It's Oscar Time!

It's Oscar time!

Ah, the Oscars. The Oscars! The gala! The excitement! The HISTORY!

And the winner is… Casablanca!

And the winner is… From Here to Eternity!

And the winner is… West Side Story!

And the winner is… Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle!

And the winner is… Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce!

And the winner is… Diane Keaton in Annie Hall!

And the winner is… Jack Lemmon in Mister Roberts!

And the winner is… Robert DeNiro in The Godfather, Part II !

And the winner is… Frank Capra for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town!

And the winner is… John Huston for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre!

And the winner is… Mike Nichols for The Graduate!

And the winner is… Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind!

And the winner is… Jessica Lange in Tootsie!

And the winner is… Clark Gable in It Happened One Night!

And the winner is… James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy!

And the winner is… Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field!

Then, in 1989, they changed it. There are no winners or losers. That’s politically incorrect. Let’s make it more politically correct…

And the Oscar goes to… Rain Man!

And the Oscar goes to… Schindler’s List!

And the Oscar goes to… Chicago!

And the Oscar goes to… Kathy Bates in Misery!

And the Oscar goes to… Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking!

And the Oscar goes to… Charlize Theron in Monster!

And the Oscar goes to… Denzel Washington in Glory!

And the Oscar goes to… Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine!

And the Oscar goes to… Oliver Stone for Born on the Fourth of July!

And the Oscar goes to… Stephen Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan!

And the Oscar goes to… Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain!

And the Oscar goes to… Geena Davis in The Accidental Tourist!

And the Oscar goes to… Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted!


Now, QUESTION: Do you remember who the Oscars “went to” last year?

STOP! DON’T READ THE NEXT FIVE LINES. Try to remember first.

And the Oscar last year went to… Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight!

And the Oscar last year went to… Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona!

And the Oscar last year went to… Sean Penn in Milk!

And the Oscar last year went to… Kate Winslet in The Reader!

And the Oscar last year went to… Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire!

I don’t have to remind you who won Best Picture last year, do I? Here’s a hint: It was one of the five films listed above, and the movie didn’t take place in Germany, the USA, Spain or Gotham.

Hmmm, I wonder if Penelope Cruz will win Best Supporting Actress again this year. She’s nominated for her performance in Nine. If she does win, she will be the first actress in Oscar history to win that award two years in a row. Two other actresses have won the Best Supporting Oscar twice, but they were not in consecutive years. Shelley Winters won for 1959’s The Diary of Anne Frank and for 1965’s A Patch of Blue. Dianne Wiest won for 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters and 1994’s Bullets over Broadway. But those awards were separated by six and eight years, respectively. So will Penelope pull it off? Will she win two back-to-back Oscars? Will she win for 2008’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona AND 2009’s Nine? It doesn’t seem likely.

Winning an Oscar two years in a row has only been done by five performers. Luise Rainer won Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Spencer Tracy won Best Actor for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938). Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) and The Lion in Winter (1968). Jason Robards won Best Supporting Actor for All the President’s Men (1976) and Julia (1977). And finally, Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994). He was the last one to do it, and it’s been 15 years.

When you figure that in 83 years, only five people have pulled this back-to-back feat, the odds don’t look good that Penelope Cruz will join the ranks of the other five. Besides, it looks like Mo’Nique has the momentum for her bravura performance in Precious. And if she does win, she will be only the second performer with no last name to win an acting Oscar. Who is the other one-name Oscar winner? That’s easy. Cher, who won Best Actress for 1987’s Moonstruck. Duh!

You may have deduced by now that I am an Oscar NERD. Totally. And a GEEK. I am an Oscar nerd-geek.

I have watched every single Academy Awards since 1982. I’m sure I saw some Oscar shows before then, but my memory of the Oscars begins with 1982’s show, which presented the awards for films released in 1981. I was 13 years-old, and the only Best Picture nominees that I had seen were Raiders of the Lost Ark and On Golden Pond. I wanted Raiders of the Lost Ark to win. It was my favorite film of the year (again, I was 13). Well, that Oscar night was my first experience (of many) of being disappointed by who ended up winning. The top awards were won by Reds and Chariots of Fire, which won Best Picture. Neither of those films were teenager-friendly.

I remember being happy that the one Best Supporting Actor nominee whose performance I had seen, John Gielgud in Arthur, won the award. I wanted Best Actor nominee Dudley Moore to win for that same movie, Arthur, because he had made me laugh so hard in his drunk scenes. Well, he lost to Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond. It was another Oscar lesson, two actually: Comedic performances rarely win in the lead categories, and older actors who have never won an Oscar throughout their long careers, will usually be voted the award for sentimental reasons.

Yes, Gielgud wasn't the only old-timer who was finally winning an Oscar that night in 1982; there was also, as I just mentioned, Henry Fonda.

In a celebrated film career spanning five decades, Henry Fonda had only been nominated once, in 1941, for The Grapes of Wrath. His own daughter, Jane, had won two Best Actress Oscars before he had even won his first, and been nominated six times. It was definitely Henry’s turn to win. Not only for the aforementioned reasons, but also because he was in such poor health, that he couldn’t even attend the ceremony. It was obvious that he did not have much longer to live. Despite my having favored Dudley Moore for having made me laugh in Arthur, I was very moved when the envelope was opened, and Henry Fonda’s name was called out.

At that age, I was still very ignorant about classic Hollywood, and knew nothing about Henry Fonda's career except that he was great in On Golden Pond, had appeared in that 1970s attack of the bees movie, The Swarm. The reason I was moved was not because of the body of his work, but by the father-daughter aspect of the award. Jane Fonda was at the ceremony, herself a nominee, and accepted the award for her ailing father, with tears in her eyes, and a trembling, joyful, emotional voice. Later, she brought the statuette home to her dad, who looked frail in a gray beard and a thick sweater. The pictures appeared everywhere the following day. It was all very dramatic and moving, and it got me hooked on Oscar.

In the following years, there was always an aspect of the competition that attracted my attention, and the Best Actress award became my favorite contest, as the 1980s ran their course…

Meryl Streep winning her second Oscar, for Sophie’s Choice, and being so pregnant that I thought her water might break as she gave her speech…

Shirley MacLaine finally winning after many nominations, for Terms of Endearment, beating out her younger co-star Debra Winger, and saying, “I’m going to cry because this show has been as long as my career!”…

Sally Field winning for the second time, for Places in the Heart, prompting her to say, “You LIKE me! You really LIKE ME!”…

Geraldine Page finally winning, for The Trip to Bountiful, and the presenter, F. Murray Abraham saying, after he opened the envelope, “I consider this woman the greatest actress in the English language,” and then genuflecting on his knees before her, in front of an audience that was on its feet…

Marlee Matlin winning for Children of a Lesser God, and being the first deaf person to win an acting Oscar (and the youngest Best Actress winner ever), signing her acceptance speech as her co-star and then-boyfriend William Hurt stood beside her, having just presented her the award due to his Best Actor win the year before …

Cher winning for Moonstruck... Cher! CHER winning an Oscar! CHER!...

Jodie Foster making the transition from child star (and obsession of Reagan shooter John Hinkley) to serious adult actress, by winning for her searing portrayl of a gang rape victim in The Accused...

Jessica Tandy, esteemed theatre legend, winning on her first nomination, for Driving Miss Daisy, and becoming the oldest Oscar winner ever; she was 80 going on 81...

But it wasn't just the Best Actress competition which drew my attention. I was drawn to all things Oscar. My teenage interest in the Oscars grew to such an extent, that one of my high school graduation gifts was an 800-page book called, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards. I devoured that book, reading every page, fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stories, the politics, the publicity, the scheming, the slights, the paybacks, year after year after year, going from 1927 onwards. I became an expert in Oscar trivia, the firsts, the onlys, the irregularities... this new interest coincided with the birth of cable TV and old movies on videotape for rent at video stores. I began to rent Oscar-winning films, and set about watching every performance that won the award for Best Actor and Best Actress. Often I would be amazed that certain leading role actors and actresses won for THAT performance...

James Stewart winning for The Philadelphia Story, (most likely because he had lost for his superlative performance in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the year before)...

Humphrey Bogart winning for The African Queen, beating out Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (most likely because Bogart hadn't won for Casablanca, or ever before, for that matter)...

Bette Davis winning for Dangerous, beating out Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams (most likely because Davis had, outrageously, not even been nominated for Of Human Bondage the year before, and Hepburn had already won the award 2 years prior)...

Katharine Hepburn not winning her second Oscar for her amazing performances in Alice Adams, The Philadelphia Story, Woman of the Year, The African Queen or Long Day's Journey into Night, but rather, winning her not-so-amazing performance in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (most likely because her her co-star and long-time lover Spencer Tracey had recently died)...

William Holden winning for his brief, remarkably average performance in Stalag 17 (most likely because he had lost for his lengthy, magnificent performance in Sunset Boulevard three years earlier)...

Elizabeth Taylor winning for the trashy Butterfield 8 (most likely because she had just had a tracheotomy, and because had just lost for two years in a row, for her two performances as Tennessee Williams heroines, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer)...

Julie Andrews winning for Mary Poppins (most likely because she had lost her Broadway role of Eliza in the film version of My Fair Lady, to the dubbed, weak-singer Audrey Hepburn, who as punishment, wasn't even nominated that same year for her performance in the film)...

John Wayne, in a year of ground-breaking performances by his younger, fellow nominees, winning for True Grit (most likely because he was an old John Wayne who had never won an Oscar)...

Art Carney, in a year of ground-breaking performances by his younger, fellow nominees, winning for Harry and Tonto (most likely winning because he was an old Art Carney who had never won an Oscar)...

Peter Finch winning the lead award for his supporting role in Network (most likely because he had died of a heart attack just before the ballots were cast)...

...and I haven't even gotten to the 1980s, '90s and '00s yet.

To avoid letting this piece become a longer reading experience than War and Peace, I will just focus on one more irregularity in the Oscars that has often caught my attention: leading role vs. supporting role.

It happened just last year with Kate Winslet in The Reader. During the entire awards season, she had been nominated in the supporting category for her brilliant performance as the illiterate, teen-loving ex-Nazi. I had seen the movie, and was insulted that she had been placed in the supporting category, just because her character wasn't the protagonist of the film. She was clearly the female with the leading role in the movie, and I found it unfair that actresses with legitimate supporting roles, and much less screen time, were made to compete with Winslet, whose role was much bigger, and who therefore was winning every award in sight.

The Academy actually fixed the problem, and nominated her in the leading category. Suddenly the Best Supporting Actress category became a wide-open field. With Winslet placed in the leading category, there was no clear victor in sight in the supporting. I had no clue who might win; none of the nominees had won any of the pre-Oscar awards. Penelope Cruz ended up winning, while Winslet took home the lead award. This was as it should have been. This, however, has not always been the case.

Jennifer Connelly in 2001's A Beautiful Mind, Marcia Gay Harden in 2000's Pollock, and Juliette Binoche in 1996's The English Patient, are only three recent examples of actresses in leading roles placed in the supporting category because the competition in the lead category was very tough, and the studios wanted to better their chances of winning an Oscar. There are many more, if you go further back. Tatum O'Neal was in virtually every minute of 1973's Paper Moon, but was placed, and won, in the supporting category because she was a child at the time, and children are almost never put in the leading category.

In other years with less-tough competition, the opposite has been done. Supporting actresses have been put in the leading category, often having less screen time than other actors in the same movie who were nominated in the supporting category. Three memorable examples of this this include 2002's Best Leading Actress winner Nicole Kidman in The Hours, who actually had less screen time than Best Supporting Actress loser Julianne Moore, in the same movie. Another is 1996's Best Leading Actress winner Frances McDormand in Fargo, who actually had less screen time than Best Supporting Actor loser William H. Macy, in the same movie. And yet another is 1975's Best Leading Actress winner Louise Fletcher in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, who actually had less screen time than Best Supporting Actor loser Brad Dourif, in the same movie.

There are many examples of leading Oscar winners who had the same, or less, screen time than those nominated in the supporting categories that same year. Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), William Holden in Stalag 17 (1953), David Niven in Separate Tables (1958), Simone Signoret in Room at the Top (1959), Patricia Neal in Hud (1963), Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972), Peter Finch in Network (1976), Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Geoffrey Rush in Shine (1996)... none of these winners for the leading Oscar had much more than 20 or 30 minutes of screen time in movies that were 2 to 3 hours long.

And since we're talking about screen time, which is the performance with the smallest amount of screen time to ever win an Oscar? Beatrice Straight, Best Supporting Actress of 1976 for Network, whose entire performance was barely 6 minutes long, and she had only 8 lines of dialogue. The next most brief Oscar winning performance was 1998's Best Supporting Actress Judi Dench, in Shakespeare in Love. Her performance had a couple of more minutes of screen time than Straight's, and a few more lines of dialogue. And the next most brief Oscar-winning performance....?

ENOUGH! Don't get me started. I need to start wrapping this up, or it'll be as long as an Academy Awards show that never seems to be close to wrapping up.

I'll wrap it up with this: who do YOU think will win Best Picture this year, and how many of the nominees have you seen?

This year, you have more movies to see, because this year they increased the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten.

For the last 66 years, there have been five nominees for Best Picture. The last time there were ten was in 1944, when the nominees for the Best Picture of 1943 were...

Casablanca

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Heaven Can Wait

The Human Comedy

In Which We Serve

Madame Curie

The More the Merrier

The Ox-Bow Incident

The Song of Bernadette

Watch on the Rhine

How many of those films have you heard of? Just Casablanca, right? You've SEEN Casablanca, too, most likely, haven't you? Well, Casablanca was the movie on that list that won. What about the others? Maybe you've heard of For Whom the Bell Tolls because it is a famous novel by Ernest Hemingway. But have you seen it, the movie, or any of the others? I'm a total classic film buff, and besides Casablanca, I've only seen The Song of Bernadette and Watch on the Rhine, and that was only because the former won the Best Actress award for Jennifer Jones, and the latter won the Best Actor award for Paul Lukas.

This should give you an idea of the importance of winning an Oscar as time goes by. In 65 years, the chances are higher that your film will still be known.

So here are the ten nominees for the best picture of 2009. Read the list, and ask yourself which of these films, 66 years from now, will be known by people who haven't even been born yet...

Avatar

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglorious Basterds

Precious

A Serious Man

Up

Up in the Air

I am certain that I will never know which of these films will still be remembered 66 years from now, because I would have to live to be 107, and that ain't happening. But I will be able to have a fairly good clue on March 7, when the 83rd Academy Awards are handed out at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California. I'll be watching. I've been watching for 28 years, so I'm sure I'll be watching for many more,

Oscar nerd-geek that I am.

"It just means bad. Gay is something that you don't want to be."

Yesterday, I was tutoring a 4th grader, Luis. I tutor kids one-on-one. Right now I have six students, and I tutor them on different days.

Luis I tutor every Saturday afternoon for two hours at the public library. I teach him English language arts (I could never teach him math. He would need to tutor me in math).

In any case, the first hour of our sessions we focus on reading. I have him read Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi. He reads three chapters, and we discuss the story, etc.

Pinocchio was written in Italian, in the 1880s. The English translation we are reading is from the 1940s. As a result, there are some words that children today are not familiar with, and I take the opportunity to increase their vocabulary by defining these still-used yet seemingly-archaic words for them.

Well, yesterday, as he was reading, Luis started to giggle. I asked him what was so funny, and he pointed at a word in the text: "gay."

"Why do you think that word is so funny?" I asked him.

"It's a bad word!" he said.

"Read the sentence again," I told him, "and see if you can figure out what 'gay' means in the context of the sentence."

He read the sentence again, and said he didn't know. I told him that, as it it used in the sentence, "gay" means "cheerful." I gave him other synonyms: "joyful, gleeful, merry, jolly..."

" 'Gay' means all those things?" he asked.

"Yes. It can also mean 'lively' or 'exuberant.' Why? What do you think it means?"

"I don't know. It just means 'bad.' If you're gay, it's a bad thing. In school, any kid who does something dumb, or makes mistakes, or isn't liked, or is bad at sports, or dresses bad, is gay."

I decided not to correct him for saying, "dresses bad," rather than, "dresses badly," in favor of sticking to the topic at hand.

"I know what you mean," I said, "for example, if you think something is uncool, you say, 'That's so gay,' or if something looks weird, you say, 'That looks gay,' or if a TV show is bad, 'That show's so gay.' "

"Yeah. Right. It's gay. Did kids talk like that when you were in school?"

"Yes," I said, and then I paused. I didn't know if he knew that gay also refers to homosexuality. When I was nine, I had no idea what homosexuality was (or even what heterosexuality was) but with kids today, you never know...

After thinking it over, I said to him, "So we know that the proper definition of 'gay' means 'cheerful,' and that as slang, some people use 'gay' to mean 'bad.' Can you think of any other way that 'gay' can be used in slang?"

He thought it over for a long time, and said, "No. It just means bad. Gay is something that you don't want to be."

I wanted to tell him, "Well, you should not use that word to mean 'bad' or 'weird' or 'stupid' or 'something you don't want to be,' because 'gay' also means 'homosexual,' and there are lots of kids that, as they become teenagers, realize that they are gay, and it makes them feel less of themselves if they hear their classmates using the word that describes what they are as a pejorative."

I didn't tell him that. I decided to drop the subject. I decided to only teach him that "gay" is a synonym for "cheerful," and move on. Let his parents teach him that "gay" also means "homosexual." That's their job, not mine.

But it did get me to thinking. Anti-gay sentiment is instilled in kids at a very young age. Even before they know what "gay" means, they know it is bad, weird, negative and something that you don't want to be-- even though nobody wants to be gay (you just are or you aren't). But if you are, and you're young, it must be a blow to your self-esteem to hear people using the word for what you are to mean "bad."

Imagine this...

"I hate this class. It's so Asian."

"This movie sucks. It's so woman."

"I'm not doing that. That's so black."

"Look at that awful dress she's wearing! It's so Hispanic."

"Why do we have to do this? It's so white."

"I'm not hanging out with them. They're so man."

"I am so sorry to be retarded..."

WARNING: THIS PIECE CONTAINS SOME OFFENSIVE WORDS.

There's been a lot of flap in the last few days about Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retarded" to describe some left-wingers who planned to campaign against any conservative Democratic politician who opposed Obama's health care plan. Actually, I think what he called retarded was the plan, not the the planners themselves.

In any case, this gave Sarah Palin her customary cue to leap on a glib side issue, so that she can garner even more unjustified publicity. Seriously, that woman cannot generate public attention by coming up with creative new policy ideas, or offering any detailed rational solutions to our country's problems. What she CAN do though, is get into verbal tiffs with other celebrities and public figures over trite, easy-to-comprehend social issues to keep the culture war burning.

This time, it wasn't David Letterman who Palin was word-policing. It was Rahm Emanuel. She suggested that he be fired or resign, even though her sweethearts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have used the R-word many a time.

Which brings me to the actual "R-word." Yes, it seems as though we have yet another word with a capital letter before it. First it was the F-word, then it was the N-word, then it was the B-word, and now it's the R-word.

Today on Facebook, a friend of mine referenced it, writing something like, "The R-word is mean and hurtful and should not be used." Accompanying her statement was a video that she was posting. It was a montage of people on TV saying the R-word.

Well, I had no idea what the R-word was. I sat there for a few seconds, scouring my brain, trying to figure our what the R in the R-word could possibly stand for.

The Rahm Emanuel flap was not in my mind at the time, so I was totally stumped. I knew that I could quickly find out by watching the video, but I resisted clicking "play" until I could guess what the R-word was.

Since it was a woman who found the R-word offensive, I started out thinking of crude words for the female private parts... "Cunt? No, that starts with a C.... Pussy? Naw, P.... Queef? No, that's a Q, and it's not even a part of the female anatomy..."

Then I switched to racial possibilities. The N-word was out, so I tried other racially insensitive terms. "Spic? No, S. Dago? No, D. Chink? No, C....."

Finally, I gave up and watched the video.

RETARDED!

THAT'S what the R-word was! Duh! How could I not have guessed that, due to the recent Rahm flap?

Now let me say, that I'm so tremendously fond of the woman who posted the video and used the R-word. She is one of my favorite Facebook friends. She is a rational, sensible, open-minded, smart-as-hell person with a sharp sense of humor. We agree on virtually everything, and I couldn't respect her more. But I must say that I resented her a bit, for having introduced yet another upper case letter-word into our vocabulary, or at least for having spread it around more.

I am so sick of these childish words. N-word, B-word, S-word, F-word, R-word....

Are we in 3rd grade?

"Awmm! You said the R-word! I'm gonna tell the teacher!"

I'm a Latino of mostly Spanish ancestry. I would rather hear a person refer to the word "spic" as "The word 'spic'," than as "The S-word." I think it's very silly to hear an adult say, "And then he used the S-word."

What does the S-word refer to? Shit? Slut? Stupid? Spic? What?!?

This is so much better: "And then he used the word 'spic'."

As a Hispanic, I much prefer this, mainly because I was last a student in elementary school in the '70s, so "S-word" sounds pretty puerile to me in the year 2010.

Believe it or not, not all liberals are politically correct cadets. I, a total, unabashed liberal, abhor political correctness. I can't stand how a person can lose his job over a verbal slip-up. Of course there are some verbal slip-ups that are more severe than others.

Any public official who refers to any black person as "a nigger," or a gay man as "a faggot," or a Mexican as "a wetback," should get booted out of office. However, if a public official calls any man "a prick" or any woman "a bitch," well, that to me is not a fireable offense. It is an offense that demands apology and a lot of eating crow, but it doesn't demand firing.

It's just different. It's a slip-up, but I really don't feel that "bitch" signifies misogyny, or that "prick" signifies misanthropy. After all, I'm a man, and I call other men pricks all the time (under my breath or in private, of course). It doesn't mean I hate men, or that I think men are inferior. It just means that that particular man really annoyed me, angered me or offended me. Is it a bit childish to call a man a prick? Sure, but it's not as childish as calling him a P-word. Bill O'Reilly is a prick, not a P-word (same thing for Glenn Beck).

Same thing with "bitch" and the even more offensive "cunt" (I LOVE that word. It's so strong!). I adore women. In my opinion, it is women who make this planet a livable place. If it weren't for women, this world would be a real cesspool. I actually think that if there IS a superior gender, women are it, no contest. I truly admire them. They are complicated and fabulous. But don't you dare tell me not to mutter the word "cunt" when I see Nancy Grace or Michelle Malkin on TV. Don't you dare. "Cunt," to me, is the perfect word to describe those two bitches, so please don't limit my vocabulary at all times. If it offends you, I won't say it around you. After all, I'm not a prick. But I refuse to erase "cunt" from my vocabulary.




Now let me wrap up this vile piece with a very funny story.

In 1999, I lived in Milan, Italy, where I worked as an English teacher. One of my favorite students was Francesca, a smart, funny, charming, beautiful blond a great sense of fashion, but not a great aptitude for learning English. I'm sure she was great at math, though...

Well, I moved back to New York City in 2000, and, to my delight, she soon moved to New York to do an internship with a fashion designer.

Whenever I'd call her at her boss's office in Manhattan, she would always answer the phone like this: "Hello, I am Francesca."

No matter how many times I'd tell her, in Italian, "Francesca, that's not how it's said in English when you answer the phone. You can say, 'Hello, this is Francesca,' or you can say, 'Hello, Francesca speaking,' but you can't say, 'Hello, I am Francesca.' It's just not said that way."

She'd tell me that she understood, but I'd call her a few days later, and she'd say, "Hello, I AM FRANCESCA."

The problem was that she was translating her thoughts from Italian to English, and in Italian you would say, "Buon giorno, sono Francesca" (Sono means "I am").

Which brings me to the night when Francesca used to R-word to some shocked Americans in a trendy, swanky lounge.

It was a trendy, swanky lounge. I wanted to introduce her to some of my friends. We were to meet at a certain hour, like 8 or 9 o'clock. Of course she was running late. Francesca was always running late. Even when I'd try to fool her into arriving on time by telling her the meeting time was a half-hour earlier, she'd still show up late.

Well, in Italian, the way you say "I'm running late," is Sono in ritardo. Both English and Italian get the word "retarded" from Latin, thus the similarity. However, in Italian, it has evolved to primarily mean "late" wheras in English it primarily means, well, we know what it means.

So Francesca arrives to the lounge, flustered and out of breath, and about an hour late. After I introduce her to my friends, she profusely apologizes for having been in ritardo, so she says to them, "Hello. Hello. Hello. I am SO retarded. I know I am. I am totally retarded. You must please forgive me, it is just the way I always am. I am retarded. I am so sorry to be retarded..."

My friends' jaws dropped and their eyes popped open. I had to explain to them the language mix-up, and when she realized what she said, she said, "Oh my God! I really AM retarded! I am retarded in the Italian sense and I am retarded in the English sense! I am so retarded!"

My friends laughed uneasily. Poor Francesca. In addition to not having mastered the English language, she also hadn't mastered American political correctness. She should have used the R-WORD once she knew the English meaning of retarded.

Didn't she know what a touchy, sensitive place the USA is...?