On Twitter, a linguist reports that she and her Russian husband had a humorous misunderstanding about the meaning of the word barefoot. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Barefoot Misunderstanding”
One of the things that’s fun about talking with somebody who’s learned English as a second or third or fourth language is the way they make us look at our own language in a different way.
And here’s a great example of this. This is a tweet from Bryn Hauk. She says, apparently my Russian husband learned the word barefoot from me, talking about how I prefer to be barefoot and refusing to wear slippers, which is horrifying for him.
And he analyzed the word as barefoot, as in B-E-A-R, foot, because I’m stomping around all uncivilized with naked feet like a bear in the woods.
Barefoot.
