Choppily scanned from my sketchbook, a slice of market life. According to Babelfish, which tends to give a realistically crappy translation of what I was trying to say, the conversation above goes something like this:-Hello
-Hello! I want to do--um--ah--a plate of cheeses for--um--three people. (That good I am!)
-It is worth. I have wmwmwmwmw and mwmwm. That you want mwmw wmwm? Mwmw or mwmw? And wmmwmww. Mwm mwm three wmwmwm.
-Um... what? (consecrated wafer!)
Hostia, or "consecrated wafer," is something like the Spanish equivalent of "damn," in that you wouldn't say it in church or to your grandmother, and it's a handy all-purpose exclamation or intensifier (Damn, that's good! Damn, that hurts! Damn!), with the added bonus of a funny English translation. Anyone looking for a new exclamation? May I suggest "consecrated wafer?" It's not completely inoffensive and twee, like "fiddlesticks!" or jiminy crickets!" but it has the potential to be an acceptable stand-in for the really crude, multi-syllabic exclamations that can get you kicked out of the PTA.
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