The man leaned in. “Consider the English.”
“English?”
the woman asked. “Are we talking about the language or the people?”
“Both.
They arrive as a pair.”
“And
what, precisely, are we considering?”
“Well,”
he said, “they have tilted things a little. Apartments are flats, big trucks
are lorries, and girls are birds.”
“I
have no quarrel with being a bird. There are worse fates.”
“You’re
a fine one, too, my little chickadee, my sweet kinglet.”
“Kinglet
carries a hint of boy about it.”
“My
dove?”
“Acceptable.”
“My
tufted titmouse?”
The
woman blinked. “Good grief, no. That sounds a bit brassy.”
“As I
said, the English bend words in curious directions.”
—Mitchell
Hegman
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