When I'm speaking another language I usually assume that if it doesn't make sense I must not be understanding correctly. So, when a taxi driver turned back and asked me how long my husband had been dead I got a bit confused.
"No, no... I don't have a husband," I protested. Unfortunately that didn't really help explain things.
"Where did he die? Here? America?" the taxi driver persisted.
"No, nothing. No husband; dead or alive..." I struggled to try to say something like this but I made him only more confused. Then he pointed to a ring on the ring finger of my right hand.
Oh. I laughed. "No, this is just to be pretty." He then told me that that wasn't a pretty place for a ring. I guess here if you wear a gold colored ring on that finger then it means you were widowed. Oops.
Another cultural lesson.
