After reading George, at 20011, who was wondering if the word 'ersatz' will mean nothing to our children, I met up with a Hungarian friend for a meal. She was in Budapest recently and was surprised by an 11-year-old nephew who,after listening to the adults talking about what she had considered quite recent family history, asked, 'What does it mean, this thing you say Uncle Laszlo and Auntie Tunde did? '
'What thing?' the adults asked, trying to recall what exactly they had been saying.
"'Defect"- you said they "defected"- what is that? What does it mean?'
Hmm, yes. All Eastern Europe teenagers have now been born after the fall of communism. Maybe the word 'defect' should be reinvented to mean the acquiring of a BMW car, which may be their most pressing concern nowadays.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how the word has the double meaning between the noun and the verb - not that that noun could ever apply to a piece of German technology, of course.
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