Posts Tagged ‘language’

If you've traveled overseas, especially in Europe, you are probably familiar with the abbreviation W.C. in public places. The letters stand for water closet (toilet). In Germany I was surprised to see that in some places they use the abbreviation 00 (double zero, or Null-Null in German, Null rhyming with pool). I read somewhere that it began in hotels with numbered rooms — the idea being that 00 would not be confused for a sleeping room. My mind always saw it as the letter "O" twice and I would think "uh-oh!"

Today's iv is the result of subject matters in two of my French classes this week. We just learned about the letter combination W.C. in my second semester French class yesterday. The initials W.C. always make me think of a classic bit of humor I first heard as a high schooler. When I asked my class if they had ever heard the story about the Wayside Chapel, I was surprised that only 2 of the 25 students admitted to having heard it before.

In my 17th Century French Literature class we are reading L'Avare (The Miser) by Molière. Some of Molière's comedy is based on quiproquo (from the Latin quid pro quod = something for something, the idea of one thing for another thing) in which a misunderstanding is caused by each person's talking about one thing while the other person is understanding something else. The result can be quite funny, as in today's blog post.
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Some of my readers may not know that I have international relations. My paternal grandmother was French, and I still have cousins in France whom we have visited and with whom I keep in touch. This past Saturday morning one cousin and I IM'd in French for about a half hour on Facebook. Then his dad, who is my age, took over and we IM'd until we decided to switch to Skype so that we could just talk — free and crystal clear. Talking is so much faster for us grandpas. I love having relationships with my extended family in France.

As a French teacher, I sometimes have students who say, "I don't know why I have to take a foreign language." From their limited perspective they don't realize that it's probably never been more important. Understanding other languages and cultures is essential for international relations, not only in the political and corporate arenas, but also especially in the realm of missions.

Today's post highlights examples of botched international relations — some serious and some lighthearted — just what you've come to expect from ivman's blague.
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Confusion comes in so many different forms. Sometimes we see something that we have a hard time taking in, whether it be an optical illusion or just simply a scene or situation that is complicated or contradictory. Other times we hear something that we have a hard time assimilating. I tend to be a visual learner, and so hearing something confusing causes more problems for me than seeing something confusing. If someone spells something to me aloud, they might as well be doing so with a foreign alphabet that I don't know!

A reader sent me the following the other day from Reader's Digest. The person on the other end of the phone must have been like me....

My friend opened a ministry, using a snippet from the Bible as the name. But he soon regretted his decision to order office supplies over the phone. When his stationery arrived, it bore the letterhead "That Nun Should Perish. - Tom Harrison

I can't imagine printing up a large quantity of something like that without asking for clarification first!

Whichever kind of learner you are, you might find it helpful to read the first two pieces below aloud to get the full impact.
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On my blog I poke fun at all sorts of things, good-naturedly, of course. It's especially fun when it's something that I know I am also guilty of. The other day I said something in class and immediately realized that what I had said was redundant. I pointed out to my students what I had said. I figured it was at least marginally on topic — I teach French and linguistic redundancies are undoubtedly possible in every language.

Here's a dictionary definition of the word:

re·dun·dan·cy (noun), 1. The state of being redundant. 2. A superfluity; an excess. 3. Unnecessary repetition.

Here's a fun visualization of redundancy that I found online:

Newscasters and politicians, possibly because of the sheer amount of speaking they do, seem to offer up quite a few redundancies. The other day in connection with Swine Flu (H1N1) I heard one person call it a "world-wide pandemic disease." But they don't have a monopoly on redundancy. Yesterday I heard someone talking about "two twins." And for some reason, all of my high school social studies teachers used to say "irregardless."

Some redundancies might not even strike people as being redundant, until further reflection, like "government deficits." Some redundancies result from adding a superfluous modifier to a word that is already an absolute, like "quite unique" or "very true." Though we say these things innocently, they are still redundancies that we repetitiously repeat again and again over and over. You get the point, which is why say it twice?

I had an extremely long list of redundancies in my files and found some even longer lists online. Rather than repeating those lists, here are some of my personal favorites:
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Yesterday was the first day of classes on campus. I enjoyed seeing my old students as well as meeting my new students. For some first-time language students, the thought of learning a new language is quite daunting. It's not always easy to express yourself well in another language, and opportunities for embarrassment from saying something wrong abound, like the EXIT sign on the right seen in a Hispanic country.

To encourage my students fairly early on, I tell them about the first time I went to France in the summer of 1972, between my junior and senior year of college. I wanted to visit some of my relatives there with whom I had corresponded often, but whom I had never met. In those days we were limited to writing letters — air mail would get a letter across the ocean in less than a week! For students used to texting and e-mail, that part of my story makes history come alive — they could show off their teacher on Antiques Roadshow! Anyway, I wrote to my cousins, trying to find out if I was invited to stay in their home without making them feel obligated. I told them that I could stay in an inexpensive hotel nearby or that I would be willing to sleep on the floor. They wrote back and offered me a place to stay. Phew!

Several days after my arrival, once we all knew each other better and discovered that we shared the same sense of humor, they pulled out my letter and asked me something they had been dying to ask, but hadn't, for fear of offending me. They said (in French, of course), "We know that you Americans are really special, but how did you intend to sleep up there?" (looking and pointing up) At first I thought they meant in their upstairs. But then they showed me my letter. I had written in French that I would be willing to sleep on the plafond (ceiling). I should have written plancher (floor). My being able to laugh at myself served only to endear me to my family there.

Today's iv is a list of some items found on menus and of some products available around the world, all of which have unfortunate names or descriptions that may not be so endearing.

Bizarre Menu Items

The following are actual menu items in which people have made incorrect use of English words and created some rather bizarre dishes:

Beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion (Poland)

Boiled frogfish (Europe)

Buttered saucepans and fried hormones (Japan)

Cold shredded children and sea blubber in spicy sauce (China)

Dreaded veal cutlet with potatoes in cream (China)

French Creeps (L.A., where I'll bet they meant crêpes)

French fried ships (Cairo)

Fried fishermen (Japan)

Fried friendship (Nepal)

Garlic Coffee (Europe)

Goose Barnacles (Spain)

Indonesian Nazi Goreng (Hong Kong)

Muscles Of Marines/Lobster Thermos (Cairo)

Pork with fresh garbage (Vietnam)

Rainbow Trout, Fillet Streak, Popotoes, Chocolate Mouse (Hong Kong)

Roasted duck let loose (Poland)

Sôle Bonne Femme (Fish Landlady style) (Europe)

Sweat from the trolley (Europe)

Teppan Yaki, Before Your Cooked Right Eyes (Japan)

Toes with butter and jam (Bali)

The sign below has an interesting list of the rules in one Asian restaurant.

Strange Product Names

Sometimes words that are innocent enough in one language can mean something quite different in another language. Would you English speakers like to buy the detergent pictured below?

Barf is the Farsi word for "snow." Somehow it's hard to imagine having snow-white, sweet-smelling clothes after you wash them in a detergent with that name!

Here are the unfortunate names of some other products from around the world.

Cat Wetty - Japanese moistened hand towels

Clean Finger Nail - Chinese tissues

Colon Plus - Spanish detergent

Crundy - Japanese gourmet candy

I'm Dripper - Japanese instant coffee

Kolic - Japanese mineral water

My Fanny - Japanese toilet paper

Pipi - Yugoslavian orangeade

Polio - Czechoslovakian laundry detergent

Shocking - Japanese chewing gum

Swine - Chinese chocolates

Zit - Greek soft drink

Are you eager to try any of those items? Do you have a personal experience of miscommunicating in another language?

quotation...

"The wise teacher knows that fifty-five minutes of work plus five minutes of laughter are worth twice as much as sixty minutes of unvaried work." - paraphrased from Gilbert Highet

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

If you can't laugh at yourself, you may be missing some of the best comedy available.

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