Speaking Banal

Here are some helpful translations for everyday, seemingly empty phrases.

Workin' hard or hardly working?

TRANSLATION: It takes a superhuman effort for me to resist blurting out the incriminating details of my fatal hit-and-run last night.

How about them [insert local sports team here]?

TRANSLATION: Sometimes, when I am alone, I like to order pizza and answer the door wearing nothing but an athletic supporter.

Hot enough for you?

TRANSLATION: Are you the heir to Albion? Only give the fated answer and I will a) pledge fealty to you b) kill you with my concealed claymore OR c) perform a joyful dance in the style of Isadora Duncan.

How's it hangin'?

TRANSLATION: What is the state of your genitalia? Have you noticed any rashes or experienced pain during urination? Please consult a physician if you experience an erection lasting more than four hours.

Got a hot date?

TRANSLATION: Sometimes, lying in bed at night, I can feel myself fading away under the weight of universal indifference. Can I please have a hug?

Keepin' out of trouble?

TRANSLATION: I could use your advice on a delicate matter involving a stolen Chevy Caprice, a drunken monkey, and a freight container full of illegally obtained exotic birds.

Are we having fun yet?

TRANSLATION: I am the dullest person alive, and I ask this question in earnest because I would not know fun if it slithered up to me in a rhinestone-encrusted negligee and started to bite off my toes.

What the hell is your problem?

TRANSLATION: Could mean anything. Best to just point and laugh.

Das man Yem

I have been reading, for the last several years weeks, a biography of James J. Hill, the railroad magnate. It's for research and to be honest the book itself is rather a slog, but there is the occasional gem. Today's diamond in the blather, a Swedish dialect poem written about "Yem" Hill around the turn of the century. Truly, 'tis a thing of wonder and beauty:

We got little faller har,
Name ban Yem;
Das whole railroad over dar
Blong to him . . .

Fallers laugh ven he come har,
Das man Yem;
But he ain't ban fraid for scare,
Not for hem.
Call das railroad strak o' rust
An say Yem vill go clean bust;
But he keep still and he yust
Vork for Yem.

Val, Ay tal you Ay don laugh,
Ay explode
Van his inyine kal my calf
On das road . . .
An he wrote me letter, too,
An say: "Ole, Ay lak you,
An how much you tenk ban due
On das calf?"

Val, Ay got my gude hard mun
From das Yem,
An Ay lat das railroad run
Yust for hem;
An Ay tenk das Nortvest har
Yump ahead gude many yar
Yust by not ban fraid for scare,
Me and Yem.