By Reg Green
I wrote recently about a waitress in Italy recommending a dish that she described as spaghetti with jam but turned out to be spaghetti and ham. English speakers in Spanish-speaking countries continually come up against this pronunciation problem with the letter ‘j’. My grandfather used to make me laugh by threatening to cart me off to the hoosgow, a name for jail he’d picked up watching Westerns that turns out to derive from a Spanish word related to judgment. Like jam, the words make a big difference to the way you look at life. “Hoosegow Day is near” doesn’t sound bad at all. I might even meet my dear old grandpa there.
