THESSALONIKI, GREECE ― Following a short jet-lagged nap, 34-year-old stock broker Rowan Goulding of Oshawa effectuated a Google search for “best restaurants near me.” Within moments, he was forced to, with the help of Google Translate, decipher the set of characters corresponding to “reject all” and carefully memorize them for future reference.
This increased the number of foreign languages in which he can understand the words “reject all” to thirteen, and also marked both the first and last time he would ever learn any Greek.
Although Goulding is, by his own admission, “not much of a linguist,” navigating the constant requests to track his data with unnecessary cookies in each and every country he visits has proven the exception. A month-long tour of Southern Europe proved insufficient for him to get the hang of when to use “gracias” as opposed to “grazie.” “Rechazar todas” and “rifiutare tutti,” on the other hand, slip off his tongue as if he’d spoken Spanish and Italian his whole life.
“I can also identify the right button to click in French, Portuguese, Croatian, Romanian, German, Danish, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, and Afrikaans,” he proudly noted between bites of whatever he’d been served after eschewing the English menu for the Greek, convinced that his clumsy pointing had made the waitress’ life easier than if he’d just ordered in a language they both spoke fluently.
Unfortunately, when the waitress offered him a complimentary plate of “biskóta” at the end of the meal Goulding was initially thrilled to recognize the word, only to realize with consternation that it was perhaps a mistake to not learn the Greek for “accept all” as well.
According to Pew Research Center, “reject all” remains the most popular choice for those asked what single phrase they learn when travelling, closely followed by “Hello,” “Sorry, I don’t speak [insert language],” and “Keep to your own fucking side of the path and look where you’re going, you dawdling asshole.”
