Having immigrated to the United States as a young adult, I shall never completely lose my accent. It usually doesn’t bother me, but sometimes it does create confusion.

Gophers were digging holes in our farmland, and I worried that our cows could break a leg in one of them. I was, therefore quite interested in an ad I saw in our local paper: A retired serviceman was asking for permission to shoot gophers on private land.

After making the arrangements, I decided to check with the police to make sure shooting gophers was legal. So I phoned and explained the situation to the officer, and asked if that was legal.

There was a moment’s silence before the officer asked, “Do you live next to the golf course?”

I had no idea what made him think that and answered, “No, I don’t.”

“Then why,” he asked, “would you want to shoot golfers?”