They said what?!
Engrish it is:
n. The phenomenon of often hilarious gramatical catastrophes resulting from poor, usually over-literal translations of Japanese to English.
A form of English characterized by bad translation from Japanese by someone who is decent at translating vocabulary but has a poor grasp of English grammar. Tends to be a word-by-word literal translation with humorous results for native English speakers. Engrish is most common in old video games and anime subtitles.
The term “Engrish” comes from the fact that the Japanese language does not have distinct L and R sounds. They do have a consonant that is roughly somewhere in between these two sounds, but whether this translates to L or R in English depends on the situation (and therefore can be interpreted wrong.)
So, there they go:
In mood for some more Engrish?
Must go now I to ,
Shh, she’s writing
..and then reading it. And then writing again.
If you feel that you could use some music to shut out from the outer world (and noises) and have some concentration, here you have a wonderful mix of instrumentals to help you. My favourite contemporary classic, Ludovico Einaudi:
Writingly yours,
Quote of the day
So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys – to woo women – and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.— John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society
I don’t believe in tests…
anymore.
A couple of days ago I posted an interesting online based vocabulary test and my result of 17.000.
Yesterday I got back to it and did the test once again (as you may have expected, I know the same set of words), BUT this time I checked different post-vocabulary fileds. Instead of “All of my subjects were in English” (or sth of the kind) I checked that I no more learn English and that I stopped about an year ago (true fact). On the additional questions (this time there were much more – I checked that I read, speak, and write a lot: with one word communicate a lot in English (the truth). Guess what, this time my result was not 17.000 but 23.500.
So, I decided to take another test and to see what would my n:
Found this one: http://dynamo.dictionary.com/placement/level
Result: 50.052
Pff, what should that mean?
For one it surely means that the tests are lost on me. The lot of them and all the pals, mates, and peers they might have.
I remembered how we once had that perfect candidate for the place of attorney in our office. He got 100/100 on each and every test but turned to be a weird psycho bloke post-hiring. He did know the matter but had no clue how to use it.
So, I’ll stop with tests and will continue with reading, speaking and writing a lot and…
come what may.
Your remaining-untested-in-the-future,
Please write intelligible e-mails
Sometimes I get quite fierce headaches form e-mails that you get lost into.
Please:
- for the sake of your addressee,
- for the sake of time,
- for the sake of brevity,
- for the sake of understanding and
- last but not least for the sake of yourself,
choose your words with care and thought. Let people know what you request them to give you or do. Have a point. Write with authority.
Here are some examples how to do it:
E-mail examples
Yours sincerely,
Create music with words
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen.
I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
Gary Provost, quoted in Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools
TBC…
Commencing my Monday with (more than) five words,
AWARDS
Just English 