Freshly armed with many new words in various languages from the presentations my TESOL class gave on thursday, I prepared to impress my 1st generation American friends.

On Thursday, I IMd (half-Korean) Erma: “herro, Erma!” I typed. “Are you having a lovely mo ko il?”

“Huh?” she typed back.

Yesterday, I listened to (half-Filipino) Stitch complain about not knowing what to get for dinner and helpfully suggested: “How about some duhat? What about some saging? Or some refreshing pakwan, perhaps?”

“What the heck are you talking about?” groused Stitch.

Aw, shucks.