I really shouldn't be allowed to teach English

The other day, I said "gooder" in casual conversation. I didn't do it to be funny either; it just slipped out.

The conversation went something like this: a friend and I were laying out a pattern on a piece of fabric (we sew). It was a tight fit, so we were trying to figure out the best layout. We were comparing two layouts, and I said "If we did it like that, I think it would be gooder." Then I realized that I had to get out of this country before I completely lost the ability to speak my native tongue.

When I talk to my friends back home, they note the change in my speech. It's become simple and very clear. I never say "yeah" anymore. An affirmative response is sometimes a crisp "yes" and more often the complete "Yes, I do," "Yes, it is," and the like. I don't usually make slip-ups like "gooder," but that may be because most of my conversations are kept on a level so basic that using comparisons would be out of the question.

In college, I spent one summer as an intern at the State Department. Every week, we would have speakers talk to us about the Foreign Service during lunch. There was this one guy in his 60s who spoke incredibly slowly and clearly, painfully so for the listeners. He had been in the Foreign Service for something like 30 years and spoke like this "My......NAME.....is......John....Smith. I.....was.....amBASSAdor......to......Zimbabwe," and all the while we would be on the edges of our seats waiting for him to get the next word out. Most of us thought he was just senile, but one of my friends theorized that his speech pattern was the result of spending years speaking through interpreters. Now I know it only takes about 2 years in a foreign country to make you talk to everyone like they're a child.