Friday, October 10, 2008
Auctioning off Some F Artwork
Art critique, anyone?
Beware - this is smothered with the F word, and yet I couldn't resist posting it . If you wanna read more about this comedian and whom he is mocking - it's right here.
Labels: Art, Creativity of Others, Languages, Meta Bloggin'
Monday, December 03, 2007
Sentence of The Month: December
The doorbell rang.
Looking through the window, I saw two teenaged girls at the door, assuming that tiresome we-want-your-money position.
I was in a bad mood. I didn't even open the door.
"Yes?", I said impatiently.
"Ah...", squeaked the one who was playing with her hair, "...we were wondering: did someone already knock on your door today and, with an annoying voice, already ask you to - - - "
I cut her in mid-sentence. I wasn't in the mood for pretense cutesiness; as a matter fact, I was in no mood for anything, so I pointed at the very strict "No Soliciting" sign that adorns our kitchen window.
Her eyes filled with question marks.
"We have a 'No Soliciting' sign - right here, see?", I combined pointing with close captioning.
"Huh?", she pondered, chewing on her hair.
"W-e . h-a-v-e . a . 'N-o . S-o-l-i-c-i-t-i-n-g' . s-i-g-n", I repeated, slower, giving her the benefit of the accent (mine).
"I thought that means 'No Smoking'?!", she shared her profound thoughts with me, still chewing.
So much for benefit... Plus, by now, I figured the two of them were finalists in the blank expression contest.
"No", I volunteered to educate the uninitiated, "it pretty much means do-not-knock-on-our-door-offering-us-something".
"Huh?", she started chewing on a new lock of hair, moving to a philosophical debate, "are you sure it does not mean 'No Smoking' in Spanish?".
(OK, a disclaimer here: I realize it could have been a wonderful opportunity for a highly amusing conversation. And yet - did I mention I was not in the mood?)
"I have no idea what it means in Spanish", I said, "but in English it means DO NOT KNOCK ON OUR DOOR OFFERING US ANYTHING!". Oh yeah, I can be a bitch.
Three interesting facts:
1. Not for a second did the talkative teenager stop chewing her hair. (alas, her friend had too short a hair to join her in the feast)
2. Only when I turned my back to them, I realized they were not only finalists, but very probably the winners of that expression contest. Why? 'cause they did not just go for a blank, empty expression. Oh no. They went way beyond it.
3. This charming conversation did not cheer me up as much as I thought it should.
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Labels: Languages, People, Profoundness, Sentence of The Month, Stating The Obvious, WTF?
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Death of a Salesman - The Sequel
You see, we had to go back to Expo to return the carpet samples we took. We just had to. I didn't have it in me to go there on my own, so we headed there this morning, carrying the precious samples (for which you pay $25 each in case you loose/damage or are just late).
We walked in, The JohnnyB praying with increasing fervor, with all his agnostic might, that Sales Dude is having a day off. Like, it doesn't make sense that he'll work 2 Saturdays in a row, right?
Wrong.
There he was, welcoming us with a grin.
I choked the wild laughter that was starting to erupt inside me. He is, after all, like, a blog hero, and, like, without even knowing that he is, and, like, what do I do if he goes into another, like, awesome monologue? Like - Wha?
The mere thought made me snicker wildly, and I saw that The JohnnyB is also making an effort to look serious. (actually, it was easier for him, as the poor guy woke up sick, with a sore throat, and is getting more and more miserable by the hour). Eventually, I managed to go back to a relatively dignified, straight face. (not without a price, though; my bitten lips still carry the scars).
The JohnnyB handed the samples to Sales Dude, who asked, "So, did these work for you at all?".
"Not really", replied The JohnnyB.
- Sales Dude took the goods and tore a page out of the sample-taking-prospect-customers binder.
- - And Sales Dude took a deep breath.
- - - And Sales Dude said:
"So you know that our special free measurement ends tomorrow July 29 and I can - - - ""No", I cut him - quite abruptly - in mid-sentence (more like the first-millionth-of-sentence, in his case). "We decided we're not going to do it".
"Oh?", he said with utter shock.
"Yes", I confirmed (feeling a bit guilty; after all, he must have had A LOT to say, and think of all that wasted oxygen he breathed in). "So, we're all clear, right?".
"Right", he said, defeated.
"Good bye, then", I said.
And we ran. We ran out as fast as we could to the exit door, stumbling upon shiny sinks and bathtubs and carpets and tiles and chandeliers and appliances on sale and salesman who greeted us from every corner. With screeching breaks, we left the Expo plaza, accelerated onto the freeway and sped home, leaving a cloud of dust behind us, never looking back.
The JohnnyB was a bit upset with me, saying, "You didn't really have to lie to him".
Lie???
All I said was, "We decided we're not going to do it".
The pronoun "it", generally used for inanimate objects and abstractions, is a very powerful word. No wonder The Knights Who Say Ni were cringing with fear every time King Arthur used it.
'it', as used in my sentence, could be intepreted in so many ways, starting with 'we decided to not carpet our floors' (which would indeed be a lie), through 'we decided to not got for the Expo measurement' (closer to the truth), all the way to 'we decided to not have that sex-change operation after all'.
I have no control on how Sales Dude chose to interpret it, Eh?
At any rate, it's gonna be a long, long time before we go to Expo again.
Labels: Languages, People, This Old House
Saturday, April 21, 2007
(Another) Sentence of The Month: April
Got an wonderfully supportive Email this morning. The sender, one of the more unique people I got to know recently, wrote about being fraught with a certain emotion.
Fraught - a new word for me, and a very good one.
So, wanting to use it cleverly in my reply, I asked The JohnnyB about the noun from which this word stems.
"There is no noun", exclaimed the JohnnyB. "You just say 'fraught with fear'". (*)
"And you keep complaining that Hebrew is a weird language?!?", I reprimanded.
"Well", came the quick answer, "Y'see, WE do not have that many words for fear!!".
Eh . . .
(*) I know, it doesn't have to be fear. I do not account to The JohnnyB's English..
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Labels: Languages, Profoundness, Sentence of The Month, Wonders of The JohnnyB
Monday, November 13, 2006
Gone Phishing
Sitting in my chair, wondering how to entertain you, eager readers, this email has arrived.
You know those phishing emails you receive from alleged banks, asking you so very kindly to fill in your personal details, as part of their records updating process?
Well, those are totally wasted on me, as I am not a sucker, and I always delete these with a yawn.
"Why don't people just get a life instead of wasting their days and nights online?", I wonder as I blog...
But today, I got this:
Seeing the name of the bank, I actually thought it was an email from the Volkswagen garage, where my beetle is now recuperating from the CPR she got from The JohnnyB.
Then I noticed with impressive perception that it was written in German, and then I noticed that though I do not understand a word, the format is identical to any other phishing Email.
Now, The JohnnyB is kinda multi-lingual. He requests tea in fluent English, speaks pretty good German, breaks his teeth over several words in French, curses profusely in Arabic and highly amuses my family with Hebrew. So, he was kind enough to translate this crucial message for me, and I got captivated by the word kundendaten.
It means 'customer data'.
In German, says The JohnnyB, you can basically concatenate words together to create new terms, and change the whole meaning towards the end. In fact, Mark Twain, in his blog "The Awful German Language", says that "some German words are so long that they have a perspective". (That guy should blog more often, I tell ya).
My lead comment on my blog promises profound thoughts, and so I ponder:
This German language gymnastics is very similar to the American sincere heartfelt phrases, such as "let's-do-lunch-sometime", or "that-is-so-interesting", or "talk-to-you-later", or "I-would-love-to-stand-here-and-chat-with-you-but- - - ", where the last word rotates the interpretation by varying degrees of degrees, leaving us foreigners quite perplexed.
Gute Nacht, liebe Leser.
Und vergessen nicht, mein Ads an zu klicken.
Labels: Languages
