A Moral Spirit

Today one of my Khmer coworkers called me and asked for some translation help. She asked if it made sense to say “moral spirit.” I doubted that she was writing anything deeply philosophical, so I went to her office to try to figure out what she was trying to say. Three people tried to explain it to me, and with the description of “where people go who are sick (pointing to head) every day,” I figured it out: a psychiatric ward. A “moral spirit” hospital sounds like a nicer place than a psychiatric ward. If I’m ever “sick every day,” then I’d definitely want to go there.

Later, when I was helping Mony with her English, we came across the following multiple choice fill-in-the-blank: “I’m sorry, but I ___________ in traffic.” The choices were (a) got carried away, (b) got stuck, (c) let my imagination run away with me. I laughed out loud when I read those (Mony had incorrectly chosen c). I tried to explain why it was so funny, but I couldn’t find the words. How do you explain the humor in “I’m sorry, but I got carried away in traffic,” much less “I’m sorry, but I let my imagination run away with me in traffic?”

Language is a beautiful thing. I was trying to explain what “should” means, and the best I could do was that it implies that one thing is better than its alternative. Even for someone who prides himself in being adept at manipulating words, I frequently find myself inadequately equipped to explain some of the things that I take for granted among my English-speaking friends in the US.