Editor’s note: The following is an old Ham on Wry favorite, which originally ran in 2013.
I got a call from my friend in Brooklyn complaining about my column wherein I took a few jabs at his Brooklyn accent. Perhaps I should have kept his name out of the story when I cited those examples.
He told me he was offended by my remarks and contended the column was inaccurate and rife with exaggeration.
“I don’t talk like dat,” he argued. “Now da whole woild tinks I don’t got no cultcha. Tanks for nuttin!”
I apologized and told him I would never want to do anything to upset him and certainly would never challenge his cultural acuity, especially after he told me he spent a day “lookin at dem dere pitchas at da art museum.”
“I especially liked dat pitcha dey call Da Goil Wit Da Poil Earrin,” he told me.
Although my Brooklyn buddy is my poster boy for articulating the classic New York accent, Aunt Carmela, also a Brooklyn resident, offers a whole new slant on the language. She’s been our guest this past week, and I’ve been trying discreetly to offer a few elocution suggestions.
In her case, it’s not so much the accent that concerns me as much as it is her penchant to employ certain unique expressions. It’s the sole reason I’ve asked her not to pick up the phone when it rings, suggesting the answering device effectively records my messages.
Nonetheless, she insists she doesn’t mind answering the calls.
As she did last week when I was taking a shower and unable to get to the phone. It was a call from my accountant getting back to me about a tax question.
“Is Irv available?” he inquired.
“No,” Aunt Carmela replied. “He’s in the toilet.”
Perhaps it’s unfair to single her out for using that term as it happens to be the universal expression employed by all my in-laws for what is more commonly referred to as the bathroom.
Some people call it a powder room, or a rest room, a lavatory or a half dozen other terms. But my relatives call it “the toilet.” I’ve tried to explain the difference pointing out that a toilet is actually a fixture, an object, an apparatus, whereas a bathroom is a chamber, an area separated by walls, an actual location.
But my appeal tends to fall on deaf ears. She, as well as my other in-laws, insist on calling the bathroom the toilet, regardless of any attempts to clarify.
In truth, they don’t actually say toilet. They pronounce it “tirlet.” It’s that New York accent surfacing again.
“Aunt Carmela,” I said politely, “for the sake of modesty and discretion, I would have much preferred you simply told the caller I was taking a shower.”
“I did,” she replied. “I told him Irv can’t come to the phone right now because he’s in the tirlet taking a shower.”
Erdos is a freelance humor columnist. Contact him at [email protected].