Farty's Fortunes

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Mushed Gay Tears Oranged

Little Miss Farty and BF went to see The Foo Fighters last night. BF, being a drummer, was over the moon that he even got to shake hands with Taylor Hawkins, or as LMF called him, Trey Parker. It's an easy mistake to make, and it leads nicely into today's post.

When I was wee, my mum used to put the clothes to dry in the "airm cupboard". I had mental images of airms, or arms, being stacked up alongside the clothes. As you do when you're five. I was quite disappointed to learn, later in life, that it was in fact called the airing cupboard. Boo!

Apparently this sort of thing is sometimes known as a mondegreen, after the tragic historical character Lady Mondegreen. Well, it is if you believe that mangy dog, the pet of a million flies.

New Scientist recently mentioned how a dragon drop interface for a new program turned out to be a misheard transcription and should have been the more prosaic "drag and drop". (On the subject of dragons, I now hear that Welsh Dragon Sausages only may contain traces of dragon. What's the world coming to?)

And I could swear I heard The X Factor referred to as a "talent show". Shome mishtake shurely?

The British Citizenship Test certainly has some odd questions in it. How much more interesting would it be, though, if Johnny Foreigner had to translate the story of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut into proper English to gain citizenship?

I doubt if even the best supercomputer could manage that, it's notoriously hard to get a machine to recognise speech.

I wonder if there's an expression for when the reverse happens? It was only after Frasier finished airing (see what I did there?) that I saw Jane "Daphne" Leeves reveal, in an interview, that she'd set up a production company called Bristol Cities. No-one in Merka would ever get the joke - it's Cockernee rhyming slang for a word beginning with T. Until that moment, although I'd heard - and even used - the word "Bristols" for decades, I'd simply never twigged its derivation.

--Dr Angus McFarty, C.O.S., L.Gem, Iceberg & Webb's Wonder.
(I've got lettuce after my name)

15 comments:

Catherine said...

I got six out of ten. Not too bad for a foreigner. For instance, why would 112 help foreigners who don't know that the main emergency number is 999. I did know that it's 999 in the UK, but I wasn't aware of it being 112 anywhere in the world (it's 111 in NZ). Then the one about outnumbering the neighbours - that's just confusing. I did know that the English outnumber the Scots by 9 to 1, therefore if you add in an equal number of Welsh the ratio must go down, surely? Wrong! Oh I see, they meant separately. I guess the English aren't brave enough to take on the Scots and the Welsh together.

Z said...

I got 12 - got the saints' days wrong and where Father Christmas lives. Pretty odd questions, as you say.

I saw, many years ago, a newspaper headline for a story about the theft of a plastic surgeon's car, which had in it a case of prosthetic breasts. It was, of course, 'Bristol Rovers'.

Sewmouse said...

I got 9

Missed the saints, Fr. Xmas, the lawyer one at the end, Dog Licenses, and the %outnumber one.

Of course, I spell all wrong, so all y'all probably wouldn't want me there anyhow. ;)

apositivepessimist said...

Haha being the cosmopolitan that I am I always laughed at “show us yer bristols”.

Ooer I got seven right, which surprised me no frigging end.

Mr Farty said...

Cath - How can you get 6/10 when there's 14 questions?

There's 10 kinds of people: those who can do binary arithmetic and those who can't.

Z - One better than me.

Sew - You'd fit right in, nobody who lives here can spell either.

Apos - Well, show us then!



Saints days: I always get St Andrew's Day mixed up with Rabbie Burns' birthday.

Santa: All wrong, St Nicholas dates back to the 4th century.

Divorce: The Divorce (Scotland) Act 1976 says: You have to show that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, on the grounds of adultery, unreasonable behaviour, two years desertion, two years consensual separation, or five years of separation.
So C is correct in Scotland.

I suspect most Brits would do no better.

BOSSY said...

Bossy loves Cockernee rhyming slang! Then again she always was a wee bit marbles...

SpanishGoth said...

Lying bastards - question 7 about Father Christmas - WRONG. The only thing coca cola did was to make him a rotund little chappie in red with a white beard - the original legend goes back to pagan myths that originated from the Vikings and St Nicholas

America - my arse

Could have had a perfect score if it wasn't for that bullshit

And fancy you not knowing what Bristols were - do you not get the Sun in Scotland?

Mr Farty said...

BOSSY - And we love you for it.

Goth - Yay for Santa! Give yourself full marks anyway.

I knew what Bristols were, just not where the word came from. I believe it's called joined-up thinking.

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Oh man, the only question in that test that perked me up was the one about PG...I haven't had my breakfast as yet, I'm off to munch and have a nice cup o' tea.

lady macleod said...

you are too brilliant. I am left wondering how to work the linguistics into my blog1

SpanishGoth said...

Lady Mac -> become a cunning linguist like Mr Farty... I believe Mrs F appreciates this talent

*runs off before he gets stoned to death*

Mr Farty said...

GG - There's nothing like a good cuppa tea.

Lady M - You could - damn, Mr Goth beat me to it!

Cat said...

Whoops, only five.

When I was a kid I always read pictureque as "picture skew" and ended up making a bit of a twit of myself in an English class. I still pronounce it that way in my head out of habit when I read it now.

Cat said...

I meant "picturesque". I can't type today for some reason.

Mr Farty said...

Cat - I have the same problem with auto-spy. Doh!