When in L.A., Speak as the Europeans Do

“Is L.A. an international city or what?” writes Evelyn Baruch, enclosing an ad for a “European Hide-Away” apartment in L.A. The notice says: “Se Habla German & French.”

Mama mia!

OH, DEER: Cliff Dektar figures that deer in the Mount Olympus area west of Hollywood have been ignoring the speed limits with such impunity that the authorities have been forced to take radical steps (see photo).

IT’S ONE OF THESE MILLENNIA: You know all that talk about computers not being able to comprehend the changeover to the year 2000? Well, Rod Rodriguez received a new credit card and noticed that it appeared to be valid only through the year 1000 (see accompanying). Actually, the statement means it’s valid through the 10th month of the year ’00.

THE NINA, THE PAINTER AND THE SANTA MARIA: On Columbus Day, someone splashed red paint on the sign that declares the Santa Monica Freeway to be the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. It was the yearly protest against what some believe was the treacherous manner in which the Italian navigator dealt with Native Americans.

If you’re wondering whether there are similar protests on the 10 across the nation, the answer’s no. No other state through which the 10 passes would give the roadway the Columbus designation. Whose idea was it? Caltrans’.

DOESN’T SOUND LIKE . . . : “Back around 1960, local disc jockey Dick Hugg [“Huggie Boy”] took dedications live from the window of Flash’s Record Store on Central Avenue in L.A.,” relates Erv Nichols of Big Bear. “I wrote out the following dedication: ‘From Erv to Armida, my little Chihuahua.’

“When broadcast to the world it came out, “From Eru to Armanda, my little chi-hooa-hooa.”

“Never saw Armanda after that.”

THE ROSETTA STONE WAS EASIER TO DECIPHER: On Wednesday, this column showed a letter addressed to a family on “Roada Lata Air” in “Rudelapie, Calif.” The family actually lived on Rue de la Pierre in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Jean Allen advanced a theory about the miscues, based on her experiences “as a teacher who has decoded many crazy spellings” and innumerable cases of “hard-to-read writing.”

Allen suspects the clerk couldn’t read his or her own handwriting and never got around to attempting to spell Rancho Palos Verdes. Instead, both “Roada Lata Air” and “Rudelapie” were attempts at “Rue de la Pierre.”

Allen points out that though “I always spell my street (Notteargenta Road) and city (Pacific Palisades), still people often think I live in Palos Verdes.”

Notteargenta, which is Italian, translates loosely as Silver Night. “Two blocks away from my street is Monte Grigio (Mountain Gray),” she said. “We often have delivery persons arrive [here] with a package for the same house number on Mount Grigio.”

Obviously, those delivery people don’t habla Italian. May a chi-hooa-hooa nip them on the ankles.

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Are there no standards left? A woman walked into a hardware store in Thousand Oaks and asked Steve Ellis if she could buy a yardstick. He showed her one, whereupon she responded, “No, I need the short type.”

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.

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