Wednesday, December 6, 2006

More Observations From The Mall

Way back in the day when malls first opened, there was nothing down the center of the mall except the walk way and an occasional bench or some chairs for shoppers to stop and rest.  Now, you can't walk through a mall without bumping into a kiosk or booth selling something.  The most popular kiosks right now are the dead sea salt cosmetics sold by high pressure sales persons.  Very high pressure.  But since we've touched on that in TWIT previously, we won't get into it again.  Other very popular kiosks and booths sell personalized things - ornaments, hats, jewelry, clothing, etc.  At this time of year, personalized sweatshirts are the rage, especially at the mall.  I saw something very intriguing at a sweatshirt booth last night while at the mall.  The booth sold fairly high quality gray sweatshirts with personalization, such as "Grandma is very special" or "Dad is very special".  You get the picture.  One such sweatshirt really stood out from among the others at this booth - it said "Abuela is very special."  I did not have a clue who or what "Abuela" was.  Neither did the 'rents or some old friends that we had run into and were chatting with beside the sweatshirt booth. They told me to give them a call when I found out what it meant. 

As soon as I got home, I got online and looked it up.  "Abuela" is the Spanish name for grandmother.  Well duh - now it makes perfect sense.  But shouldn't the entire phrase on the sweatshirt have been in Spanish, instead of just "Abuela"?  It seems to me that it should have been "Abuela especial" instead of a bilingual phrase on the sweatshirt.  If Abuela doesn't speak or read English, then she's not going to know she's special. 

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