East Coast word usage versus West Coast...

[DFW]

247. I understand French and German just fine

If they're going to trash me behind my back, they had better wait until my back is some distance away.

I was once with an American colleague in a hotel in Zürich, Switzerland that tended to cater to upper end businesspeople. We stood out like a sore thumb, as we were in jeans, crummy shoes and no ties. In line for the breakfast buffet, two German business types, dressed in super-expensive looking suits, heard us speaking English together, and made a derogatory comment (in German) about the place being a magnet for American tourists. I could tell by his tone that he didn't mean it as a compliment. I turned around and said in German, "yeah, and just imagine, some of us are fluent in German." He started sputtering, "uh, er, well, that's not quite how I meant it." I said right, sure you didn't.

Another time, I was having breakfast in a hotel in The Hague with a Canadian colleague. He looked like a Taliban chief, but he was a Greek from Crete who had grown up in Canada. His dad had been a NATO general, but, again, we looked the part of a couple of American tourists (or worse) of the ignorant kind. My friend had married a Swedish woman, and had lived in Stockholm for 15 years. I had minored in it in college. We spoke English together, but we are both also fluent in Swedish. We got seated at a table across from an elderly couple from, of all places, Sweden. They cast a few disapproving glances at us, and made a few vague comments, but we didn't react. When the waiter didn't show to fill our coffee cups, the woman got impatient, and got up, went over to the coffee pot, and brought it over for her husband and herself. Despite herself, she remained the polite Scandinavian, and asked us, in English, if we would like some coffee, too. We said (in English) Yes, thanks very much. We then said, now in Swedish, "but you don't have to switch to English for us. We speak Swedish." They both nearly fell off their chairs. "You speak Swedish?" I chimed in, "oh, sure. We both speak Swedish." From the look on their faces, we could tell they were REALLY relieved they hadn't said anything too negative about us.