cheers for that wally - i didnt know the windex show this year was in africa.
Funny story: I used to work in Africa and I learned to speak Arabic ... broken Arabic.
It's an interesting language. For one thing, plurals are made by adding vowels inside a word. The same sort of thing as mouse/mice, man/men and so on. For another thing, they don't have words for your, my, his, her etc. They put endings on words to show ownership.
The end result of this is that the word for window is shubak and windows is
shubabik. The word for young person is shab, young people is shabab and your young people is
shababik. Very close, as you can see.
I was a teacher and someone asked me how were my young people (= pupils). I was puzzled why he should ask me about my windows, but I told him that they needed cleaning.
The translated conversation was:
Him: Ahh. You are a teacher. How are your young people?
Me: (Looking a bit puzzled, but I often was in Africa.) Errr. They need cleaning.
Him: Pardon?
ME: (Suddenly realising my mistake) Oh, I mean they are excellent. Very clever and very quick.
Him: Oh. Err. Very good. (Exit stage left, looking perplexed!!!!)