Over a couple of lunchtime drinks today a culturecrat intimated that it might be possible to fast-track ghit into the official dictionary of a widely spoken Romance language. Being first with this kind of thing is important – just think of the PR.
The difficulty of interpreting intent in materials published in a different language and cultural context was one of the interesting facets of the case of the Fuengirola imam, convicted of publishing with malicious intent a manual on how to beat women without leaving scars. It’s not going to get any easier here once radio and…
The sports stars interviewed here by Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News confirm what every Dutch child knows already: watch television in your target tongue and you can skip those expensive and boring language classes. Different alphabets are another kettle of fish, however: “I was reading a book that Artukhin had on the bus,” Richardson said. “It was Russian.…
I’m used to contracts where one language version is assigned precedence over others. In linguistically cautious Quebec, defendants have the right to be judged by the version – French or English – of legislation that most favours their case, as this tale of Agent 008 and the dodgy pawnshop demonstrates.
This is brilliant: a historical archive of interviews between ropemakers, dry stone wall-builders, football fans, pig slaughterers and some folk from London with very strange accents indeed. Via the Telegraph, which also includes a good interview with the curator. There’s some gorgeous stuff in the other collections, including this 1890 Bovril ad. It seems that…
David Beckham and Andalusian chanteur David Bisbal are the public figures most admired by Madrilenian schoolchildren aged 6-12, according to a new survey. While the missus is admired elsewhere for the form, if not the functioning, of her aural receptors, I suspect that Becks the voice artist may eventually revolutionise English teaching in Spain. Says…
How I used to chant UB40’s Ivory Madonna when I was small, drunk and confused. Other well-known versions of this include “I’ve a green banana,” but no one gets misunderstood like Michael Jackson. This, from Misheard Lyrics, is not an excerpt from Beat It: Heated, heated. No one wants a beef fajita. Show ’em hot…
Reports the Chicago Tribune: New Lenox’s newest cop barks, or at least understands, only a foreign tongue. So when canine officer Bear joined the force five months ago, his partner, Officer John Conroy, learned to give commands to the Czech born and bred German shepherd in his native language. “It is a bit of a…
A widely-ranging post by Iggy on Blogalization analyses the bizarre request by epinions to a hapless user to rewrite “unhelpful” Spanish-language posts in English. I hope that I will have moved on before someone tells me to redo all of this in Mandarin.