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Speaking You Troutish?
by Peter A. Graff |
I was reminded of this the other evening when, after a few hours stirring up the gravel on a favorite trout stream, I retreated to the Carp and Grumble, an infamous fishing pub in the area, for a few knocks and some conversation. There hunched in the shadows sat a young couple, obviously out of their element. When I walked over to their table to offer assistance, the young lady recoiled momentarily, then looked up at me with what appeared to be substantial relief. “Oh thank god,” she gushed. “An American. Larry, an American. Larry—this is Larry—must have misunderstood the directions he got from the man at a Seven Eleven. We’re looking for this cute little b&b I found in the Martha Stewart Insider’s Guide to Cute Little B&Bs, and we ended up in this….foreign place.”
“Yeah, this foreign place, “ echoed her husband whose liquid grin and the number of tiny paper umbrellas in front of him said he was somewhat less disappointed than she at not ending up at the Cute B&B.
“Foreign place,” I repeated. “What makes you think that this is a foreign place?”
“Well, just LISTEN,” she said sibilantly as if we were strolling quite close to the edge of her patience. “Everybody is speaking some unfamiliar language. It SOUNDS like English but I can’t understand a word and I can’t seem to make myself understood. I mean, I asked the bartender if he knew where the Cute B&B is and he just nodded and brought Larry a bunch of those exotic drinks….stop that silly grinning, Larry, you look like a Golden Retriever”
I craned my ear and tried to listen, not easy because like everyone else here, I was accustomed to talking rather than listening. Yep. Everything sounded unforeign to me. Bob Fitzwater was talking about the new braided leader he was using; Pete Linder was extolling the virtues of cane over boron; Sidney Beech was divulging to anyone who would listen—which was no one—his secret recipe for tying the Beech Leech; Old Morrie Wilson was telling Lindsay Montgomery about…..
Ah.
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Foreign language, indeed.
No wonder this young woman and her husband were convinced that she had landed in the middle of Rabat. They didn’t understand the language. They spoke English and all these folks were speaking Flyfish. When I told her this, she looked skeptical. Her husband looked fog-bound, but he smiled and nodded his head. A little umbrella fell out from behind his ear.
“Really, it’s quite a simple language,” I explained. “once you know some of the basic vocabulary, some of the simpler grammatical rules, and a few of the quirky idioms, you won’t have a bit of trouble understanding what’s going on. Take that, for example.”
Sean Smith had just entered the bar and Fitzwater asked him how the fishing was.
"“That sounds like a question, but is really only a greeting. Fitzwater isn’t really interested in how Smith’s fishing went and besides, good or bad, according to the culture Smith is always going to reply in the affirmative.”
Sure was pretty out there,” answered Smith.
“’Sure was pretty out there’ means “I hooked 2 shiner minnows and an alder bush, and the mosquitoes were awful,” I translated.
“Caught seven or eight. Biggest one was about 19 inches,” continued Smith.
“Volunteering how many fish you caught without being asked is almost mandatory in Flyfish. Further, in the grammar of Flyfish,” I told the young couple, “all numerical adjectives used by the male gender, no matter what they are describing, are understood to be grossly inflated and largely meaningless.”
“Then he’s lying,” the young woman said indignantly.
“Not exactly lying,” I said. “Lying occurs when subterfuge is intended. In Flyfish, no one expects accurate information about quantities and sizes, or really cares, so there is no lying per se. Now listen to that fellow talking to the lady over there, “ I continued.”
Old Morrie was warming to his story. “So I switched from a 6 X to an 8X tippet—the browns showing a lot of spook—and tied on a #16 Granny Smith. Most guys were using Light Hendricksons, but then most guys don’t pay much attention to what’s going on on the water.. Then I double-hauled out to the crease between the fastwater and the eddy, right into the foam. And BOOM! He hit it like a freight-train. I set the hook just as the big hook-jaw went airborn, and right away I could tell that I’d tied into a good 22” of brown.”
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“What did you make of that?” I asked the young woman.
“I’m sure I don’t have the slightest idea except that he seems to be mixing an awful lot of metaphors.. Why is he laughing like that? Sounds like a mule.”
“ Aha!” I cried. “You ARE beginning to understand. Old Morrie is reminding Lindsay that he is, indeed, a jack-ass. As for the rest of it, if you discount all the numbers he’s spouting by about 95%, and take a good look at him --double-hauling anything at his age would blow his heart up--you begin to understand what really happened tonight. He used a #12 Granny because it was big enough for him to see to tie on; he caught a #22 shiner minnow, probably while walking back to the car and dragging the fly behind. ”
“It’s still all very confusing to me, and rather rude; and I don’t see why all these people can’t just speak plain English.”
“Well. Then. Just stick around for awhile and you’ll begin catching on.”
“No thank you,” she said stiffly, brushing a wisp of frosted-tip hair from her forehead. “Come on, Larry. We’re going to find the b&b and be around people we understand.”
Larry looked up from his umbrella collection. “Funny,” he said, “I’m actually beginning to understand these people. That fellow there who is talking about the Big Horn Shuffle…I’ll bet he’s not talking about dancing, and I’ll bet he’s a trumpet player. ”
“Now you’re getting it,” I beamed. “No, dance. Yes, blow-hard.”
“Yep. And these folks seem pretty decent, foreign or domestic,” Larry added earnestly. “I kind of like it here.”
His wife looked at him crossly. A cold wind blew through the bar. A “misunderstanding” was beginning to brew.
“In Spousish,” I interceded, “Larry means he’s ready to go whenever you are.”
Peter Graff writes Midwest Fly Fishing's Last Cast column. This article appeared in MFF.
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copyright Midwest Fly Fishing Magazine 1999
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