You are too la-di-dah for words!
I used to enjoy reading Enid Blyton’s books when I was very young and one of my favourite series was Malory Towers. Her book recounts the various events that took place in Malory Towers with particular focus on a particular class of girls. Darrell Rivers is the protagonist of this Malory Towers series and all that happens in Malory Towers is viewed from her perspective. I ‘m not going to talk more about what the story is about because this is not relevant. So anyway,
in one scenario, Darrell (head-girl of her form) told her sister off for being ill-mannered and her sister Felicity replied “ You’re too la-di-dahLa-di-dah (Oxford advanced learner’s Dictionary)
(adj) Informal ,especially BrE-used to describe a way of speaking or behaving that is typical of upper-class people but that is not natural or sincere.
Exclamation: used when somebody is irritating you, because they seem to think they are more important then they really are.
Knowing that this word is used only specifically in the British context, it makes me wonder whether this word is obsolete in today’s British context since this word is rarely heard nor used in conversations be it on British TV serials, BBC movies and conversations amongst the British themselves.
What are your thoughts?

SPORTS AND HOBBITS!
Here is a website which I recommend you all to visit: it’s http:// www.engrish.com. if you want to have a good laugh. You can find numerous pictures of signs in weird, funny English which is good enough to tickle you. At times, these sentences are so ridiculously ill-formed that you can hardly decode the message. At times, the message may seem clear but the choice of lexical items used don’t seem to be appropriate. One example that caught my attention was a sign taken from a library saying sports and hobbits!
I burst into a fit of laughter upon seeing this because hobbits conjures up images of short men/women living merrily in tiny cottages during the medieval period. Also, JRR Tolkien and his famous Lord Of The Rings immediately comes to mind when Hobbits is mentioned.
Of course, it is outrageous that a library should have a sign like that especially when it is obvious that the error was merely an orthographic one. The take –away from this is that, even a simple word, when spelled wrongly CAN ALTER THE intended meaning and at times, generate meaningless or bizarre sentences.
Another example of an orthographic error was spotted on a banner outside a food stall. On the banner was a picture of our favourite hash brown, but guess what was written on the sign? HARSH BROWN! Oops, I have lost my appetite to eat HARSH BROWN because I only eat Hash Brown.
Another example:
I think this was a sign taken from china because it was in Chinese. The purpose of the sign was to warn parents to prevent their child from going too near the lake to avoid falling into the water. However, on the sign , it was written as : Take the child, fall into water carefully!. Again, we observe that this is a result of a direct translation from Chinese! Dai hao hai zi, xiao xin luo shui!
After having come across all these signs coming from Japan and China, I realized that in non-Anglo countries, their standard of English is pretty low. But we cannot blame them since English isn’t their native language. Yet, English being the only language in the world to achieve this status as a World Language and a lingua franca where people of different cultural and social background communicate, one cannot avoid using English during the course of their life. That explains why in most countries, we always find natives of the country conversing in English with a foreigner, unless a common ground has been established (such as being capable to speak the native’s language). In tourism, we observe that in most tourism websites, there will always be an English version , if the native language of the country is not English. Likewise, even in cities like Tokyo, Paris, Berlin etc English can be seen on signboards in public places like airports, train stations etc. Therefore, it is crucial that signs must written in proper English where sentences are grammatical and meaningful. The examples we have seen above are very bad ones and should be taken down immediately. Honestly, I feel that these countries could do a better job by hiring skilled translators to do the translations. It is indeed a torture and a pain to read meaningless signs which leads one to nowhere.

You have a glowing, crystal clear complexion!
Every time I read magazines like Her World, 17,teenage, I always come across heaps of advertisements promoting different brands of facial products to readers. No matter what brand is it, they always claim that after using their products, your skin will glow. You will find yourself achieving this glowing ,crystal clear complexion. What really struck me was the choice of adjectives used to describe complexion. When I think of “crystal clear” the very first image that pops in my mind is water or any object that is transparent where light waves can penetrate. When I think of the word glowing, I immediately think of an object that has a shiny, smooth surface that reflects lights thus giving this glow. However, I noticed that this expression is so ubiquitously employed in most adverts promoting beauty and cosmetic products. The literal meaning of glow and clear is as such:
MW: glow (v) 1 a : to shine with or as if with an intense heat b (1) : to have a rich warm typically ruddy color (2) : flush, blush
clear:
1 a : bright, luminous b : cloudless; specifically : less than one-tenth covered c : free from mist, haze, or dust d : untroubled, serene
2 : clean, pure: as a : free from blemishes b : easily seen through

Encarta dictionary: clear-the idea of being transparent. easily see through.
However, what is interesting is that, in almost all the dictionaries that I consulted, the word clear seems to take on another a different meaning in the domaine of beauty and cosmetics. Whether it is a learner's dictionary or reference dictionary, the words clear, in the domaine of beauty was given the definition as free from blemish and red spots. Unlike the conventional meaning of clear which means transparent and luminous, we see how words like glow and clear conveys the idea of a clear complexion, free of pimples and a smooth complexion that reflects light thus giving a glow on the face.
To conclude, we see that the both learner's and reference dictionary gave a very detailed list of the various definitions that the word clear can take. This is interesting since one would not expect learner's dictionary to actually be as detailed as a refernece dictionary assuming that the learners' goal is to first master the literal meaning of the word and its usage in the literal sense. However, we could argue from another point of view that by giving a very detailed definition of the word 'clear' , it benefits the learners in the sense that they will learn to be more aware of the various usage and meanings a word can take. Such information can be very beneficial in the course of their learning process. Hence, should all learner dictionaries strive to be like reference dictionaries? In fact, I am supportive of this simply beacuse learners of any foreign language needs so much more information than a native as to how a word is used and what meanings it has in different domains. Currently, I speak and write 7 languages of which I am fluent in 4 (German , French, English and Chinese). I rarely revise the 3 other languages that I have picked up 6 months ago (Russian, Czech and Polish). Occassionally when I have the time, I do refer back to my course book to revise the grammatical structure and some vocabulary items. I have a learner's dictionary of Russian, Polish and Czech and one of the things that really annoy me is that limite amount of information that the dictionary gives. Supposedly I were to read a text in Russian and I come across a word that I am unfamiliar with, I check the dictionary. But the next moment I come across the same word (used in a different context) I get slightly puzzled simply beacuse the meaning stated by the dictionary does not seem to fit well into the context. Perhaps, this could be an idiomatic expression! But whatever it is, it always bothers me to have a learner's dictionary. I always find them a nuisance because they never seem to help much.
Thus, I am in favour for a learner's dictionary to be equally as detailed as a refernece dictionary for individual who truly aspires to master as many foreign languages as possible. What are your thoughts? Should there be a difference between a learner and a refernce dictionary?

Our Japanese red bean is air-flown from Hokkaido , Japan, and vacuum-packed to keep its authentic flavour.
This example was extracted from a brochure of MOF restaurant promoting various food items ranging from drinks to desserts. I don’t know why this strikes me as inappropriate. Perhaps it’s because I have never, from my experience , heard anyone saying “ this product is air-flown from Hokkaido”. Usually, I would hear people saying this product is imported from country X. Hence, to answer my doubt, I deceided to do consult various dictionaries to search for the definition of air-flown.
I did a quick check with my electronic dictionary –Oxford advanced Learner’s Dictionary.
Air-flown did not appear despite having typed the key word “air” or “fly”. But under the word “fly” , I got this reading:
6. (VN) to transport goods or passengers in an aircraft.

The MW dictionary says: intransitive verb
1 a : to move in or pass through the air with wings b : to move through the air or before the wind or through outer space c : to float, wave, or soar in the air
2 a : to take flight : flee b : to fade and disappear : vanish
3 a : to move, pass, or spread quickly b : to be moved with sudden extreme emotion c : to seem to pass quickly
4 : to become expended or dissipated rapidly
5 : to operate or travel in an airplane or spacecraft
6 : to work successfully : win popular acceptance
transitive verb
1 a : to cause to fly, float, or hang in the air b : to operate (as a balloon, aircraft, rocket, or spacecraft) in flight c : to journey over or through by flying
2 a : to flee or escape from b : avoid, shun
3 : to transport by aircraft or spacecraft

— fly at : to assail suddenly and violently

— fly blind : to fly an airplane solely by instruments

— fly high : to be elated

— fly in the face of or fly in the teeth of : to stand or act forthrightly or brazenly in defiance or contradiction of

The Encarta dictionary says:

fly [ flī ]


verb (past flew [ floo ], past participle flown [ flōn ], present participle fly·ing, 3rd person present singular flies)

Definition:

1. intransitive verb move through air: to travel through the air using wings or an engine


2. intransitive verb travel in aircraft: to travel in an aircraft


3. transitive verb take somebody or something by air: to take or send things or passengers in an aircraft


So,based on the definition given by the dictionary, the phrase "beans air-flown from hokkaido" is semantically fine but why does it sound so strange to use air-flown and why does it sound so much natural to say import? I dunno. Maybe I am just being weird.
I went to google the word air-flown and apparently, there were instances where we have examples like :
Fresh food flown to Britain
Air-freighted green beans
air-freighted organic products
broad beans flown in from abroad
Perhaps there is nothing worng with air-flown at all = ) .

The first time I came to Singapore was when I was 12 and when my mother enrolled me in Raffles Girl’s Primary, I was in Primary 6. At that time, this word “primary” struck me as something foreign. When people ask me which level I was studying in primary school, I was always quick to reply: I am in Year 7 . And the next moment, I started getting puzzled looks from people simply because they do not understand what Year 7 meant.
I noticed that in different countries, education system are labelled differently. For instance in Singapore, in our education section , students are labelled as primary 1, 2, 3, 4,5,6, followed by secondary 1, 2, 3,4 and eventually, J1 or J2. In most Western countries, the education system is labelled as such: US Grade 1 to 12.In Australia, our education system is labelled very similar to that of the US. Instead of the word grade, we use the word "Year" . In Britain, the word "form" is often used to label the academic level of individual student. Eg: Students in the sixth form (which is equivqlent to Singapore's J2 batch of students. ). While "form" is mostly used in the UK , it is also used in US, especially by the private schools.
As the MW defines form as " a grade in a British school or in some American private schools.
From here, it is interesting to see how different words are used differently to label a thing. Take another example of the words biscuit and cookie. The British uses the word biscuits while the americans use the word cookie to refer to a small quick bread made from dough that has been rolled out and cut or dropped from a spoon. Both cookie and biscuit refer to the same things but this object is labelled differently between these 2 societies. More examples to illustrate the differences in labelling the same object :
(American-British)
1.) Windshield vs Windscreen
2.)Pants versus trousers
3.) candy versus sweet
4.) Highway versus main road
5.) Motor versus engine
Although the Americans and British speak a common language English and despite the fact that the earliest settlers in America were the Brits and that one would expect the sort of words used in the Aamerica to be very similar to the British context,the slight differences in the choice of lexical items to describe and label an object is evident. Perhaps during the early days in the American society, the word "candy" is favoured over "sweet" thus becoming appropriated into the context and over time, when the word is codified in a dictionary and the word being acquired by future generations,one often hears the americans saying candy instead of sweet.
Likewise in the Singaporean context, the use of the word porridge differs from our supreme authority (Bitish). In the British context, porridge is defined as a dish made by boiling oats (rolled, crushed, or steel cut) or other grains or legumes in water, milk, or both. On the contrary, our so-called porridge does not fit the definition given above. In layman's terms, what we label as porridge is basically a dish where rice is boiled in water, ingredients (vegetables , meats, peanuts etc.) are added to it and served as a dish in a bowl...
With this in mind, it is not surprising that I should get strange looks from people when I said Year 7. Singaporeans are not primed to label the education level of an individaul in terms of "Year" or "Grade". They are primed to use the word "primary , secondary".

Trim my Foot!
This was actually taken from a sign board in Japan placed outside a beauty salon I suppose. The languages that appeared on the signboard were in English and Chinese. (I will try to post the picture). So the thing which caught my attention was the use of the word trim. Intuition tells me that trim is not primed to collocate with foot. Yet, I can understand why the word trim is used in this case. If you look at the chinese version: "xiu jiao" you realise that trim is the direct translation of "xiu" from chinese into English . I am not very proficient in my Chinese hence I do not know whether "xiu jiao" is even a correct way of saying it but let's just assume that it is correctly used. Obviously, the translator who is in charge of doing the translation have been unaware of the fact that when words collocate with another, there exists a sort of a natural "relatioinship" between them. Eg. When native speakers describe an orange, it would be unusual to say” The spherical orange” or “the sigmoid-shaped orange”. There is an unnatural relationship between sigmoid-shaped and orange when describing the shape of an orange. Instead ,most native speakers would say “the round orange”.
The problem with translations is that, unless you are a trained and professional translator, you are very likely to commit many errors in the process of translation simply because every language functions differently and which word collocates to which varies differently. Translators must be aware of this and must have sufficient knowledge of the way words are primed to collocate to generate meaningful sentences both in their native language and the language to be translated . Take for example the English word: Chocolate ice-cream. Suppose if we were to do a direct word-for-word translation: we would get something like: chocolat glace, which in this case is not only meaningless but violates the syntactic rules of the French language as well. The correct way of translating this is “glace au chocolat” . Notice that in French, the translation for ice-cream comes first. Next, the NP glace is primed to colloate withthe preposition a. The preposition a is then primed to collocate with the definite article “le” and lastly chocolat. Of course , this is only a very simple example. What about longer and more complex sentences? Sometimes, translations are not so straightforward as it seems as the above. What is being expressed in one language may be expressed differently in another. Let’s look at another translation from English to French.
Take the sentence: Frank’s father , a die-hard conservative, had first refused his offer. I wish to just focus on die-hard. In French, there isn’t an equivalent to this at all. The best that we can say is “ un conservateur pur et dur” (a pure and hard conservative).
So what makes one laugh upon reading the sign is the way the word trim is primed to collocate with foot. When we think of the word trim, our mental lexicon immediately activates words that are linked to trim such as hair, eyebrows, hedge.
Here is the definition of trim taken from the Collins cobuild advanced learners’s dictionary:
Trim (verb)
1.) To make something neater, smaller, better by cutting parts from it.
2.) To trim something off something –to cut away unnecessary parts from something
3.) To trim something with something-to decorate something especially around its edges
Trim (noun)
1.) An act of cutting a small amount off something especially hair
So going by this definition, we can easily understand why trim appears strange in this context. Unless you have a foot that has hair grown all over it or long untidy black nails that has not been trimmed for ages, you might want to consider going for a foot trimming! Otherwise, any normal individual with normal feet would not need to go for a foot trimming. I suspect the problem lies in the translation. As we can see from the other blogposts, translations done by poor translators seem to produce very unnatural, awkward and at times crude sentences.

Vous pouvez allez a Casino pour faire des achats! ( You can go to the casino to do your shopping.)
After having settled down in Paris, the first thing I needed to do was grocery shopping because dining out in Paris is very costly. Amidst the grandeur of Paris, one thing that really annoyed me was the paucity of supermarkets in this touristic city. So I approached a stranger along the streets if there was a supermarket nearby where I could get the daily necessities. His reply was” Vous pouvez allez a Casino pour faire des achats! The literal translation in English is : You can go to the casino to buy groceries.
I was a bit puzzled then because when Monsieur said casino, my first thought was: Casinos are places where you gamble , not a place for shopping ! So I took the metro (train) ,alighted at this station called Montparnasse, took a 5 minute walk to casino. It was only upon reaching the place that I realized that CASINO was a name of a supermarket where you do all your grocery shopping there. There are many branches of casino in the whole of France. It is second largest supermarche (supermarket) in France after Carrefour. Surprise is over! The very thought of naming a supermarket CASINO made me laugh. Any English speaker would find this amusing. Do you think there’s an underlying motivation for such a name? In French, just like in English , casino simply means a place where you gamble.
I wonder why this supermarket should be called CASINO?
There were so many hilarious encounters that I had while in France. This other one happened one Sunday evening. Axel , my hostel mate asked me : Tu veux un Desperado? (Do you want a desperado? ) Now, that got me laughing! My British friends were shrieking with laughter too especially when Axel repeated the question in English. D o you want to have a Desperado?
Definition of this lexical word desperado from cambridge dictionary
desperado noun
/ˌdes.pəˈrɑː.dəʊ/ /-doʊ/ n [C] (plural desperados or desperadoes)
someone who is willing to do things that involve risk or danger, and often criminal things
MW defines desperado as :
Main Entry: des•per•a•do
Pronunciation: \ˌdes-pə-ˈrä-(ˌ)dō, -ˈrā-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural des•per•a•does or des•per•a•dos
Etymology: probably alteration of obsolete desperate desperado, from desperate, adjective
Date: 1647
: a bold or violent criminal; especially : a bandit of the western United States in the 19th century

Arrivée de la Desperados Red

The desperados come in many colours and flavours. From the definitions ,there seem to be an underlying motivation in naming this drink a desperado. First of all, this is an alcoholic drink which is suppose to get you drunk when you’re celebrating with your friends or when you’re in a pub. The name is very appriopriate here as there seems to be a connection between what alcoholic drinks can do to you and the literal definition of the word desperado. A drunk person will feel high, as if they are in cloud nine, lose their sense of conciousness and resort to doing dangerous things like drug taking, smoking weed, getting themselves involved in promiscuous sexual acts with anyone they see, speed driving along the streets. By consuming this alcoholic drink, you become a real desperado- as implies by the name of the drink.
Conclusion: Sometimes the meaning of certain lexical items are adopted as a strategy to market a product by advertisers. A study of lexical items should not be limited to whether or not it is strange in a particular context, or whether or not it poses a problem to our understanding. We should take a broader perspective when analysing lexical items and see how it relates to us in our everyday lives as well. In this discussion, what I wish to highlight is that lexical meanings of a lexical item can be exploited as a strategic tool for advertising to make their products more appealing. As it can be seen in this context, there exists a connection between the alcoholic drink and the meaning of the lexical term desperado. The underlying meaning of the product becomes explicit through the labelling of this product.