Archive for December, 1997
Samuel Goldstein provides another folkloric example of a machine-translated proverb: English: Out of sight, out of mind. English—>Russian—>English: Invisible lunatic. I'd seen it before (in the same place as the vodka bit—perhaps a Smullyan book?) but had forgotten it. (Last updated: 17 March 1998) Back to column Z
"I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch— I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!" —The Baker, Fit the Fourth, The Hunting of the Snark My column is too often English-centric. There's a sad reason for that: although I […]
Matt Brocchini searched through two years' worth of his saved email to find all the lines that began with the word "because"; then he arranged those lines in alphabetical order. (Or at least his computer's idea of alphabetical order.) The resulting found art should provide an explanation for any occasion. I have taken the liberty […]
There are letters on my telephone dial. This fact does not surprise you. "Of course there are letters on your telephone dial," you say. "How else could you dial 1-800-CORRECT? How else could you dial 1-900-HOT-SEX? How else could you say 'My phone number spells out PIGEONZ'?" (Ever notice how in movies they use "555-" […]
There's an old riddle which goes: Q: What word is always pronounced wrong? A: The word "wrong." I recently encountered another version of that riddle in a book: Q: What word is never pronounced right? A: "Wrong." Whoever wrote up this latter item may have not understood the original joke (the second version borders on […]