2026 Toronto Tempo
133 · 2026-07-20 · hard
Hwah jang shilly odie yay oh? Foreign travel phrasebooks are 24 karat comedy gold, and at least one should be in every home's second bathroom. They're not as popular as they used to be, but the reason they ever existed was to assure frightened tourists that they won't end up lost in a foreign city, unable to locate food or shelter, with a giant pee stain on their pants. Every copy of Conversational Italian Made Easy and Easy French Now! should have a disclaimer that no matter what, you're not going to fool anyone, especially not if you're carrying a book like that. I've lived in six different countries on three different continents, and the universal language is gesticulating wildly until the other person understands you. If you can't find the bathroom, and you're stupid enough to interrupt a stranger about it, then cross your legs like Marilyn Monroe and hop around like Katharine Hepburn. In 2026, normal tourists approach locals with a phone that's clearly open to a screen with two blank panels, and the 2026 version of local kindness is smiling patiently while waiting for them to type. (Using Google's talking Robot as a walkie-talkie intermediary? Get lost, loser.) If you plan to stick around for more longer than your 30- or 90- day travel visa allows you to, if you're thinking of settling down or even seeking full-time employment, the best you can do is be a Good Foreigner. The real reason I never was able to learn enough Korean to truly hang in South Korea (2017-2021) was a.) Japanese takes up way too much RAM, and b.) Pimsleur ruined my chances of ever learning it properly. "All courses feature real-world context and flexible vocabulary, enabling you to learn your new language in a fluid, natural way." No, actually, get fucked. Unless something changed in the last decade, unless Pimsleur went woke, the Pimsleur Method is 30 half-hour chapters of repeated dialogue out of a first-person script. You are a businessman on a business trip to the capital city, and you check into a hotel. You then visit the restaurant that the pretty concierge recommends, where you are complimented on your language skills by a pretty waitress. "저는 한국어를 배우는 중일 뿐이에요." The Good Foreigner method is making a friend, getting them drunk, then polling them on what not to say. This is what I like to call reverse vocabulary, a mental list of all the words and phrases that could get me in trouble or even fired. Anyway, basketball. On Saturday night, news came down the AP wires that Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello had been suspended by the WNBA for one game after making an inappropriate comment about Angel Reese. With a clickbait headline like that, I had the same reaction most people would. Alright, which one was it, hard R or soft A? Turns out that it was neither, and it also turns out that most people don't watch as much Hungry Jack's NBL as I do. "Protected species" is Aussie for "Jordan rules", the kind of ironic reverse backhanded compliment that only a wacked-out oversized island full of complete freaks could ever pull off. I've even heard Adam Hills use the phrase a couple of times on The Last Leg during the Paralympics, and he was referring to himself! Brondello is an Opals legend and a true cobber, but she's worked in North America for three decades and should know better than to drop random Crocodile Dundee shit in the middle of a game, all whilst complaining about WNBA officials. (And, yeah, WNBA officiating this season is definitely a thing to complain about.) But partially-repressed American Guilt, especially about the whole matter of building the nation on the backs of unpaid and uncredited imported slaves, makes American English one giant game of Battleship. "Angel, I'm sorry," she x-the-everything-app'd later. "Last night, in the emotion of the moment after Nyara's injury, I used a phrase that I shouldn't have used, and I take full responsibility for that." One-game suspension, 15 Good Foreigner points deducted, and Hoop Girl Summer moves on.