What languages do you speak

[Phil Winkler]

There's nothing like a dame!

[Tlaloc]

Mark Twain said: "Two countries split by a common language."

I thought it was "Two countries separated by a common language." - George Bernard Shaw but surprisingly I can't find it in the index to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations or as a quote listed under either author.

Jive
Psychobabble
Spanglish
Technobabble
I am studying my tape - Hooked on Ebonics.

[Squirrel Girl]

There's nothing like a dame!

Well, NOW, of course, it all makes sense to me. But back then, "dame" didn't occur to me!

[Nico]

Spanglish

I hate that

I am studying my tape - Hooked on Ebonics.

gots some fun wiff dis here ebonix translator slap mah fro!
which means have fun with this ebonics translator http://www.joel.net/EBONICS/translator.asp

[erebus]

My wife had some trouble distinguishing bathroom-genders on her trip to Australia. Apparently, "blokes" and "sheilas" are not terms they teach in English courses in China.

[Sean Ryan]

have usually been able to figure out where the bathrooms are

I remember going to a German restaurant as a kid and having to choose between Damen and Herren. I picked "Herren" because it had "her" in it. But fortunatetly an adult came out one of the doors before I made the mistake of walking into the men's room!

The outhouse at our luxury hotel (welcome to Ukraine: the rigorously landscaped hotel has pits of human feces upwind of all guest rooms) had single letters in Cyrillic to differentiate men and women. I was either a weird-looking asterisk, or a mutant E. They looked more like the Autobot and Decepticon symbols than anything else. I chose Autobot, because I'm a good guy. What I found inside was repulsive enough to ensure this was the men's outhouse.

[ian mckenzie]

Years ago when we were out to dinner in Chinatown my young daughter came back from the washroom commenting that she'd used the regular toilet rather than the weird Chinese ones in there. With some questioning we determined she'd been in the men's room...

[Teresa]

Twain may have been quoting Shaw in his own fashion and for his own purposes. The two knew each other, and both were great critics of the foibles and misadventures of English grammar and typography.

http://www.twainquotes.com/19070630b.html

Shaw would never have used the word 'split' whereas Twain did; also, I've only read directly whatever the Norton Anthology has of Shaw, and no more; I've probably read 4/5 of Twain's works in print...though by no means the whole Twain library files.

[Tlaloc]

Twain may have been quoting Shaw in his own fashion and for his own purposes. The two knew each other, and both were great critics of the foibles and misadventures of English grammar and typography.

http://www.twainquotes.com/19070630b.html

Shaw would never have used the word 'split' whereas Twain did; also, I've only read directly whatever the Norton Anthology has of Shaw, and no more; I've probably read 4/5 of Twain's works in print...though by no means the whole Twain library files.

That Twain quotes site doesn't contain the quote but this one does:

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Ge ... rnard_Shaw

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

George Bernard Shaw

So you misquoted Twain.

[Teresa]

So you misquoted Twain.

No I didn't. I found the Shaw quote yesterday too. But
since I am a pre-Internet human, I don't necessarily believe
everything that is found there is gospel. Quite the opposite.

Misquoting someone is taking down what they have said incorrectly.
Misattributing is different from misquoting.
But I'm still not entirely convinced that, as I said, I didn't read a version of this in a Twain essay somewhere. I know I didn't read it from Shaw.

And hey, being a fellow Missourian, Mr. Clemens wouldn't mind being made to look more intelligent, as long as I didn't get too in a lather about this. So I won't.

best wishes
Teresa

[Espeleologa]

I speak American-English with a Spanish accent, Spanish, Majorcan (a dialect of Catalan) and a little French (about 4' 9"). Used to speak French very well but that was before I learned American-English.
Oh, I also speak Ozarkistanian to some extent and I am learning Arkansian, too. When all else fails, I use sign language. Then, everyone understands me.
If someone irritates me about my accent, I switch to Majorcan. Ha! Try and understand me now! I did this to my daughter.......she hated it because she can't understand Majorcan.

P.s. My humor also has an accent.

[paul]

What do they call a headlamp in the UK?

A headlamp.

OK, what about the other kind of headlamp?

A headlamp!

[paul]

At dinner in the US, Churchill's English was once corrected by an American woman who informed him that, in polite company, one referred to the breast as 'white meat'. Churchill, who had won a Pulitzer for his writings, presented his hostess with a corsage the next day with a card that said 'I'd be honored if you'd wear this flower on your white meat'.

I like:
"As we approached the ballroom, I noticed the Gents on the left hand side and suggested that he might like to pay a visit there as a precautionary measure. "Well," he said, "just as a precautionary measure you might be right." We went in. As we came out to turn left, Sir Winston found his passage blocked by someone who wished to enter the Gents: a man in a dark lounge suit, the only person in that wonderful assembly of magnificent uniforms and evening wear impossible to imagine. (Never again will we ever see such a sight unless the film makers try to do it.) The Prime Minister was outraged, for he recognised a Member of the House: it was Nye Bevan, never Sir Winston’s greatest admirer, nor was he the best beloved of Sir Winston.

The old man looked Nye up and down and then in his most cutting tone he said, "Well! You might have taken the trouble to dress correctly on this occasion, at least."

Bevan stood back a little and to the side, looked the Prime Minister up and down: "Winston," he said, "your flies are undone!" Quick as a flash he was floored: "Do not concern yourself too much about that, dead birds never fly from their nest," came the response. We marched on, Sir Winston zipping up as we went."

[erebus]

What do they call a headlamp in the UK?

A headlamp.

OK, what about the other kind of headlamp?

A headlamp!

How fiendishly perverse!