Phrasebooks On Your iPod

Rather than shelling out to buy a paper phrasebook for your next foreign vacation, why not download one to your iPod instead?

Intelligent Travel reports that Collins have now released their popular phrasebooks in iPod versions. “They’ve taken the phrasebooks from the back of their Collins Gem dictionaries (about 500 different phrases) in French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish. The phrasebooks are split up into sections (food, accomodation, emergencies, etc.), and iPod users can both listen to how the phrase is pronounced and see its spelling on the screen.”

Each book is a bargain at $10 / £4.99 however they’re only compatible with iPod originals and Nanos and not those fancy Touch or iPhones.

That Was Quick

Three words, in that order, you never want to hear from the lady in your life. Well, I suppose any other order wouldn’t work, unless she was Yoda – “Mmmm, quick that was”. And that’s just disturbing. Luckily she was just referring to my time in the shower and I skilfully explained that, yes, it is possible to be cleansed in the shower in under an hour.

However it got me thinking once again on the whole English language “thing”. I have a book (thanks Brooke) called “Free Drinks For Ladies With Nuts” that celebrates mangled English (Manglish) from around the world. Some examples include:

Youth Hostile $10/nite.
Dry cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.

OK, they weren’t great, but made me smile. My wife’s American, so we have a lot of language differences, in fact Britain and America are often described as being “separated by a common language”. I go the toilet, she goes the bathroom (“What, for a bath?” – never gets old that one….), whilst an aubergine is an eggplant. On that subject I think we should rename lots of fruit and vegetables based on their shape or colour, although might get a little tricky around the peach/apple/orange area.

For more technical details on the differences, go here, and for an incomplete (and occasionally misspelt) list, go here.

Conversations With The Girlfriend – Part II

Conversations with the girlfriend (CWTG) rarely fail to start and end in confusion or merriment. As I was treating her to a slap up meal, sorry, Pizza Express, we were enjoying my favourite starter – garlic doughballs.

TG (the girlfriend) says: “I wonder why they give you butter with them?”
Moi: “What do you mean?”
TG: “Well it’s not very healthy is it? I mean it tastes nice, but it can’t be good for you.”
“But you’ll just be left with the doughballs then won’t you?”
“That’s okay, they might be a bit dry but they’ll be healthier.”
“But it’ll just taste of warm bread.”
“Well, garlic bread.”
“No, just bread.”
“No, it’ll still be garlic bread.”
“How? The garlic’s in the butter.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”

Let’s just say this stand off continued for ooh 30 seconds before a clean of the palette with some wine and a taste of the doughballs and garlic butter separately.

The answer’s in the name, they don’t call it garlic butter for fun.

Conversations With The Girlfriend

Far be it for me to criticise anyone for the way they, but the latest conversation with the girlfriend (here on known as CWTG) has made me want to share it with you.

We have a lot of conversations – well as many as she can manage and more than I would like for a peaceful existence – and in almost every one there’s a special little something that makes her stand out from the norm.

Take the latest one as we were passing a Jewish temple.

TG (the girlfriend) says: “On the Sabbath my friends sees them climbing over the fence.”
I leave a pregnant pause both for effect and in vain hope of some explanation.
Reluctantly I reply: “What?”
TG: “She lives opposite a Jewish family and on Saturdays she sees them climbing over the fence.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re strict and won’t use electric equipment on the Sabbath.”
“So they climb over the fence to watch TV through someone’s window?”
(With a look of disgust on her face) “No, because they have an electronically operated one.”
“An electronically operated fence?”
“Yes.”
(With the lack of anything else to say, I repeat) “A fence?”
“Oh, no, I mean a gate.”

And the fog clears.

The Decline Of The English Language

Much has been written on the decline of the English language and where applicable I weigh in my tuppence worth. Our language is changing. It always has been and always will be. Declining? No. Changing? Yes.

That is what I thought, until I saw this.

Not one, but two spelling errors in the Daily Mail advert from the London version of the free morning Metro newspaper on September 21st 2006. “challanged” and “appllingly”? Now, I know that not everyone is the greatest speller, but that’s what you use a spell checker for, right? Possibly they ran out of vowels and when someone actually found an ‘a’ they popped it into the wrong word.

I will also ignore the “Skinny moi?” headline as I no longer have the energy to go into what’s wrong with that… Tok 2 u ltr.