Funny Looking
by Charlie Geer
“Fany Look” is one of many beauty salons here in Puente Genil. You might reasonably assume Fany Look to be a beauty salon owned by an individual named Fany. In fact the proprietor’s name is Inma. What Inma is going for with “Fany” is “Funny.” We’ve already seen that, because the “uh” sound does not exist in Castilian Spanish, it is often replaced with an “ah” sound, represented by “a.” To spell “funny” f-u-n-n-y in Spain would leave us with something like “foony look,” which would sound kind of, um, funny. Instead what we have is a Spanglés version of “Funny Look.”
Which, as a name for a beauty salon, sounds kind of, um, funny.
What Inma may really be going for is “Fun,” as in Fun Look. Because the words fun and funny look and sound so much alike, ESL speakers often confuse them. The two words are related, of course, but each has its own implication. For example, a fun person is not necessarily funny. Think of the kids in high school who organize pep rallies and such. They might be considered “fun” kids, as in kids who generate diversion, but down deep, organizers of pep rallies and such are perhaps rather serious kids with an eye toward beefing up the extracurricular-activity section of their college applications. Correspondingly, a funny person is not necessarily fun. There are a lot of clinically depressed humorists out there. More than a few accomplished comedians have major substance-abuse problems. The expression “tears of a clown” might serve us here, except that clowns are not necessarily funny. Or fun.
As far as a funny look goes, where I’m from, You look funny, boy is not meant to suggest that you look like you may have potential as a humorist. It is meant to suggest that you find somewhere else to be, and soon. Not many people go into a beauty salon and say, I’ll take the funny look. A person may come out of a beauty salon looking kind of funny, but there’s no accounting for taste. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then maybe funny is, too.
At this point we have likely spent much more energy on the name Fany Look than Inma ever did. In the time we’ve spent considering the name Fany Look, Inma has served a goodly number of people, and earned a goodly amount of money. We, on the other hand, have earned not a single céntimo. But hell, it’s been fun.
Addendum: It’s been fun, yes, but totally irrelevant. Further research reveals that the proprietor of Fany Look is a lovely young woman named “Estefanía,” for which “Fany” is the nickname. The confused party in this case, then, would be yours truly, resident smart ass. Hopefully that will seem funny one day. For now, my apologies and regards to Fany. If I had any hair left, I’d be sure to get it styled at Fany Look.
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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.
