More on English as a Special language

I've been thinking more about my post yesterday and the implications of Khmers being more fluent in English than the Vietnamese are. Two recent incidents have somewhat contradicted this statement although I do believe misspellings are more Mr. NoStarWhere's domain than mine.

A few nights ago we were walking down the street when we noticed a book vendor with a horribly misspelt sign that read. "Please buy a book from me to help the poop people." Our consciences kicked in and as we wondered who would may be brave enough to confront the situation to help this poor book vendor, Linda strode over to correct the error. The man listened to her for less than a minute and then, seemingly annoyed, pushed her out of the way to call for another customer. Maybe he didn't understand her but he certainly is a poop person for pushing her out of the way.

And yesterday, as we wound our way through the streets of Siem Reap, another unfortunate error caught my eye as a tuk-tuk ahead of me claimed to have great sock-absorbtion, a marvelous feat if it's true but a poop mispelling if not.