Say WHAT??

The latest happenings regarding English misunderstandings have recently taken place within the Sociedad Hispano Mundial itself. Felicity, another Rotary scholar, also from California, came into our class to tell Rebecca and myself that they were planning to go to the Albaycín to view the Alhambra. We chatted briefly then Rebecca told her to ‘peace out’ as she was leaving. The look on our teachers face when she said that was of absolute horror. “How can you say something like that?” she asked us. Rebecca and I looked at each other and tried to figure out what we had done wrong. After a moment of silence I figured out the misunderstanding, explained it, and we all had a good laugh.
English is the only language I have studied that pronounces the letter ‘I’ with a short vowel sound, like in the word ‘if” the rest of the world pronounces it with a long vowel sound “eye”, like in the word “fight”. So, phonetically, the word ‘Peace’ for a non native English speaker, especially a Spanish one would be spelled “Piss”. Having lived in London for a year, our professor, Ana, has become quite accustomed to hearing angry English people yell at other people to “piss off” and consequently assumed that is what we were telling Felicity to do whilst actually telling her to ‘peace out’.
We explained that we meant ‘paz’ (peace in Spanish) and then had a quick lesson in English phonetics and she decided that we really do have a difficult language to learn!