Tag: English

Во многих языках мира есть обозначающие родителей слова типа “мама”, “папа/баба”. Причина кроется в том, что ребёнку, не владеющему речью, губные звуки воспроизвести легче всего, потому что он видит орган артикуляции. Довольные родители, в свою очередь, считают, что дети обращаются к ним. Так и повелось 🙂

Infants typically go through a phase when they utter mamama, babababa sequences. Fond parents gleefully assume their child is referring to them, which is why words such as mama and papa are found the world over as pet names for parents (Jakobson 1962/1971). In fact, the child is instinctively exercising its vocal organs in an enjoyable and non-meaningful way.

The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution (Jean Aitchison).

“I’m brave! I WILL actually open those Romanian books” – thought Alex suspecting no evil. “So what if you don’t know the language? What problems can pose another Romance one, with 20% of words of Slavic origin? Phah.”

And then she hit the very first words, in the title of the story, as on the pic. Bordel de merde, how do you read Elvish characters? Let’s check out the contents page. “D-l Goe”, ok, much clearer, thanks. Come on, Romania, what kind of word is this? 😀 That’s not fair! 😀 We, the French, are not easily confused. This obvious construction must be something like “de le”, and the story is “du Goe” – people always do this to pronouns, articles and prepositions. But later on the combination appears as a subject of a sentence -> must be a noun -> must be a short form of “domnul” (which turned out to be right) -> Mr. Goe. Seems like I forgot простейшие вещи, г-да.

Besides this little bastard, on the next three pages you find things like d-ta, n-are, l-ar, c-a, şi-l, i-a, să-l, whatever they mean 🙂 It is soothing to know there are languages nearby that think a couple of hyphened letters is a word alright – just like it calms you to know there still are people who suck in their spaghetti instead of using a spoon. And that’s nice, you don’t just love a language for it’s ă, â, ț and î 🙂 Gonna be fun 🙂

…what a terrible tongue twister, what a terrible tongue twister, what a terrible tongue twister…

to take care of a place while someone who is usually there is gone, such as a store or one’s home.

Stupid O’ Clock (US) A US Army slang term that refers to any time very early in the morning

Unfuck (US Army, Marines) To bring something or someone into proper order and accord with SOP.

sniper check (Canada/US) A salute rendered to an officer in a field environment, where salutes are normally proscribed because they identify officers to the enemy.

Little Shitty Volkswagen (Canada) Derisive backronym for “LSVW”, which actually stands for “Light Support Vehicle, Wheeled”.

FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition (or Repair)

Seagull manager – A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

Percussive maintenance – The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Salmon day – The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

SITCOM – Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

For painters a “tint” = color + white

“shade” = color + black

“tone” = color + grey

eine taube Nuss = a deaf nut = a nut without kernel

In both languages denotes an unworthy person (as they say: “He’s dead from the neck up”

and in German specifically – a woman unable to conceive children.