Took me a while to realise it might be using “mate” in the technical sense and isn’t some niche Australian thing.
Took me a while to realise it might be using “mate” in the technical sense and isn’t some niche Australian thing.
To be fair, the Pyramids are right on the edge of Cairo and the Nile Delta which is missing from this image, so it’s probably not too bad compared to the 10 million people living next door.
Sometimes that can work though! I was in France once and had to try to talk about toes for some reason, I could only say “what do you call like, fingers but on your feet?” and they were like “…yes that’s right” (doigts de pied) while giving me a look like “duh, what kind of stupid language doesn’t call them foot-fingers.”
To be fair most of my interactions in English also fit in the ‘take pity on my feeble mind’ category, but I think either you learn something, or worst case scenario you give someone their own version of the ‘cobra chicken’ story to tell people, so you might as well go for it.