SomethingAwful is a (generally not work-safe) comedy site that usually gets me laughing with every visit. Perhaps they’re most famous for “Photoshop Phridays“, but they have a variety of columnists and recurring features that are worth checking out for a quick laugh.

However, a recent edition of “Comedy Goldmine” is simply too magnificent not to feature here. The theme? Foreign Language Screw-Ups.

Although they’re all pretty funny, it seems like most of them can be broken down into a few different categories of speech error.

False Cognates

A foreign language word is considered to be a “cognate” if it’s similar in both sound and meaning to a word in one’s native language, and they both descended from the same source, either from a mother language or through borrowing. For instance, in Spanish, the word for ‘computer’ (computadora) is a cognate, as is the word for ‘volunteer’ (voluntario). These cognates happen frequently when two languages borrow heavily from the same language. In this case, English and Spanish both have many words with Latin roots.

However, it’s not uncommon for foreign language students to accidentally use a “false cognate”. These are, as you might suspect, words that sound very similar in two languages, but have different meanings. The textbook Spanish example is assistir (‘to attend’) and atender (‘to assist’). Sometimes, the mistakes can be innocent, but sometimes…

Frog writes…

Last year on a vacation to Cuba I rented a moped and managed to break it. When I returned it to the rental place I used my awesome high school Spanish to say I was ‘embarazado’ about what happened, meaning to say embarrassed. Turns out ‘embarazado’ means ‘pregnant’. I’m a guy.

Note, it’s not just English speakers who can make this mistake:

Dark Chicken writes…

This brother and sister I knew grew up in Mexico and were eating at a restaurant in the States. Well, the brother kept on bothering the sister, so she finally yelled, “Stop molesting me!” The restaurant went dead silent and everybody stared.

This comes from the false Spanish cognate, molestar, which means (completely innocently) ‘to annoy’ or ‘to bother’.

False cognates can make for some wonderful communication issues, but they’re not the only source of interlingual hilarity.

Secondary Meanings

In many languages, it’s common for words to have several meanings. Just like the English “cock” can either denote a male chicken or the male sexual organ, languages are littered with minefields of multiple meanings.

When a non-native speaker looks up a word in the dictionary, especially a small dictionary, it’s not uncommon to see several options listed. So, if a Spanish speaker wanted to tell a woman “You have a pretty cat” and looked the word up in a dictionary, there’s a decent chance that, quite innocently, he’ll use the word “pussy” instead and he’ll end up complimenting her genitalia. Here’s one wonderful example of a hilarious alternate meaning:

QueenOfMistakes writes…

The only thing I can think of was when I was in my German class and we’d been having a heatwave. I said “Ich bin heiss” (meaning “I am hot”), which made my teacher laugh.

Apparently, saying “Ich bin heiss” is one way of saying “I’m horny” in German.

This can also work the other way around. Sometimes, a language will have a word with two meanings, and in the other language, each meaning has a distinctive word.

Luebbi writes…

When I was in London with my class (German students), something hilarious happened at the airport. We where standing in a queue and some Brits came around and started to cut in line. A friend of mine yelled: “You can’t come here! There’s a snake here!”, which not only baffled the British couple, but made everyone else, including our teacher, laugh out loud.

The German word “Schlange” is used both for snake and queue, and he used the direct translation.

Grammatical Errors

Sometimes, you can have all the words right, but a little tiny grammatical error will get you.

Fhqwhgads writes…

Back in High School, while on a class trip to Italy, one of the guys was hitting on a local chick. He was doing well, until he used the word “bello” (instead of “bella”). She slapped him and walked away. Never call an Italian girl handsome.

Here, the writer failed to take into consideration the fact that in Italian (as well as in many other languages), adjectives are marked for gender. In English, we have separate words (a girl is “pretty” and a guy is “handsome”), but in Italian, that little tiny morpheme (unit of meaning) is able to completely derail even the most persuasive of pick-ups. The gender distinction can also change the meaning of words…

Mortanis writes…

Back in high school French, we had to pair off and interview your partner, then relate their day back to the class in French. A friend of mine interviewed a girl, and promptly reported to the class “She likes to play with her cat”.

But used the feminine for cat, which is slang for pussy. Was pretty enjoyable to watch our fairly attractive French teacher start snickering over something like that.

Misleading Mispronunciations

Nearly any foreign language one studies will have some sounds that are different from those in your native language. As a phonetics student, this brings me great joy, but when speaking another language, these differences can lead to some wonderful errors:

Ayreon writes…

“Cook” in Dutch is “kok” which is pronounced “cock”. A friend of mine once tried to “thank the cock for the nice meal” at a restaurant.

A co-worker of my dad’s name is Dick de Cock, which is a perfectly normal name in the Netherlands. However, when he got a promotion and suddenly had to travel all over the world, he got a lot of weird looks.

Here, I suspect that the Aspirated/Unaspirated distinction might be causing problems:

sewid writes…

Walking around crowded night markets in Taiwan after getting a taste of my first giant chicken schnitzel I asked my girlfriend how to say chicken schnitzel in Mandarin which she told me was “gi pai”

Much to her amusement when I misheard her, thinking she said it “gi bai” i loudly proclaimed in Mandarin to all around that I loved “gi bai”

Which I found out shortly sort of means I love vagina.

All it takes is a simple change in the voicing of a consonant to go from loving sausage to loving the polar opposite. Scary, huh?

Conclusion

There’s no shortage of ways to mess up in a foreign language. Between treacherous false-cognates, deceitful second meanings, grammatical gaffes and malicious mispronunciations, sometimes a second of speech may seem like an ocean of opportunity for offensive communication.

However, the beauty of it all is that generally, people laugh when such speech errors are made. If somebody knows you’re a foreigner, you often get the benefit of the doubt.

The moral of this story: Next time you’d like to compliment a girl’s pussy, you’d better have an accent, or else you’re going to be very, very pregnant.

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Language Acquisition, Language Humor, Language Usage, Sociolinguistics, Speech and Grammar Errors, Words, Phrases, and Idioms | 11 Comments


Alright, today, I’d like to have a very brief discussion about two words that are often confused in everyday speech: Etymology and Entomology.

Etymology

Pronounced “eh-ta-MAH-lo-gee” (/ɛtəmalədʒi/), Etymology is the study of the origin of words. Many words end up in English after traveling through several languages and permutations, and often, the etymology of words can be fascinating.

For instance, according the Oxford American Dictionary, the etymology of the word “Orange” is as follows:

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French orenge (in the phrase pomme d’orenge), based on Arabic nāranj, from Persian nārang.

Sometimes, words will be incorporated into other languages at different stages in its evolution. Those of you who speak Spanish will likely recognize “Naranja” as a pretty clear derivation from the Arabic. However, the modern Russian word for orange, “aranzhevii”, is likely an import from later in the word’s evolution, perhaps from the French.

Keep in mind, though, not all words have a clear etymology. For instance, there’s still considerable debate about the origin of the word/phrase “OK” (see here, here, and the Wikipedia page).

Etymology is a really fascinating area. I’ve posted many times about different word origins (here, here and here, to start), and I’ll likely continue to do so, as they’re usually pretty interesting. Giving word origins can also be quite an entertaining party trick, too, if you’re sufficiently nerdy.

Entomology (pronounced “en-ta-MAH-lo-gee” (/ɛntəmalədʒi/)), on the other hand, is the study of insects. That’s right. Creepy, crawly insects.

Although the Wikipedia article on the subject will be able to tell you much more about this science, my main point is that Entomology is very, very different from etymology.

“So, how does the study of insects pertain to this phrase…?”

Very frequently, people will ask me for the “entomology” of a word, and it can be quite difficult sometimes to avoid discussing how the word relates to insects. I understand that they’re both unusual words, and I also understand that they’re pretty similar, but at the same time, I beg you, please note the difference.

Etymologies are a truly fascinating subject, and can really help a person grow closer to the language they speak. I’m sure that Entomology is cool too, although personally, I prefer suffixes to centipedes. That’s just me, though.

PS: I’ve just added a link under “Language Sites and Blogs” that gives the Etymology of all 50 US state names. Very cool site, and highly related.

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Language Usage, Speech and Grammar Errors, Words, Phrases, and Idioms | 10 Comments


This morning, I stumbled across this story, relating some completely absurd events happening at an elementary school not too far from me:

GREENWOOD VILLAGE – When Carole Altman opened her daughter’s yearbook from Belleview Elementary, she expected to see her message congratulating her daughter on completing the 5th grade. What she did not see is what angered her.

“What has been done here, in my opinion, is un-American,” Altman said.

The Parent-Teacher Community Organization at Belleview Elementary established a yearbook committee. The committee sent a letter to parents asking them to pay $5 to publish a message to congratulate their students. The letter stated the message will include “all of your wonderful words.”

Altman and her husband submitted this message: “So proud of you Remy for achieving fantastic grades, participating in so many wonderful after school activities and surviving so many of the Belleview teachers’ liberal teachings. You are what you believe you can be. Aim high, always. Love, Mom & Dad.”

“What was taken out was surviving the liberal teachings,” Altman said.

She wanted her daughter, years from now, to appreciate how well she did in school even though Altman felt teachers were biased.

“Despite all the liberal teachings and so forth, she’s come out with a good education,” said Altman.

Obligatory rant

First, I’d like to point out that this was in an elementary school yearbook. For those of you unfamiliar with the American education system, that means that the kids involved were probably in the 8-10 years old range.

The main subjects taught here are English, math, music, gym, and the basics, and I sincerely doubt that there’s much room for heavy bias. So, unless there were some seriously strange questions on math quizzes (“Bush leaves a Big Oil lobbyist’s office going 35mph…”), I’d be willing to bet that the parents are a bit hyper-sensitive here.

No matter what the teachers were doing, this seems like an incredibly asinine thing to put in an elementary school yearbook, and I’m more than a little shocked that there are people so politically hostile that they have to take cheap shots at teachers in an elementary school yearbook.

Alright. I feel better now. Sorry about that, now back to the Linguistics…

“No no, I clearly meant something else that nobody understood…”

Now, the Altmans’ cute little jab was removed because, surprise, the yearbook editors felt that the elementary school yearbook was “just not an appropriate forum for political statements.” That seems reasonable to me, but the Altmans just had to keep fighting it, and in doing so, they resorted to one of the most common-yet-reprehensible tricks in the publicist’s book: Redefining the definition.

Altman says it was not political.

“The word liberal means loose. We have to take what the definition of liberal means. I didn’t say Democrats,” she said.

Webster’s Dictionary defines liberal in part as “not orthodox.”

Altman says that is what she meant that teachers were not using established and structured teaching practices in her opinion.

“That’s not political unless the reason why they took it out was they put a political spin on it,” said Altman. “Since when is the word liberal or conservative always to mean political?”

District leaders still believe Altman’s motives were about politics.

So, basically, Altman is arguing that she didn’t mean “politically liberal”, but instead, “loose”, and thus, her statement was politically neutral.

Many meanings, one understanding

There are many words that have more than one meaning, and when talking or reading, we have to pick the right one from context.

Sometimes that’s pretty straightforward. If somebody says “The cock chased the hen around the shed”, nobody’s going to argue that “cock” is an obscenity, because the context makes it fairly explicit that we’re discussing a male chicken. Similarly, if somebody calls a gay man a “faggot”, that person would be hard pressed to argue that he meant that the man was a small bundle of twigs (the original meaning of “faggot”).

There are cases, though, where an argument could conceivably be made for both the controversial meaning and the innocent one. Giving the Altmans the benefit of the doubt, we’ll pretend that “liberal teachings” was actually meant to mean “unorthodox”.

The problem, though, is that when something’s ambiguous, people will tend to assume the worst. Even if a farmer is standing next to a donkey when he says it, “kiss my ass” will likely be seen as insulting. Most importantly, even if the teachings at Belleview were unorthodox and the Altmans were just innocently pointing that out, people will see it as a political statement. There’s still the possibility that somebody could be using the “unorthodox”, politically neutral meaning, but in general, “liberal” is now a political term, and when people specifically mean “unorthodox”, they’ll say that instead.

When a statement is made, the speaker will have an idea about what they meant to say. That’s not really the most important part, though. In order for the communication to work, the listener has to understand as well, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll read the same meanings from the same words. If you’re going to use a common word in an uncommon way, it’s your responsibility to communicate that somehow. If you choose not to, you’ve waived your right to complain when somebody “misunderstands” you. Sorry, Mrs. Altman.

A common deception

Mrs. Altman is not alone in using this pretty transparent defense. Many people will go back to antiquated, obscure or alternate definitions of words when their remarks come back to bite them, claiming their words were innocent and without controversy. One particularly shameless example of this came from Elizabeth Hoffman, the former President of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

During a well-publicized case of sexual discrimination filed by a female ex-member of the school’s football team, Hoffman argued that when a football player told the girl to “get off the field, you f***ing cunt”, “cunt” was being used as a term of endearment. (link) Hoffman attempted to play it off using her background in Medieval studies, claiming that in Chaucer’s days, it wasn’t a negative term. Of course, this enraged a number of faculty members both because of the implications, her defense of the indefensible, and her psuedo-scholarly explanation. She was replaced not long afterwards, and although the football team and coaches never really faced appropriate justice, there’s at least a great deal more sensitivity in campus athletics because of it.

No matter your feelings on her specific case, this is another situation where somebody has tried to disguise their intent by playing off of unusual or old definitions.

It can be innocent, but usually they’re just covering their backs

Sometimes, especially with non-native speakers, mistakes like this can happen innocently. Somebody uses a word without the knowledge of its other connotations, and gets burned by a hyper-sensitive reader, listener, or even worse, the media. In that situation, it’s not only understandable, it’s completely forgivable.

However, when somebody uses a word, knowing full well how it’s usually used, then later hides behind strange, antiquated or unusual definitions to defend themselves, it’s generally just a sleazy and ineffective publicity trick.

So, Mrs. Altman, I might recommend that you look into getting a publicist. If you’re firing off gems like this and your child is still that young, it sounds like you’ll have a lot of controversial comments to distance yourself from in the future. It’s your right to say them, but if you’re going to try and hide from them afterwards, you’re going to need to do better than this.

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Language Censorship, Language Usage, Notes, Tirades, Words, Phrases, and Idioms | 8 Comments

«Read newer posts — Read older posts »

All content © Linguistic Mystic 2006-2007 unless otherwise indicated.
Please contact me for permission to reprint or repost.

Site Information

Search all posts

Tags


Archives


Site features