Caught on the Wrong Side — Samoan Proverb Tee

Ua se le atu i ama.
"The bonito was mistakenly pulled up on the outrigger side."

When a bonito takes the bait, a fisherman swings his rod forward on the open side of the canoe — swing it the wrong way, toward the ama (outrigger), and the line snags, the hook tears loose, and the fish is lost. Samoans use this alagaupu as an upu fa'amaulalo, a humble word of apology: spoken by an orator who, in the heat of a discussion, has offended a listener or skipped over one of the customary forms of address. It owns the mistake plainly, the way a fisherman owns a badly-timed cast.

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