My compañera and I are not really hard of hearing ("sordeli" in Argentine slang). Not so you'd notice. But sometimes what comes out of the mouth of one is not exactly what reaches the ear of the other.
One evening this summer in Carboneras, Spain, as we were sitting on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, I was reflecting on the contrast between the topless foreign sunbathers and the local women, those older ones who would venture outdoors (in that heat) only in a kind of Roman Catholic burkha, a shapeless black dress down to the ankles to deny sexuality and distance the wearer from sin (pecado in their language).
And so I murmured these thoughts to the compañera. (To follow this, you have to know that she and I speak Argentine, a distant cousin of Castilian, and for us "coger" means what the Spaniards call "follar".)
"¿De dónde viene la idea de que el coger es pecado?" I asked.
She looked at me startled. "¿Escoger el pescado?"
Like I said: Not so you'd notice.
