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  1. - Top - End - #511
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    dehro's Avatar

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    I was rather surprised when a bulgarian kid I gave lessons to burst out laughing when I called a curve a curva, which is the italian word for it..
    apparently in bulgarian it has to do with women of negotiable affection, as Pratchett puts it.
    All hail Smutmulch for crafting my avatar!
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    Cursed zombies are more realistic.
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    the Badass Monkby Avi. Aktarus by Chd. Dehro by Wojiz


  2. - Top - End - #512
    Colossus in the Playground
     
    Eldan's Avatar

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    Quote Originally Posted by historiasdeosos View Post
    I also love that Honda marketed the Fitta in Scandinavia.
    I think the best car related one is still when they marketed the MR2 in France.
    Resident Vancian Apologist

  3. - Top - End - #513
    Troll in the Playground
     
    GolemsVoice's Avatar

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    The English word "Gift" is a present. It's also the German word for "Poison".
    I've once read a story of evacuated Jewish kids who were transported from Germany to England. Upon their arrival they saw a lot of "Gift Shops" and feared that it was all a trick and they would still be poisoned.
    Si non confectus, non reficiat.

    The beautiful girl is courtesy of Serpentine
    My S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripjat Let's Play! Please give it a read, more than one constant reader would be nice!

  4. - Top - End - #514
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    HeadlessMermaid's Avatar

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    I think the best car related one is still when they marketed the MR2 in France.
    Also, the French title of Jaws was "Les dents de la mer", which proved to be a problem when Jaws 2 came out.

    I vaguely remember a friend of mine telling me that hey had to change the title completely, but according to IMDB, this is how they circumvented it: "Les dents de la mer, 2e partie". Heh.
    "We need the excuse of fiction to stage what we truly are." ~ Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
    "El bien más preciado es la libertad" ~ Valeriano Orobón Fernández, A las barricadas
    "If civilization has an opposite, it is war." ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

    Roguish | We Were Rogue | [3.5] Greek Mythology Variant | [3.5] The Fey Compendium

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  5. - Top - End - #515
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    RogueGuy

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    One my mother told me is that Finns tend to mix up he and she for people, apparently because Finnish doesn't have that distinction. She's something like on the pannell for an annual baltic film festical and said she met a number of Finns who made the mistake.
    I have several Romance-language-speaking friends who often misuse 'his' and 'her'. The problem being that possessive adjectives do use grammatical gender in their various languages, but agreeing with the gender of the thing or person possessed, not the one doing the possessing.

    In French, for example, 'son pčre' could be either 'his father' or 'her father', while 'sa mčre' could be either 'his mother' or 'her mother'. This leads them to say things like 'I saw Sarah yesterday. She was with his brother.'

    For a similar reason, I often find myself having to stop and think whenever I use 'cuyo' (whose) in Spanish, to make sure it's agreeing with the correct person!

  6. - Top - End - #516
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    SaintRidley's Avatar

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    As my Spanish linguistics professor gave it to me, the thing with embarazar is that it originally did mean to be embarrassed. It just got co-opted as a euphemism, and wound up becoming standard in that sense and its original meaning fading away.
    Linguist and Invoker of Orcus of the Rudisplorker's Guild
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    Fantasy literature is ONLY worthwhile for what it can tell us about the real world; everything else is petty escapism.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    No author should have to take the time to say, "This little girl ISN'T evil, folks!" in order for the reader to understand that. It should be assumed that no first graders are irredeemably Evil unless the text tells you they are.

  7. - Top - End - #517
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    dehro's Avatar

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    Default Re: Musings on Language #2

    ah..spanish..
    burro is italian for butter.
    and spanish for donkey

    so..don't ask for donkey on your toast for breakfast
    All hail Smutmulch for crafting my avatar!
    Quote Originally Posted by kpenguin View Post
    Cursed zombies are more realistic.
    Spoiler: siggatar and previous avatars.
    Show

    the Badass Monkby Avi. Aktarus by Chd. Dehro by Wojiz


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