Well, I have to tell you another story. Back in the early 60's I was in the Army, stationed in Verona in northern Italy. My wife came over and we lived in an apartment in the city, not in military housing, and we did all our shopping in the local stores. Although I spoke Italian well, my wife couldn't get the hang of it. The local merchants, all of whom were, in typical Italian fashion, more than glad to help her out, would get her through a transaction most of the time, when she didn't know the Italian for anything. They used to start laughing as soon as they saw her coming, and by the time we left Italy, the grocer, the fishmonger, the costermonger etc. all had learned a good deal of English. The highlight of this association came one day when she went into the salumeria (grocery store) to get some mortadella (bologna) for our lunch. That morning, she had asked me how to say "a quarter kilo" and I told her "un quarto kilo". She went to the store and asked for quattro kilo mortadella (4 kilos = 9 lbs.). The clerks burst out laughing, as usual, and said, "no, Signora, no Signora" but she kept on insisting on quattro kilo. Finally, one of them picked up a whole mortadella (about 6 in. in diameter and 2 feet long) and held it up in front of her and said, "Quattro kili, Signora!" She finally figured out what she had said.
Then there was what she told the neighbors when our son was born. He weighed 7 lbs., but she told the neighbors he was 7 kilos! When I found this out and told her the neighbors would be looking for a 15-lb. baby, we decided we could only take him out after dark for the first 6 months.
