Do what?

Lately, I've begun to feel comfortable using Flemish words now and then. Even conjuring them up in place of English on occasion. I really thought this day would never come.

Now, I'm a loooooong way from making proper sentences, but let's just say my Flenglish is improving.

Naturally, no proper Dutch speaker understands what I'm saying . . . but Jim does :)

Our neighbor/pharmacist/huisbaas's two sons are learning English in school (as all Belgians do, thank God). Even they probably cringe at some of the things we say. And by "we", I mean "me". Jim tries harder than I do to speak proper English. Not so's he don't sound Southern, but so's he's understood.

I have warned the boys next door not to practice their English with me unless they're working on their "conversational Southern".

You know, like how we use phrases such as "like to" instead of "nearly".

I like to had a heart attack!

Don't tell me "fire" doesn't have two syllables. Hello?!

Or when we just shave off the "re" and shorten "you're" to "you".

You leavin' now, hon'?

Now, even I draw the line on "used to could" and I do my best to refrain from using "fixin' to", but it slips on occasion.

I guess I'll always pronounce "dog" as "dawg". And I've used "gonna" for way too long to eliminate it from my spoken and written vocabulary.

I'll still get the "buggy" when I go grocery shopping and say "Coke" when I mean any carbonated soft drink. And "hey there" is simply a proper Southern greeting.

Now, here's the best part.

Zoom on in there.

Yep, right there under B of A.

Now, that's damn shame, ain't it?

And don't even think of blaming LaTech. I left there quoting Shakespeare and consistently using proper subjects, predicates, dependent clauses, and relative pronouns with the best of them; however, nature vs nurture materialized. Or something like that.

So when I throw my Flemish words in with my Southern-speak, it may sound something like this . . .

Man, that's a mess a fish.

Man, dat is a puinhoop a vis.