The fine art of communication

[rsc]

After you've lived with someone for a long time, you learn certain things about the way they communicate. In jwg's case, it's particularly useful to be aware of a couple of things.

• A remark that appears to be totally cryptic on first hearing can often be understood if you remember the conversation of which it is a continuation, which may have left off anywhere between five minutes and twelve hours before.


• Certain words, especially foreign (and especially French) words are regularly used as stand-ins for other words. "Seguedilla" for "quesadilla" is one example, as is an insistence on referring to a tall piece of furniture used for storing clothes as an "abattoir", an image I find rather disquieting. And one must always remember that, although he doesn't have much occasion to talk about castles, he uses the word "château" a lot, most often meaning either "cat" or "hat".

So, when he said, as we were going to bed Thursday night, "Oh, here's the other château", I was only puzzled for a brief period before I remembered that he had searched that morning for the hats that our two Canadian people used to wear, but only succeeded in finding one of them.