passed the family business on to his son. The world is less prone to eyebrow raising statements because of it, and also a little less interesting.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment