Then it hit him…

Found this on a news site:

With regard to gay sheikhs some years ago a young friend of mine went to work at his uncles company in one of the Emirates. He was introduced to the local sheikh, and carefully remembered the greeting the sheikh gave him in Arabic so he could use the form when meeting other dignataries. It was only after he had been using the phrase for a few days that somebody translated it for him, and he realized why everybody had looked at him so strangely when he repeated the sheikh’s greeting to them. The translation of the phrase was “Mm, you do have a lovely arse.”

Reminds me of another similar story. One of my mom’s colleagues was married to (still is, I presume) an engineer who worked a lot in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates etc. This guy was a real jerk, and I couldn’t stand him. Anyway, he told his wife the following story from his work. The guy in charge of the workers referred to their crew this way: “Those guys, all they do is f***.” And my mom’s colleague’s husband thought to himself. “Funny. I didn’t think there were any women on site.” Then it hit him… “Oh, right. Duh.” When I heard this, I couldn’t stop laughing.