quote:

Originally posted by Amanda:
My Brit room-mate never got over her enchantment at hearing me use the word "shag" (as in Shetland pony to USians) even though we both were long aware of its very different usage in our respective homelands.

She'd ask me repeatedly to utter the to-her tabu word, doubling over in merriment. Tears would sometimes come to her eyes as I'd find ever-new contexts for the word which must have struck her as hilariously vulgar.

It's quite an interesting phenomenon come to think of it, that it had that effect on her despite our (almost) sharing a common native language.