The Elusive Rendezvous
The Elusive Rendezvous
By Damian Coburn
Chelsea Public School, Grade 12
Has there ever been one word that you never knew how to pronounce or what it meant, and always forgot to look up or ask about? The word that was kept under my radar until this summer was “rendezvous.”
I first encountered this elusive word when I became interested in automobiles. One day, while riding through Barre City with my grandparents I saw this very nice-looking Buick SUV. On the back hatch it said, “Buick Rendezvous.” This word became very problematic for me because I had no idea of how to pronounce it. The whole word was difficult and confusing. R-e-n-d-e-z-v-o-u-s. I finally decided after some thought that the correct pronunciation of the word was rend-ze-vous, not ron-day-voo, as it is supposed to be.
Then this August I went to Maine for a weekend and my forgotten need to pronounce rendezvous was answered. My Aunt Marion asked me to walk across the campsite, and read to her and the rest of the lazy bums that I call family a flier on the side of her friend's camper. Once I got over to the flier I saw that it said “35th Annual Rendezvous on...”
My little light bulb turned on in my head and reminded me that I did not know that word but I would sure try to sell my version of the word to my family. Of course, the minute I turned around they were asking me what it said and I responded, “It says the 35th Annual rend-ze-vous.” They all looked at me like I spoke some foreign language, so I repeated it again. After a couple seconds of silence while everyone was trying to comprehend what I had just said, I was asked another question. This time it was from Hank, my very wise-cracking cousin, who had a big grin on his face. “You want to repeat that a couple more times son, I didn’t get it the first dozen times. And what’s the last word?”
By this time I had given up trying to avoid embarrassing myself and told him that I didn’t know the last word. So, his response, of course, was, “Well, then spell it to me.” Not only could he not understand me, but now I had to spell it to him. I really felt flattered. “It is r-e-n-d-z- and something with a v?” After hearing my spelling lesson the camp shouted, “It’s rendezvous!” So that is how I learned to pronounce rendezvous.
Great
I love anecdotes about times we embarrass ourselves. What you also say in this piece, though, is how embarrassment often leads to discovery, a kind of negative impetus, as it were. Unfortunately, that's true about a lot of discovery... we think one thing only to discover that we were totally wrong. A friend of mine calls that Glorious Failure, which I like as both a description and life motto. We ARE so afraid of failing.
So in this case, you risked failure yet went ahead. Hats off to you. Very nice description and I particularly like your use of dialogue from your "wise-cracking cousin." Too often writers over-use dialogue or do not capture what makes the dialogue real. In this case, the phrase "You want to repeat that a couple more times, son...." The word "son" really adds a great deal; I can almost hear him smiling.
I like the strength of your voice, the confidence with which you tell this story. We look forward to more of your work.
gg