I came home on Sunday to find three Finnish blondes in my kitchen, busily cooking a cross between an apple crumble and a flapjack. This was courtesy of my flatmate Claire – clearly the Nicole Minetti to my Berlusconi.
One of them, Sana, was describing how Claire had taught her a new word: pickly hickly. Or was it pikelty hikelty? Ah no, it turned out to be higgledy piggledy.
“I love how you always teach me new words,” she said to Claire. “Like when you said to me ‘go take a music bath’ – I always remember that now.”
Claire and I look at each other. Go take a music bath?
“Yes,” says Sana. “Like if someone’s really bad at geography, you might say to them ‘go take a geography bath’.”
We are even more confused. So Sana relates the entire conversation leading up to the music bath comment.
…
“Aha,” says Claire. “You’re such a music buff!”
Love it. Not only all the wrong words, but also the opposite meaning.