This poster is keen to stress how fat-free the advertised product is. But somehow, the drafters mixed up their directions. The text says, in both Spanish and English that the product could contain ‘up to 0% fat’. So, the product has 0% fat, or even less—but wait, ‘less than 0%’ is a negative number. That…… Continue reading Up to 0% fat
Tag: Fun
Glottle
The word guessing game Wordle continues to inspire new variations on the theme. I’ve just come across Glottle, a game that involves trying to guess a mystery language. For more on Wordle, please see Wordle – Language Miscellany You start by guessing a language. The game then shows a tree displaying the target language,…… Continue reading Glottle
Bleeding sangría
Sangría is a popular Spanish drink made with wine and chopped fruit. Traditionally, sangría was made with red wine and the name is related to sangre (‘blood’). This restaurant we visited in Seville a couple of years ago decided to translate the name on the menu literally as ‘bleeding’: sangría also means bloodletting. I’m not…… Continue reading Bleeding sangría
From words to meaning
Before we can decode a written text or spoken comments, we often need a deep understanding of the context. The literal meaning of the words often does not give us enough to decipher the intended meaning. I found myself thinking about this after reading the following: ‘Man of the match in space on heading…… Continue reading From words to meaning
Please leave your room until 11 o’clock
We saw this sign at the front desk in our hotel on a recent trip to Luxembourg. Please leave your room till 11:00 a.m. One thing the sign says is: ‘Please leave your room till 11:00 am.’ That says the opposite of what is intended: intended meaning: please leave your room permanently before 11:00 am.…… Continue reading Please leave your room until 11 o’clock
Lying in politics
Unfortunate wording from the BBC in early July 2016, profiling Theresa May, about to become UK Prime Minister: “But it was already clear that she saw her future as lying in politics.” Sadly for connoisseurs of garden path sentences and of other forms of ambiguity, by 16 July 2016, the BBC had spotted the unfortunate…… Continue reading Lying in politics
Recording regional and hyper-local swear words before they disappear
Linguists at the University of Sheffield have launched a project to create the UK’s first national repository of regional swear words. UK’s first-ever national swear word census to capture real use of English language | News | The University of Sheffield The researchers say they aim to preserve a record of regional and dialect words…… Continue reading Recording regional and hyper-local swear words before they disappear
Language in Project Hail Mary
Last week, I saw the new Ryan Gosling film Project Hail Mary. It highlights some interesting questions about how a human can learn to communicate with an extraterrestrial. The film is based on a 2021 sci-fi novel of the same name by Andy Weir. Ryan Gosling’s character Ryland Grace is a scientist on a…… Continue reading Language in Project Hail Mary
Odds and ends: English
This post deals with some small aspects of English, grouped under the following headings: Spelling pronunciation meanings mass noun or count noun? word or phrase word histories 1. Spelling 1a. Bookkeeper Bookkeeper (and related bookkeeping) is one of the few English words with 3 double letters in a row: oo-kk-ee. https://whenyouwrite.com/ points out: an English…… Continue reading Odds and ends: English
Bad book binding
Book binders sometimes get it wrong. Here is the cover of a book I bought a few years ago: The Guide to the Galaxy, by Nigel Henbest and Heather Cooper. And here is the inside flysheet showing what is actually inside the covers: the German translation Die Milchstraße (literally ‘the Milky Way’) Finally, here is…… Continue reading Bad book binding