Vocabulary

Every two months or so, I have cleaners come swab down my home. They are a mother and her twenty-ish son from South America, and they are lovely people. I enjoy their time here, not just because my house shines when they're done, but because I enjoy our conversations. The son's English is better than his mom's, so we do most of the talking. I was very happy to have someone willing to clean the mini-blinds, which we have all over the house and which I've never found a reliable way to keep clean. Between rooms the son stopped and asked me about the word blind. "I think this word means someone who can't see." I said, "Yes it does, but it's also the name of that window covering." He said, "So when the blinds are closed, you can't see anything." He was right, but it had never occurred to me that that was the reason they were called blinds. Truly, you can learn something new every day. On a subsequent visit, he asked about the "things that spiders make"--cobwebs, of course. (I just mis-typed that as sobwebs, which I think would be a good alternative name. I often feel like sobbing when I contemplate how many spiders there must be in my home to make so many webs. Eeeuw.) One day he said, "I think you are not supposed to use the word 'fat' about a person. What other word can I say?" I suggested large or heavy, but cautioned him that no one really wants to hear that about themselves, no matter what word you use. On their last visit, he went into entirely new territory. "Can you tell me how to send a fax from my phone to a fax machine?" Oh honey, you are light years out of my comfort zone. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you how the television works.