The funniest thing yet

I say 'yet' because when dealing with culture and language issues there is always the chance of something funnier happening.

Here's the deal:

A religious woman I know heard that Yonah was going to be in the hospital and wished him a 'refu'ah shelaima' (full recovery).  It was obvious that she didn't want to pry, but it was equally obvious that she wanted to know what was wrong that required a hospital stay.

I should point out that my confidence in my medical Hebrew is not nearly has high as when I need to discuss more mundane topics.  Also, although this woman knows almost no English, she enjoys showing off the few English words she knows whenever an opportunity presents itself. 

I knew that 'adenoids' were pretty much the same in Hebrew (adenoidim), but the Hebrew word for 'tonsils' kept escaping me.  I now know that tonsils are 'shkedim' (the same word for 'almonds' in Hebrew) but at the time I couldn't come up with the word.

So rather than pantomime what kind of surgery Yonah was going to have I simply handed her the folded copy of the doctor's  admission instructions which I happened to have in my pocket.

This extremely religious woman scanned the sheet of printed Hebrew and exclaimed in heavily accented English, "Oh, he's having his nuts taken out!"

The look on my face must have been something special because her pride at having uttered an entire English sentence suddenly turned to rosy cheeked embarrassment.  But the real embarrassment came a few moments later when I delicately explained that 'having one's nuts out' meant something quite different than the relatively routine surgery we had scheduled for our son.

As I watched the red in her cheeks spread north and south until every bit of exposed skin was crimson, I felt kind of bad.  But in retrospect, I figure it is better that someone she give her a gentle correction in private than for her to continue using that horrifying expression every time she hears of someone having their tonsil's out.

I know if the table's were turned I'd want to be corrected.