Where's the Squid?

Maybe some of you remember the "Where's the Beef?" commercials. I think they were back in the 80s and George Bush Sr. used the phrase in his campaign.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I was in a Vietnamese noodle restaurant, which had bilingual (Korean/English, not Vietnamese) menus. So far, so good. But nothing vegetarian on those menus. So, I pulled out my handy bilingual "I'm a vegetarian" index card and asked the waiter if any of the dishes could be made without meat or fish. We settled on a rice dish with shrimp and squid because he said the cook could leave out the shrimp. I wasn't sure he understood what "squid" meant in Korean so I tried to find it in my dictionary, but it wasn't listed! Not listing "squid" in an English-Korean dictionary makes about as much sense as not listing "bread" in an English one.

Anyway, I mimed that it was ok that the cook wouldn't be able to remove the squid because I'd do so myself. So, my food arrived in a bag to go and I realized that I'd used the phrase "take out" to describe my removing the squid, but of course the waiter had understood it to mean "to go." With lots of bowing and apologizing he took my bagged meal away and brought it back on a plate. I was able to eat around the squid and the meal was quite tasty.

yet another adventure in (mid)communication....

At least it wasn't live octopus again.