We conversed in French, a language alien to both of us, 
but more alien to me than to him. He said "gauche" for both 
"right" and "left" when he was upset, but when I was upset I 
was capable of flights that put the French people on their guard,
wide-eyed and wary. Once, for instance, when I cut my wrist on a 
piece of glass I ran into the lobby of a hotel shouting in French, 
"I am sick with a knife!" Olympy would have known what to say 
(except it would have been his left wrist in any case) but he 
wouldn't have shouted: his words ran softly together and sounded
something like the burbling of water over stones. 
        --from James Thurber's "A Ride With Olympy"