| Chamaeleon
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| 10692. Sun Nov 14, 2004 10:22 pm |
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| JumpingJack wrote: | Hi Chamaeleon
Just had a look at your fascinating site.
Looks like we could use a chap like you around here. (Not there are many like you I imagine).
Start a thread why don't you? There's a lot of us who are seriously interested in languages - brackett speaks Mandarin and Gaazy Welsh to name but two... |
Thanks.
It's always interesting to look at my site logs, see who has been linking to me, and follow the links back. Conclusion: I see that an awful lot of people are interested in Pablo Neruda and wanking. |
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| Flash
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| 10697. Mon Nov 15, 2004 4:13 am |
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| In idle moments I wonder whether Puccini was aware that the name "Pinkerton" is, to English ears, both slightly comical and irresistibly reminiscent of old-fashioned detectives in brown bowler hats. |
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| Commander
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| 10705. Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:04 am |
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We bought a lovely packet of SOD tea in Singapore.
Rather nice actually ... |
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| Jazzman
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| 10710. Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:00 am |
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[quote="Chamaeleon"] | JumpingJack wrote: | Hi Chamaeleon
Just had a look at your fascinating site.
.....
It's always interesting to look at my site logs, see who has been linking to me, and follow the links back. Conclusion: I see that an awful lot of people are interested in Pablo Neruda and wanking. |
Well, that made me sit up and take notice...
what's the url of this site? |
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| Chamaeleon
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| 10718. Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:52 pm |
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| Jazzman wrote: | | Chamaeleon wrote: | | JumpingJack wrote: | Hi Chamaeleon
Just had a look at your fascinating site.
.....
It's always interesting to look at my site logs, see who has been linking to me, and follow the links back. Conclusion: I see that an awful lot of people are interested in Pablo Neruda and wanking. |
Well, that made me sit up and take notice...
what's the url of this site? |
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Haha, it's the site that started this thread. It contains several sample translations (I'm selling translation services) and I get a lot of hits from people searching for a certain piece by Neruda (Sonnet 17 from Cien sonetos de amor) and also quite a lot for a short article I wrote on the origin of the word pajero. I actually only wrote the article to avoid having the word "wanker" in the middle of another page that was on the importance of localisation (I moved the explanation of the term onto a separate page that they had to decide to access, so that they wouldn't be offended when they came across it). I expanded the article when I saw how many hits it was getting. |
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| Gaazy
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| 88658. Thu Aug 24, 2006 4:46 pm |
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This is more of a highly unfortunate name rather than a funny one.
Ayds were hunger-suppressant chewy sweets which were heavily advertised (and much purchased) in the 1970s and early 1980s, but eventually withdrawn from production for obvious reasons.
Videos of old Ayds adverts still circulate on websites because of the (now) insensitive slogans, such as Why take diet pills when you can enjoy Ayds?
I must also mention here a still-popular brand of eyedrops called Murine. Quite apart from the fact that it looks like 'urine' with an extra letter, the word 'murine' means 'pertaining to mice' in the same way as canine, feline, ursine, bovine and ovine refer to dogs, cats, bears, cows and sheep. |
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| mckeonj
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| 88968. Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:11 pm |
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Regarding the 'funny translations' of English into Chinese; I understand, from conversations with my father, that Chinese ideograms serve two purposes: each has a name, and a meaning. Normally, ideograms, when written in association, convey an idea (man+woman+house=harmony, concord) (woman+woman+house=disharmony, discord). However, the name of an ideogram can be used as a phoneme, to spell out a foreign word or name phonetically. There must be some convention to mark a group of ideograms as phonetic, but I do not know what it is.
There is such a usage in ancient Egyptian, where the glyphs representing a name were enclosed in a cartouche.
If this is the case in Chinese, then all these 'wax tadpole' stories are just plain silliness.
Take Spoonerisms: if the good Doctor rides a well-boiled icicle, it doesn't take much wit to realise that he rides a well-oiled bicycle; even less wit to laugh. |
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| Mr Grue
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| 89014. Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:32 pm |
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| Adez anyone? |
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| gerontius grumpus
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| 89035. Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:01 pm |
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| Gaazy wrote: | | For all I know, there's still a French fizzy drink called "Pschitt" which, as kids on a school trip to France in 1964, we regularly ordered in the restaurant purely for the pleasure of asking for a bottle of shit without being censured by our teachers. In actual fact, the drink was immeasurably tastier than anything comparable that we'd drunk at home. |
Some of my school friends in the early seventies went on a trip to France and they found an intersting selection of fizzy drinks for sale.
They drank Pschitt, Pis and Sic. (I'm not too sure about the spelling.) |
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| tetsabb
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| 89086. Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:25 am |
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In a supermarket in France I have seen jars of (IIRC) crushed and dried garlic with the company name 'Malaka'. I imagine this product does not sell well in Greece, as the word means 'Wanker' in their language.
Which makes me wonder how much tittering goes on on board a Greek-crewed ship in the Malacca Straits. Or do you think the navigator is ordered to avoid the place? |
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| gerontius grumpus
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| 89114. Sat Aug 26, 2006 9:49 am |
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Is it true about what they call sellotape in Australia?
It would be most uncomfortable to use and agony to remove. |
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| swot
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| 89147. Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:28 am |
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According to Mr Carrott it is.
*chuckle* |
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| Jenny
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| 89351. Sun Aug 27, 2006 11:45 am |
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| The word 'Trojans' provokes the same reaction in the US that Durex provokes in the UK. Similarly, a rubber is a condom - what you want for correcting mistakes in written work is an eraser. |
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| mckeonj
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| 89487. Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:48 am |
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| Jenny wrote: | | The word 'Trojans' provokes the same reaction in the US that Durex provokes in the UK. Similarly, a rubber is a condom - what you want for correcting mistakes in written work is an eraser. |
How to destroy an American: Ask him if you can borrow his rubber when he has finished with it. |
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| gerontius grumpus
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| 89493. Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:16 am |
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| mckeonj wrote: | | Jenny wrote: | | The word 'Trojans' provokes the same reaction in the US that Durex provokes in the UK. Similarly, a rubber is a condom - what you want for correcting mistakes in written work is an eraser. |
How to destroy an American: Ask him if you can borrow his rubber when he has finished with it. |
Or tell him he's been working like a trojan. |
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