Language Funnies

There’s something really fun about learning a new language that takes one back to childhood. The profanities are usually funny, and the insults even funnier. My new favorite phrase this week is Mafi mook. It means “no brain”, and it is frequently used exclamation, especially when one is being childlike! I used it this morning for Abu Majeed who agreed to take a friend and me to Deira Souk, an approx 30min drive. We got there and then he remembered to tell us that since it was Friday morning, all the shops and markets in the city are closed until 4pm. Something I should possibly have remembered, but would have been helpful coming from my native taxi driver before we got there. Mafi mook Abu Majeed!

Earlier in the week, I received a memo from department in the hospital. I’d asked them to provide me a fuzzy / hospital definition for next-of-kin relative which we required for our consent policy. The response was “First-class relatives; father, brother and son”. Naturally, I had expected to receive only males for next-of-kin but I was quite shocked by the first-class title. I showed it to a female fuzzy friend who was shocked and didn’t know what to say. This gave me courage to discuss it with my boss, because I was really unhappy about including the words “first-class” in my policy. I brought it up gingerly with Khalid and he laughed, thought for a while and said, oh they mean “first degree” relatives. Oh of course! FYI, for legal witness under fuzzy-law, the witnesses must be either 2 fuzzy males or a fuzzy male and 2 fuzzy women. This applies to our legal hospital consent also.