Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts

Thursday 1 August 2019

Closer


It's one of those English words that in isolation you cannot be sure of what it means or how it's pronounced. It can mean nearer (and this is probably how you actually normally read it) or the opposite of opener.

The reason I've chosen it it is because of a section in the Joy Division film where they talked of the title of their second album, which I always assumed was the former meaning, but give the tomb on the cover, the death of Ian Curtis and the fact that it was the final Joy Division album the latter meaning makes far more sense.

This is the first post of August and we had another downpour during the night but the sky is just a uniform grey as it was last November recorded in this post.

I watched a film "The Colony" last night which was a lot better that it's 5.3 IMDB rating although there was some Walking Dead grade horror, but my only problem was the extremely sudden ending when there was actually and decent chink of hope.

So we obviously go with "Colony" from "Closer" by Joy Division on this first day of August.


Thursday 18 January 2018

Polish Wind


How do you pronounce that? Is it Polish  - relating to Poland or polish - to buff something up? Is it wind - the atmospheric movement of air or wind - the method of tightening something up like a spring on a mechanical clock. Then the words wind, wined and, at a push whined could all sound the same when spoken, In isolation you wouldn't know what the person meant. Similarly wind and winned are both the same.

The English language is brilliant for writers and wordsmiths but must be hell to learn as a foreign language.

The reason that this came up is I was watching "Black Lake" last night and the police turned up and the word POLIS was on the car but the end of the word slightly obscured by snow and I though is that POLIS or POLISH ? "Black Lake" is well short on humour although absolutely excellent.

This is my first post in which I have mentioned Poland. Currently I have two Polish friends, Marek who runs RPM and Ola who I work with. At school I had lots of Polish friends and used to rehearse at Chorley Polish Club with my first band Cyrus Teed. I remember the first gig was a snowy night in Chorly and during the drum solo in "Wipe Out" the drum podium  (which consisted of four big blocks) split four ways leaving the drummer and crowd and us "surprised".

Anyway we have had real snow last night (see here on my instagram feed)

I have donned a large pair of boots because I would like to see what Nunsmoor is like covered in snow so that's a ¾ mike walk on snow covered paths but I will post a video on instagram if I get there before I freeze.

For absolute no reason apart from the snow / rain at the start of the video I'm including Jordan Reyne's "Shadow Line" which still gives be goosebumps, reminding me of the first time I saw her (documented here). Wrap up and be careful if you have to go out.

Monday 4 May 2015

What Could You Possibly Mean?



My friend Pandora , who hails from the United States of America posted this on Facebook:

'I think it is really  funny when people refer to pants as "trousers".'

... and asked me what phrases brought a smile to my face. This is all about the richness of the English language , the speed and evolution of dialect and word growth and the fact that we all have minds that can interpret almost any word in any way.

For instance the word "wind" can be pronounced "winned" or "wined" and there you have for different words two of which are spelt (or spelled) exactly the same way. This post will probably be full of grammatical, spelling and logic errors so my  apologies far in advance.

Australia is another English speaking country that has it's own take on words and phrases that can be culturally funny implying innuendo or just something completely different. There's some Australian here but most a different words but things like num-num , dunny and jumbuck I think are particularly good.

There's som American / English here but  very often you'll find that that American word usage is closer to the original than British usage . I'm not sure what that says about us. But things like suspenders , braces and chips change their meaning across the ocean.

Pissoir
One thing that always irks me and makes me smile is that in both the USA and Britain is the refusal to use a functional name for a toilet . In Australia they'll use loo or dunny , I think the French have it nailed with pissoire but I remember a teacher being horrified when I said I needed to go to the toilet, and she rebuked me and told me it was a lavatory (ie somewhere where you wash), ok you wash your hands afterwards but it's somewhere
where essentially you have a wee or a poo.


 Even worse is the American euphemism of restroom or bathroom, I went in a restaurant than pointed to the bathrooms and there wasn't a bath to be seen and let's face it you don't go in for a rest do you, and where does John come from?

The thing is there are lots and lots of opportunities for extreme misunderstanding in the rich tapestry that or different cultures provide on the uneven playing field that is the English Language. I included the Judge Dread song because in theory it's perfectly innocent , after all it's just words.