The calf on the graph

Background information:  my bishop's wife has a great story about being at a Ugandan bishop's wives conference, and being asked to be in charge of spots.  Yes, spots.  The 'r' sound often gets swallowed (to these Anglo ears), and so 'sports' can sound like 'spots.'  So, my bishop's wife was in charge of sports.  Spots.

Last week, my mathematically-inclined friend Paulson was giving a presentation (the topic escapes me, though it was rather good), and drew a graph on the blackboard to illustrate how something changed over time.

He was talking about the calf, and how we should notice what the calf does.  Calf?  I thought he said 'calf,' which didn't make sense.  'Graph' didn't make sense either, as that has the x- and y-axis.  So I asked Henry what he said.  Several times.  Each time I heard him say 'calf.'

About two hours later, I realized that Paulson was talking about the 'curve.'  Which in the African, British-inspired accent, to these Anglo ears, came out 'calf.'  Please see background story above.  When I get back to the US, ask me to tell you how he says it, but we had a good laugh as a class as I told them what Paulson said v. what I heard.  And here I thought I could translate pretty well.