Eclipses and Ellipses

Put your ear to a life, any life, and there it is, the tell-tale tremolo, slur and slap of the unexpressed....Language makes me a stranger to my own life, forcing me to speak from both sides of my mouth. --Susan Mitchell, "Self-Portrait with Two Faces"

Monday, October 09, 2006

Titi in Kenya

Adam, my housemate Nilo's boyfriend (who lived in Kenya for 5 years), and I were talking about our pets one night at the kitchen table. He said he had a beautiful Pomeranian dog named T. I said,

"You mean T as in Mister T?"
"'I pity the fool!' No, the dog's a girl. T's short for...Nefertiti."
"Haha. Is she spoiled?"
"Oh, extremely. Like a queen. But our dog trainer said we should shorten Nefertiti's name when giving commands. So we call her T. We would've called her Titi, but Titi means 'breasts' in Kenyan."
"Oh wow! That's funny. In Filipino, Titi means 'penis.'"
"Really? Haha. There you go. It's not a good name for a dog in either language."

2 Comments:

  • At 11:48 PM, Blogger fanboy420 said…

    *giggle* If I get a new pet, I might name him T. for Tae, in reverence of the great Joel T.

     
  • At 10:44 PM, Blogger the city reader said…

    Ummm, OK! Haha. If I get a cat here, I'll name it Oxy. So when it's bad I can shout and call it Moron. Groan.

     

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