Plastic Scrotums and Big Shyness

I was reminded of a few more language stories this evening... when it came out that 'butuh', which in Indonesian means 'to need', in Balinese, actually mean scrotum!  (We could have water bottles that say "The Sea is not a Plastic Scrotum" instead of "The Sea Doesn't Need Any More Plastic"!?!? - hahaha!)

So, to add to the theme I started on this a few weeks ago, I want to share the story about having big shyness, as experienced by another dear friend while learning the Indonesian language.

The Indonesian language has a very interesting grammatical construction whereby with the use of a combination of prefixes and suffixes, you can create a plethora of words from a single root word.  In fact, this is one of the things that can make this language so easy to learn... At least there aren't a thousand exceptions for every single rule, as in English... however, the few exceptions that you tend to stumble upon are the most embarrassing possible words!

So, one way in which you can make a noun or adjective in Indonesian is to take a root word, add the prefix ke-, and the suffix -an... now USUALLY, the root word used in directly related, or at least logically related to the new word produced.  But sometimes, it's not entirely intuitive.  Such is the case with shyness....

My friend thought, ok, so I take the root word shy (malu), add on the pre- and suffixes, and I can express the feeling of being shy (which in Indonesian, one would think of as 'having shyness'... another example, as in Spanish you 'have thirst'....)... so the root word 'malu' turns into 'ke-malu-an', kemaluan.  Grover would have so much fun with Indonesian!

Near the beginning of her time in Indonesia, everyone wanted to introduce her to the heads of organizations, and government ministries... but my friend wasn't yet entirely confident in her language ability... telling everyone that she had big shyness about talking with these higher-ups, and maybe the meeting could wait until her big shyness subsided a bit, and she could talk more constructively with them.

Turns out kemaluan means something entirely different - she wasn't telling people about her 'big shyness' as she thought, but instead about her big genitals!!!

Just imagine the confusion of her colleagues as to her reasoning!?!