Your nomination for best ESL song line

Michael B says on Sep 9, 2005, 20:07:

Does it have to be a song? 1) My x came from Costa Rica and graduated from a major US university. She said one time everybody was leaving for spring break (or Christmas, doesn't matter which). They were discussing their plans and two guys told her they were going to Las Vegas to play the slot machines. She read them the riot act, told them that not only should they not be talking about thinks like that in mixed company, 'You lazy Americans have a machine for EVERYTHING!' Finally, her roomate explained to her what a SLOT machine is, she thought they had said another word.

2) I was working as an intrepter during the Cuban Boat Lift (1980, for those of you who remember). Now, as I've noted before here, there are different brands of Spanish (Colombia, Mexican, Cuban, etc.). Cubans use the word 'guagua' to mean a bus (don't ask me why, I don't know). Apparently, 'guagua' means 'baby' in Argentina. I was working with a woman from Arentina and between us, two civilian bus drivers and about 4 or 5 MP's, we had a group of about 100 Cubans lined up outside a building where the Red Cross was giving them clothes.

First Cuban (in Cuban Spanish)-- Hey, have you been over to the hospital yet for medical screening?
Second Cuban--Yes
First Cuban--What do they do? What happened?
Second Cuban--The doctors are allright, but that driver we had was terrible. Before we even got there, he killed the 'guagua' (I asume by letting the clutch out too fast).
Argentine woman (in English)-- Oh my God! Did you hear that? Police, police! That American bus driver killed a Cuban BABY
Third Cuban (who understood her English)--Hey everybody, she said our bus driver killed a baby! (the situtation rapidly deteriorated at this point)

3) Earlier that same morning I had 54 Cubans in the back of a duce-and-a-half, yelling 'Vamos! Ropa! Ropa! Vamos!' and two very confused and frightened GI's in the cab. Because I had told the Cubans "Horita viene un camion. Cuando el camion llegua, quierro que cinquenta de Vds. se suban y vamos al almacen de ropa". These two guys drove up and parked their truck at just the wrong time"...what can I say? I learned most of my Spanish from Mexicans.

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Cplus2 says on Sep 9, 2005, 21:28:

Sometimes stories can be better than songs. This was one of those times.

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Cplus2 says on Sep 10, 2005, 07:56:

Contentamiento feminino Shakira's prescription combines shopping with communication. Altho these activities may not be prominent in Desi's quote from S. Gamboa, a case can be made that, apart from family, these are the most fundamental elements of contentamiento feminino.

However some may be right to shop for things other than thongs,

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Sep 10, 2005, 08:53:

get rid of rotten meat "Pop you up with dat beat
Get rid of rotten meat
You dig with your soul
Deep inside that rock’n’roll"

"Boonika bate doba"
"Grandmamma beats the drum-a" Moldova's song in this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

The site is a treasury for horrible lyrics in ESL.
http://www.eurovision.tv/english/index.htm

"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"(First Witch in Macbeth)

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Cplus2 says on Sep 10, 2005, 08:59:

No contest With a resource like Eurovision, you are bound to win.

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Cplus2 says on Sep 10, 2005, 10:08:

The oracle at Brussels Eurovision is a bottomless pit of enigmatic lines.

It's as good as having the Oracle at Delphi digitized by Google.

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