“If you don’t do/behave such and such, I’ll kill you.” Your friends probably said similar statements to you all the time. “If you don’t haul your lazy as* off the couch and do the laundry, I will kill you.” So do wives who blow this sort of harmless threat to their husbands. “Kill” is an exaggerating word people use often on a daily basis, and probably are not even aware of the word choice.

But then in a more “sensitive” society:

Croatians say ’sto’ and Bosnian say ’sta,’ simple as that. One day I got confused, thus I asked my friends for verification and then joked, “I’ve better say it right or they [Croatians] will ‘kill’ me.”

Two friends whom I asked sent me this sharpest glare and quickly snapped at me. “Hey, you don’t understand us. We had problem in the past, but we live peacefully together now.”

“Uh! What have I done?” I bit my lip and pondered.

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