RRRuffles have ridges!

Google images

My girlfriend’s mom talked to me about dance costumes that my girlfriend used when she was little.

When describing my girlfriend’s costumes, my girlfriend’s mom said one of them had ruffles.

“Do you know what ruffles are?” my girlfriend asked me.

She and her mom explained to me that ruffle is pleated fabric for decoration purposes that can be used in clothes such as my girlfriend’s dance skirt.

“When you say ruffles, I picture potato chips,” I said.

“But that’s why Ruffles are called Ruffles,” my girlfriend said. “It’s kind of wavy. That’s ruffles.”

Ruffles’ slogans

After reflecting about the word ruffles and the potato chips with the same name, I also reflected about the Ruffles’ slogan in my mother tongue Portuguese: “Ruffles, a batata da onda” (Ruffles, the wavy potato).

Just for curiosity, I searched for the Ruffles’ slogan in English. “RRRuffles have ridges,” according to Google.

I had to look up the word “ridge.”

“Ridge” is “the horizontal line formed by the juncture of two sloping planes, especially the line formed by the surfaces at the top of a roof,” according to The Free Dictionary.

Ridge, wave, ruffles.

Everything made sense.

Fries or Sprite at McDonald’s

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Every time I order fries at the McDonald’s drive thru, I am misunderstood.

Whoever is getting my order thinks I ordered Sprite. Sometimes I hate my accent.

“You have to say fries with a Southern accent,” my girlfriend told me one day.

Back at the McDonald’s drive thru a couple of days ago, I ordered fries again.

“They probably understood ‘Sprite,’” I told my girlfriend.

Seeing the red letters of the drive-thru screen forming the word “Sprite” made me mad.

I could not take it anymore.

“It’s friiiiiiiieeeeeeees,” I yelled.

I said the “ie” of “fries” the way Southern people pronounce the “ye” of “bye.”

“Not Sprite! I want friiiiiiiieeeeeeees,” I yelled once again.

As my girlfriend laughed, I saw “fries” replacing “Sprite” on the screen.

My girlfriend’s strategy worked.

Now I understand why Southern people say they speak two languages: English and Southern.

Portable bathroom

Google images

I don’t quite remember how I learned the word “porta potty.”

Maybe I don’t want to remember…

But I have a guideline on how to pronounce it.

Say “porta” like the first part of the word “portable.” Then, say “Potty” like British people say “party.”

Tadam.

Porta potty.

Pork Pine, not porcupine

It had been more than a week since I had shaved.

“Arthur, you look like a porcupine,” my girlfriend said. “You are poky.

She continued saying she thought it was weird that “we say ‘pork-ee-pine,’ but we spell it ‘porc-u-pine.’”

Then it hit me.

“I thought it was ‘pork-pine,’” I said. “Like in Portuguese: ‘porco-espinho.’”

That’s how I learned how to spell porcupine.