What's in a Name

Well, it was that time again. The grand finale to the Swedish round of the Eurovision Song Contest, affectionally known as Medolifestivalen. I have to confess, I'm a sucker for these things. Dance Band Battle, Farmer Seeks a Wife, Single Mother Seeking... I'm a diehard fan. Could be worse, I could be addicted to porn. But we're moving off track here. Now, I had my favourite song and, needless to say, my hopes and dreams were crushed yet again. For another year. But there was one song in the final that cracked me up, and did so when I first heard it during the heats a few weeks earlier. For me it sums up the Swedish notion that they are all perfect English speakers. The racey raunchy sexy lyrics pop song in question is titled "Manboy". Now, a couple of Swedish song writers obviously thought they would show off their prowess of the English language, by using a little used English term. So everyone would be suitably impressed and think that they were jätte duktiga på engelska. The problem with the speakers of other languages, is that they don't consider double meanings. You learn a word, and it's meaning, and that's it. Tucked away in your memory for all time. I find this all the time with fluent English speaking Swedes making a complete mess of English contract documents. "Manboy", by definition, is an adult male who acts like a child. A bit of a lad about town. A Peter Pan figure. And that was the angle the song writers were going for when they wrote the lyrics for "Manboy" to sing to his lover. The problem comes when someone sings it and, by intention or not, puts an ever so slight pause between "Man" and "boy". As happened in this case. Consider the following lines of lyrics... "You can call me Manboy" ...and... "You can call me Man, boy". Spot the problem ? Puts a whole different perspective on a love song. Now, the song didn't win. And the Swedish business community can breathe a sigh of relief as a result. But you can bet your arse (so to speak) that "Manboy" will be making it's way into cult status as the new gay anthem in night clubs around the world. As we speak. Finally, a worthy challenger to "Macho Man". And it came all the way out of Sweden. Gå Sverige !!