"Ричард Фейнман. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!/Вы, конечно, шутите, мистер Фейнман! (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

It was great! So I learned to make all these emotions: I could cry; I
could laugh; all this stuff. Italian is a lovely language.
There were a number of Italian people living near us in New York. Once
while I was riding my bicycle, some Italian truck driver got upset at me,
leaned out of his truck, and, gesturing, yelled something like, "Me aRRUcha
LAMpe etta TIche!"
I felt like a crapper. What did he say to me? What should I yell back?
So I asked an Italian friend of mine at school, and he said, "Just say,
'A te! A te!' - which means 'The same to you! The same to you!' "
I thought it was a great idea. I would say "A te! A te!"
back-gesturing, of course. Then, as I gained confidence, I developed my
abilities further. I would be riding my bicycle, and some lady would be
driving in her car and get in the way, and I'd say, "PUzzia a la maLOche!"
- and she'd shrink! Some terrible Italian boy had cursed a terrible curse
at her!
It was not so easy to recognize it as fake Italian. Once, when I was at
Princeton, as I was going into the parking lot at Palmer Laboratory on my
bicycle, somebody got in the way. My habit was always the same: I gesture to
the guy, "oREzze caBONca MIche!", slapping the back of one hand against the
other.
And way up on the other side of a long area of grass, there's an
Italian gardner putting in some plants. He stops, waves, and shouts happily,
"REzza ma LIa!"
I call back, "RONte BALta!", returning the greeting. He didn't know I
didn't know, and I didn't know what he said, and he didn't know what I said.
But it was OK! It was great! It works! After all, when they hear the
intonation, they recognize it immediately as Italian - maybe it's Milano
instead of Romano, what the hell. But he's an iTALian! So it's just great.
But you have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing
will happen.
One time I came home from college for a vacation, and my sister was
sort of unhappy, almost crying: her Girl Scouts were having a
father-daughter banquet, but our father was out on the road, selling
uniforms. So I said I would take her, being the brother (I'm nine years
older, so it wasn't so crazy).
When we got there, I sat among the fathers for a while, but soon became
sick of them. All these fathers bring their daughters to this nice little
banquet, and all they talked about was the stock market - they don't know
how to talk to their own children, much less their children's friends.
During the banquet the girls entertained us by doing little skits,
reciting poetry, and so on. Then all of a sudden they bring out this
funny-looking apronlike thing, with a hole at the top to put your head
through. The girls announce that the fathers are now going to entertain
them.
So each father has to get up and stick his head through and say
something - one guy recites "Mary Had a Little Lamb" - and they don't know
what to do. I didn't know what to do either, but by the time I got up there,
I told them that I was going to recite a little poem, and I'm sorry that
it's not in English, but I'm sure they will appreciate it anyway: