Articles

The noun phrase a elephant in the cartoon above (19 November 2010) looks like an error arising out of ignorance. However, a more plausible explanation is that the cartoonist had merely been very careless. As an amateur calligrapher myself I know all too well how easy it is to misspell even the simplest of words — and even one’s own name! — when writing (and typesetting) a piece very slowly and deliberately by hand, especially in capital letters.

Ambiguity

The headline above (Straits Times web, 20 October 2009) is unintentionally ambiguous and amusing.

The noun phrase ageing panel is intended to mean ‘panel that works on issues involving ageing’ (ageing is a noun here), but arguably the more obvious and natural reading would be ‘panel of ageing members’ (ageing as adjective).

Linguistic Coincidence

If you know German, the above headline may be mildly amusing, because Putin is a close rhyme for German Puten (plural of Pute), meaning ‘turkey hen’.

Incidentally, in French, Putin would be pronounced as putain, which means (among other things) ‘prostitute’.

Adverbials

To the perverse or evil, the above headline (Daily Telegraph, 19 May 2009), Cooking with Children, may suggest they are about to read an article giving them recipe ideas using children as ingredients — free-range children, anyone? — something like the following book title, Cooking with Spices:

Adverbials such as the above have many meanings. The headline is intended to have an ‘accompaniment’ meaning, e.g. I went to the zoo with my children today, while the book title has an ‘instrument’ meaning, e.g. I opened the tin with a sharp knife. It is only when the reader misinterprets the intended adverbial meaning that hilarity ensues.

Fortunate Food

This sign, which incidentally is perfectly grammatical, seems to suggest that only restaurant food that is fortunate is allowed in.

If, however, you were physically there and knew it was the entrance to Fortunate Restaurant, then you would understand it to mean only food ordered from the restaurant may be consumed there.

Syntactically, the noun phrases are structured differently. The intended interpretation has food as head noun and Fortunate Restaurant as noun premodifier. By contrast, the unintended meaning has food as head noun also, but with two premodifiers: the adjective fortunate and the noun restaurant.

Whom

Nice to know that good the object pronoun whom is still going strong in some quarters!

Rongal Reagan

Rongal Reagan (Straits Times, 21 October 2008)? As in Rongal McDonald? More pertinently, how did that get past the Straits Times editors?

Rongal Reagan

Rongal McDonald

Seen Anythibg Suspicious?

Spotted at Outram Park station. No doubt this was the result of n and b being adjacent keys on a qwerty keyboard.

Free Tibet‘Free Tibet!’, exhorts the man waving the placard. However, the lady (assuming she isn’t trying to be funny) misinterprets the message, and believes she is on to a good thing.

The humour of this cartoon derives from the fact that the intended message has the structure V+O (free being a transitive, imperative verb and Tibet, the object), whereas the lady misconstrues free Tibet as a noun phrase (NP), with head noun Tibet and free as a premodifying adjective.

Manila Buys Choppers From Singapore

The New Paper, 9 June 2008

Chopper

The Pleasure of Reading

How not to read or teach reading ...

Metathesis

Metathesis is a term in phonetics referring, loosely, to swapping sounds around. A good example is the common children’s pronunciation of spaghetti as pasketti, which avoids the problematic initial cluster, /sp/.

Above, we have a particularly cheeky example ... how could anybody take offence!

Bad Teacher

Be the best teacher you can be. And don’t blame the dog!

Let’s Peel Mandarin

Tired of ‘Speak Mandarin’ campaigns? How about peeling it instead?

(Not an error, of course.)

Girls No More?

1995: Spice Girls

2007: Spice Aunties?

Funny Accent You Have



Everyone has an accent … except me!

Reptilian Environmentalist?

Don’t know about you, but on seeing this sunbathing reptile I was immediately reminded of the somewhat derogatory term tree hugger — meaning ‘an environmental campaigner, especially one who aims to restrict logging’ (Wikipedia).

Diving To Serve You BetterFirst they were bus drivers, then bus captains ... now they’re multi-tasking bus divers (Today 10.08.07).

No wonder they say we’ve got a world-class transport system.

Next Available Count




Count Dracula’s consultation hour?

Ze Importance of Sinking



This has got to be one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen. The joke derives from the fact that many Germans cannot pronounce the voiced and voiceless interdental fricatives in English (as in this thing), replacing them with /z/ and /s/ respectively. (So it’s not just the French.) Hence, the young German mistakes ‘thinking’ for ‘sinking’.

Incidentally, years ago I had a lecturer, originally German, who taught radio production. Although he had a reasonably good American accent, there were some English sounds he simply couldn’t master. One morning, during a lecture on speaking and breathing techniques, he took in a deep breath ... held both hands up to chest level ... and bellowed: ‘Hold your bress!’ I’ll never forget the laughter that ensued.