Learning English kind of sucks.
“Hey my man.” photo credit: wiseGeek I have to admit I got a funny look on my face. Because this is not a greeting I’m often met with. Especially from an older gentleman I don’t know at the East 67th Street Library. I was there for English Language Conversation. New York Cares sponsored the event and invited native English speakers (such as myself) to chat for a couple hours with recently immigrated adults. But Mitchell (we’ll call him Mitchell) had come prepared with questions. He wanted to know whether "Hey My Man" was friendly or some kind of insult. Apparently they keep saying this to him at the deli. I leaned over the head of the table with my little group gathered around: Parvin, a woman from Iran, and Mitchell and his wife from Myanmar. I wrote out "hey.my.man" and said it's definitely friendly. Suddenly, the three of them all started to try to repeat after me, you know, to learn a new friendly greeting. I shut that down fast because...