June 17, 2009 • 3:14 pm 0
Writing about http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8104519.stm
A linguistics professor was lecturing to her class one day. “In English,” she said, “A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah . . .right.”
August 6, 2008 • 8:34 am 1
dem·a·gog·icAudio Help [dem-uh-goj-ik, -gog-, -goh-jik] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a demagogue. der·ma·tol·o·gy–noun
the branch of medicine dealing with the skin and its diseases. —Related formsder·ma·to·log·i·cal
I’m quickly editing the OU Club Guide this morning (which includes listing of the discounts available to staff), have just had to substitute dermatological for demagogical in a Beauty Therapist’s listing!
Filed under: Internal Communications, Joke, Language
March 13, 2008 • 9:44 am 3
Note: the Accountant referred to is not Himself!
The difference is in the understanding of the word Clarity.
| 1. | clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity. |
| 2. | the state or quality of being clear or transparent to the eye; pellucidity: the clarity of pure water. |
Clarity to a communicator means simplicity and ease of understanding. Clarity to an accountant means freedom from ambiguity of indistinctinctness.
I would argue that the more clauses that are inserted into a sentence with the aim of avoiding ambiguity or indistinctness the less easy to understand it is.
Filed under: Internal Communications, Language, PR, Work
March 3, 2008 • 12:32 pm 2
From my Dad… Posted because I went home for the weekend and because I wore my white stilettos on Friday night (honestly) and because I don’t forward these things on but it’s worth sharing.
alma chizzit - A request to find the cost of an item
amant - Quantity; sum total (“Thez a yuge amant of mud in Saffend”)
assband - Unable to leave the house because of illness, disability etc
awss - A four legged animal, on which money is won, or more likely lost (“That awss ya tipped cost me a fiver t’day”)
branna - More brown than on a previous occasion (“Ere, Trace, ya look branna today, ave you been on sunbed?”)
cort a panda - A rather large hamburger
Dan in the maff - Unhappy (“Wossmatta, Trace, ya look a bit Dan in the maff”)
eye-eels - Women’s shoes
Furrock - The location of Lakeside Shopping Centre
garrij - A building where a car is kept or repaired(Trace: “Oi, Darren, I fink the motah needs at go in the garrij cos it aint working proper”)
Ibeefa - Balaeric holiday island
lafarjik - Lacking in energy (“I feel all lafarjik“)
OI OI! - Traditional greeting. Often heard from the doorway of pubs or during banging dance tunes at clubs
paipa - The Sun, The Mirror or The Sport
reband - The period of recovery and emotional turmoil after rejection by a lover (“I couldn’t elp it, I wuz on the reband from Craig”)
Saffend - Essex coastal resort boasting the longest pleasure pier in the world. The place where the characters from TV’s, popular soap opera, Eastenders go on holiday
tan - The city of London , the big smoke
webbats - Querying the location something or someone is. (“Webbats is me dole card Trace? I’ve gotta sign on in arf hour”)
wonnid - 1. Desired, needed. 2. Wanted by the police
zaggerate - To suggest that something is bigger or better than it actually is. (“I told ya a fazzand times already”)
February 18, 2008 • 12:30 pm 0
JUNO (in low tones) Dude, I’m pregnant.
LEAH Maybe it’s just a food baby. Did you have a big lunch?
JUNO It’s not a food baby. I took three pregnancy tests today. I am fo shiz up the spout.
LEAH How did you even generate enough pee for three pregnancy tests?
JUNO I drank like ten tons of Sunny Delight. Anyway, yeah. I’m pregnant. And you’re acting shockingly cavalier.
LEAH Is this for real? Like for real, for real?
JUNO Unfortunately, yes.
LEAH Oh my God! Oh shit! Phuket Thailand!
JUNO That’s the kind of emotion I was looking for in the first take.
LEAH Well, are you going to go to Havenbrooke or Women Now? You need a note from your parents for Havenbrooke.
JUNO I know. Women Now, I guess. The commercial says they help women now.
October 30, 2007 • 3:52 pm 0
August 31, 2007 • 11:25 am 3
We had a fabulous time, and marched our way around the churches and museums and ate our way round the foccaherias, gelaterias, mercado, trattorias and ristoranti!
My top food places of the trip were:
The most memorable meal of the week – not least because I hadn’t quite got my Italian tongue in yet. We queued briefly for a table and were then seated between a family of Italians and a French couple.
The waiter opened a 2-litre straw covered bottle of chianti for the table that we were sharing with the French couple and then asked us whether we wanted apperitivo. I thought that he meant apperatifs so tried to order some and failed. He then asked whether we wanted apperitivo or soup or pasta, we went for apperativo to give us some thinking space. I was getting a bit worried by this point.
Anyway a wonderful mezze of different appetiser dishes started to appear: beutiful fresh milky soft mozerella with ripe tomatoes, chicken liver crostinis, melon and prosciutto and a grain salad. Meanwhile I was asking the French lady whether she had understood the deal with the wine as none of us had touched it. She caught the waiter’s attention and asked him in French – it was being charged for by the glass so we tucked in.
The apperitivo plates were cleared and I has started to settle down assuming that a menu would soon be provided. But no, to my alarm, another waiter came back and asked us whether we wanted soup or pasta next! The whole meal continued in this way – it certainly kept us on our toes but the food and the atmosphere were wonderful!
Then papa, for this was a family-run restaurant, was finally found to give us the bill. He arrived at the table and our waited came up to recite, from memory, what we had had (right down to the correct number of glasses of wine)! €70!
For chilling, masses of free apperitivo (on a held-yourself basis), seeing and being seen and for Negronis. I am now waging a campaign to bring back Campari to the masses – it’s not all Luton Airport and Lorraine Chase you know!
Wonderful plate of meats including a smoked lard. Fabulous piece of roasted pork rolled with sage – served with potatoes that had been roasted under the pork!
I do regret not having had a Bistecca alla Fiorentina though – especially after having read this review.
Never mind I have stroked the porcellino so I am destined to return to Florence and I can expand my knowledge then.
Filed under: Birthday, Cocktails, Food, Himself, Holiday, Italian, Language, Uncategorized
July 27, 2007 • 11:56 am 3
Writing about
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/ram/today4_obscurewords_20070727.ram
And about
Foyle’s Philavery - A Treasury of Unusual Words
Hooray for Christopher Foyle – a good Essex man from near Maldon – and, of course, something to do with a few big bookshops.
I was reminded of this just now (I confess I had forgotten it from this morning!) because I’m in the process of editing something written by an academic colleague.
The thing that reminded me was the question posed by Evan Davis: should we make a point of using obscure words to prolong their existance or should we concentrate on making ourselves understood using say the 800 most commonly-used words?
We certainly claim to have have a good many more words in English than in other languages – but see the Oxford Dictionaries on this….
A system of government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.
For those of you who love a good euphemism, Bovine Scatology is a term
coined by General Norman Schwarzkopf, first heard by the viewing public
at a press briefing on status of the air and ground campaigns during the
Persain Gulf War. The general referred to speculations by various
military pundits, employed by CNN and other news gathering/reporting
organizations, as “bovine scatology”.
July 2, 2007 • 12:32 pm 6
is Boggle.
We used to have a similar game when we were growing up – but the ability to shake all the dice at once is a vast improvement.
At the moment the game is following me round the house – and the sound of plastic clashing against plastic is driving Himself and Sparka crackers.
The best tactic, I’ve found, is to write down everything and then check if they are dictionary words later….
We may soon be having to institute negative marking!
Filed under: Language, Randomness
January 22, 2007 • 6:12 pm 0
Writing about web page http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_method=full%26objectid=18297832%26siteid=50003-name_page.html
What a fabulous idea! And good news for Coventry too.
Hopefully the range of languages will grow though. It would be
really useful to have carefully selected levels of conversational
Italian snippets to listen to.
