In the name of the daughter…

Language experts are amazed Tom Cruise and has named his baby daughter SURI – thinking it meant "Princess" in Hebrew. According to Hebrew linguists, Suri has only two meanings - one is a person from Syria and the other "go away" when addressed to a female." Suri can also be translated into a Hindi boy's name, and it also means "pointy nose" in some Indian dialects, "pickpocket" in Japanese and "Help me!" in Babylonian!

English is Tough Stuff

Dearest creature in creation,Study English pronunciation.I will teach you in my verseSounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.I will keep you, Suzy, busy,Make your head with heat grow dizzy.Tear in eye, your dress will tear.So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,Dies and diet, lord and word,Sword and sward, retain and Britain.(Mind the latter, how it's written.)Now I surely will not plague youWith such words as plaque and ague.But be careful how you speak:Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;Cloven, oven, how and low,Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,Exiles, similes, and reviles;Scholar, vicar, and cigar,Solar, mica, war and far;One, anemone, Balmoral,Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;Gertrude, German, wind and mind,Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.Blood and flood are not like food,Nor is mould like should and would.Viscous, viscount, load and broad,Toward, to forward, to reward.And your pronunciation's OKWhen you correctly say croquet,Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamourAnd enamour rhyme with hammer.River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,Doll and roll and some and home.Stranger does not rhyme with anger,Neither does devour with clangour.Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,And then singer, ginger, linger,Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,Nor does fury sound like bury.Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.Though the differences seem little,We say actual but victual.Refer does not rhyme with deafer.Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.Mint, pint, senate and sedate;Dull, bull, and George ate late.Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.We say hallowed, but allowed,People, leopard, towed, but vowed.Mark the differences, moreover,Between mover, cover, clover;Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,Chalice, but police and lice;Camel, constable, unstable,Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,Senator, spectator, mayor.Tour, but our and succour, four.Gas, alas, and Arkansas.Sea, idea, Korea, area,Psalm, Maria, but malaria.Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,Dandelion and battalion.Sally with ally, yea, ye,Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.Say aver, but ever, fever,Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.Heron, granary, canary.Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.Large, but target, gin, give, verging,Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.Ear, but earn and wear and tearDo not rhyme with here but ere.Seven is right, but so is even,Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!Is a paling stout and spikey?Won't it make you lose your wits,Writing groats and saying grits?It's a dark abyss or tunnel:Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,Islington and Isle of Wight,Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?Hiccough has the sound of cup.My advice is to give up!!!

Chinese Foot Binding

Throughout history in all cultures a common ultimate goal is to achieve beauty. Just as all people look different, all people have a different outlook on the question, what is beautiful? For some time in the nineteenth century, in America a definition of beauty included corsets, making women's waists as small as possible. Over time beauty has resulted in a lot of pain and in this instance, resulted in broken ribs and damaged internal organs. Body piercing and tattoos fall under the same category although the consequences are not as severe. Great pain has been suffered for centuries for women to achieve perceived beauty. Probably the most detrimental act was one that approximately one billion women in China have preformed for nearly one thousand years. This act, foot binding, was an attempt to stop the growth of the feet. Foot binding is a bizarre and terrible custom, yet it is hard to understand exactly what foot binding was like with the modern outlook we have today. The reason for women binding their feet went deeper than fashion and reflected the role of women in Chinese society. It was necessary then in China for a woman to have bound feet in order to achieve a good life.

Splendid Slippers - Beverly Jackson
"Lotus feet", Chinese art and social and political history. Published by Ten Speed

ONE LANGUAGE TO RULE THEM ALL!!!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k".
This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like
fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza.

Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. If zis mad you smil, pleas pas
on to oza pepl.

Zen ve vil rul ze world!!!

Confusing Common Gestures!

Beckon with index finger. This means “Come here” in the U.S. To motion with the index finger to call someone is insulting, or even obscene, in many cultures. Expect a reaction when you beckon to a student from the Middle or Far East; Portugal, Spain, Latin America, Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. It is more acceptable to beckon with the palm down, with fingers or whole hand waving.

Smile. This gesture is universally understood. However, it various cultures there are different reasons for smiling. The Japanese may smile when they are confused or angry. In other parts of Asia, people may smile when they are embarrassed. People in other cultures may not smile at everyone to indicate a friendly greeting as we do in the United States. A smile may be reserved for friends. It is important not to judge students or their parents because they do not smile, or smile at what we would consider "inappropriate" times.

Sit with soles shoes showing. In many cultures this sends a rude message. In Thailand, Japan and France as well as countries of the Middle and Near East showing the soles of the feet demonstrates disrespect. You are exposing the lowest and dirtiest part of your body so this is insulting.

Pat a student on the head. This is very upsetting to students from Asia. The head is the repository of the soul in the Buddhist religion. Children from cultures which are influenced by Buddhism will feel uncomfortable if their head is touched.

Pass an item to someone with one hand. - In Japan this is very rude. Even a very small item such as a pencil must be passed with two hands. In many Middle and Far Eastern countries it is rude to pass something with your left hand which is considered “unclean.”

Nod head up and down to say “Yes.” In Bulgaria and Greece, this gesture means “No.”

Take the gesture quiz on this website and see if you can survive abroad…
http://www.homestead.com/isabellemori/questionsgestus.html

A DICTIONARY proves there is a word for every occasion, no matter how bizarre or obscure.

Whether it is the name for a person who has a creative idea that only makes things worse (neko-neko), or a woman who looks better from behind than from in front (bakku-shan), there is a word somewhere that sums up the complex thought.

There is areodjarekput - Inuit for the practice of exchanging wives for a few days, or mahj - Persian for looking beautiful after a disease!

They are among the thousands of obscure words and phrases in The Meaning of Tingo, compiled from 280 dictionaries and 140 websites.

The favourite word of the author, Adam Jacot de Boinod, is Tingo from the Pascuense language of Easter Island, which means to borrow objects from a friend's house, one by one, until there is nothing left.

Albanians not only have 27 words that mean eyebrow, but also another 27 that mean moustache.

Words unlikely to be in a holiday phrase book include the Indonesian mencolek, which is to touch someone lightly with one finger in order to tease them, or how about the Colombian Spanish tragado como media de cartero, which means to be hopelessly in love - but an exact translation reveals it to be "swallowed like a postman's sock".

Visitors to Russia should not buy from a koshatnik, who is a seller of stolen cats, while the oddest job must be a kualanapuhi, Hawaiian for an officer who keeps the flies away from a sleeping king by waving a brush made of feathers.

Though it may be a Danish word from the Viking age, there are probably many drinkers worldwide who have suffered from olfrygt - the fear of lack of ale. Once satisfied though, they will be bjor-reifr, an ancient Icelandic word meaning cheerful from beer drinking.

The book only has words that could be confirmed by speakers of the language concerned, said Mr Jacot de Boinod. "A frustration in compiling this book has been finding wonderful words that I've been unable to verify, and so had to leave out," he said. "Age-otori for example, a Japanese word which supposedly means 'to look worse after a haircut' - I've been there."

• The Meaning of Tingo is published on Thursday, 29 Seotember, by Penguin.

Lost in translation

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