Hillarious exam answers

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108063/Funnyexam-com-Hilarious-exam-answers-given-students.html

Place Names (and Coughing up Fur Balls)

I'm off on Friday morning to Munich, Prague and Cracow, so it's time for a quick blog before my trip.

Yes, I'm going to Cracow: not to Krakow, as my EasyJet ticket would have me believe.  The thing is, you see, this is the spelling of the town in English.  It's Cracowie in French, it's Krakau in German, it's Kraków in Polish - and as far as I'm aware it's "Krakow" only in the language known as EasyJet.

Ever wondered why we have multiple spellings of place names in different languages?  Well it's very simple.  In years gone by merchants or other travellers would visit and find it difficult to pronounce the local variant of the place name.  If the place was significant enough different spellings or versions would occur in different languages.  Cities like Brussels literally have dozens of variants, it being on an international cross-road. 

Kraków (the Polish spelling) is pronounced with a cross between an "u" and an "ooh" like sound in the last vowel because of the accent.  It's a bit like "ooh err missus".  It became easier for English visitors and those talking about the place to adopt their own spelling and pronunciation.   It's pretty hard for an English person to pronounce the German "ü" properly, or indeed to do the German "ch" (just listen to Classic FM presenters trying to say "Bach").  Therefore München becomes Munich in English.  The Italians call it "Monaco" incidentally.  One Monaco does Bier, the other Monaco does Casinos.
 

Brunswick, Germany: how lovely

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and actually quite a lot right with it. These different place names and spellings are usually hundreds of years old.  There's such a charm for me to see something like the above.  English people really genuinely cannot pronounce Braunschweig properly: stick to "Brunswick" and we don't have a problem.  Remember the opening to Browning's wonderful poem?  "Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, by famous Hanover city" - not "Hameln Town's in Braunschweig, by famous Hannover city".  Shame "Brunswick" has virtually vanished from any map or atlas nowadays.

I love reading Koblenz as "Coblentz" (used right up to World War 2) - it gets the "tz" sound of the German "z" across. "C" is a much more used letter in English than K is.  On my Becherovka bottle it says "Original since 1807: Carlsbad, Czech Republic".  I can't pronounce the Czech version Karlovy Vary half as well, nor its neighbouring spa town.  The historic English use of "Marienbad" works a lot better for me, ta, and probably for you too if you don't know your way round Czech's 42 letters and how to pronounce them.  These old fashioned names or spellings seem somehow romantic to me: they conjure up a past that has vanished.

No, I can't even try it either

A Dying Thing

So why is this type of usage dying out?  Well for some cities it's not.  The big ones are still Florence (Firenze), Cologne (Köln), Warsaw (Warszava), Lisbon (Lisboa) etc in English, rather than the local version.  We have an inevitable dumbing down and standardisation going on for the smaller places though.  The UN, quite surprisingly to me, actually has a 50 year old body called UNGEGN (United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names) which meets every now and then to discuss standardising place names.  Last time they met in Vienna, which henceforth presumably may only be referred to as "Wien".  (Never mind, by the way, this is pronounced Vee-en with in the local dialect, but Veen (i.e with a dipthong) by other Austrians).  It's a fruitless, impossible, needless task.

Place names can of course be political statements.  Ayers Rock is no longer considered acceptable by many Australians, whereas Uluru is.  This is a sacred place with special meaning for Aboriginals and Ayers Rock has strong colonial undertones.  The Poles call Dantzig (yes, the old English name!) Gdansk.  The Germans call it Danzig.  The use of one variant can definitely be used as a tool to imply ownership and it's not hard to think of examples when this was the case.

Nazi Propaganda from the 1930s

Interestingly, the incredibly politically correct (in this respect) and anxious Germans have not today sought to impose local Polish and Czech name usage on their former towns.  You still see "Posen", "Danzig" and "Breslau" flashing up in German airports on arrival boards.  Just as Britain is not laying claim to the capital of Italy by calling it Rome, rather than Roma, I quite agree with this.  These are simply the German names and their usage should imply nothing more than that.  This is not 1939 and there is no politics behind it.

English usage in this respect is a little different and more nuanced.  Breslau, for example, is the name you will find in history books for the Silesian town right up until 1945; Wrocław refers only and specifically to the post-1945 town with its new Polish population. 

Kate Adie Coughing up Fur Balls

So then finally we come to Kate Adie.  Bless her: she's an amazing, outstanding journalist.  She's been everywhere.  And she STILL effing well insists on calling Bahrain Bar-chhhhhhh-rain.  It literally sounds like she's gagging on a fur ball.  No Katie, it's "bar-rain" in English.  We don't say "Par-eeee" with a nice rolled French R do we?  We say "Paris" when we're speaking our own language.  She did it on Radio 4 recently and as great as she is, this strikes me as the most silly, pretentious, and actually wrong use of language.

Kate Adie on BBC Radio 4, 12 February 2012

When a Place Name Change *might* be a Good Idea

Okay, so we've established that I'm off to Munich, Prague and Cracow.  As long as I'm speaking English, I'm not off to München, Praha and Kraków.  

Whilst I'm in Munich, I may pop over the border into Austria.  There's a charming little village of 104 people there in the middle of the countryside, not too far from Salzburg.  It has a very old place name.  Here's a photo I took of my pal Jörg there on a previous visit.  Click on this link if you want a real giggle about something which actually has absolutely nothing to do with this blog entry at all.  I just wanted to share it :-)

Pork knuckles @ Overtime, Pavillion KL

The 'aftermath' of munching on a huge plate of crispy, succulent German pork knuckles (rm52) at Overtime in Pavillion. Feeling the giddyness of rm20 margarita too!

May Mei restaurant

Recommended: The crab- either chilli or marmite flavoured!
- yummy and huge
- located just before overpriced Mei Keng Fatt restaurant...
- worth every penny!

Ang ko kuih

My mum made her delicious ang ko kuih today. I helped her a bit. Its mouth watering just writing about it.

She is about to go for an op. I can't help but look back at the number of times i had to go to the hospital as a visitor since i came back from glasgow. Hospitals are really a sad place. People's emotions go wild when they are admitted to hospitals. Tear drops of sadness overwhelmes even the strongest person when he or she has to lie down on a hospital bed. The fear of death comes. The fear of the worst comes creeping up in their minds.

As a visitor, it takes a lot of courage and will power to be there by your loved one's side because you visit the hospitalised to give support and encouragement that everything will be alright. Being emo is a no-no.

Today i also visited an aunt who just had her had a surgery yesterday. She tells her experience in the hospital, the fear and stress before the appointment of the surgery, its just makes her weep. She wept to be grateful that the surgery went well and she is still around with her supportive kids, sisters and niece caring for her.

From this, I learn, its important to have more children so you dont feel too lonely and there will be more care. To those ppl who say they dont want to get married or dont want any kids, you might want to rethink that for the sake of your old age. Family is important. Friends may come visit for one hour, but the one with the same blood ties and love will stick around for 24 hours n more till u r alright.

Woops.. I got carried away there. Suppose to be about ang ko kuih. Heres a pic of my mum making the juih and i must say, she looks as young as me..... ;)

** i will never understand why some people do not like taking photigraphs. Photographs are important memories to cherish and look back on when you have parted ways or can never see that special someone again...

Skate

I love it when a photo leads me into new internet terrain! I grew up with skaters out in California, and actually know a bunch here, so it's fun to stop and watch them do trix down at Ingólfstorg, the plaza at the very end of Laugavegur (btw, love the interactive map I just linked to!) This time I got a few shots, not the best in the world, but something to post anyway (and the dude in the pink shoes in the photo below is Stephen who's in my college English class : )

The fun started, for me at least, when I googled Ingólfstorg. I got a cool article about the plaza's history (sorry, it's in Icelandic, but with lots of b/w photos...and I don't have the time to translate it), its international renown as a skate spot (see here - it's got a funbox!- and here - "NO problem with the police...there is a 8 step stairs, where you can grind the steps, and the steps are a little gap!!") and the fact that 68 submissions have been received by the City for its redesign (unfortunately also only in Icelandic, but you can download - or read in Google Docs - the PDF of the Redesign Competition guidelines.)

Though pretty much everyone agrees that the plaza is a total design failure as far as enticing humans to enjoy it (and other wildlife as well!) I'm sure skaters will be super unhappy to see it turned into something new, because we all know without having to ask that out of those 68 submissions, not one incorporates room for any kind of bling or flair by boarders. I'll go ahead and link this video of some locals doing the torg for posterity's sake, and also so you can hear how well young Icelanders swear in English...they've hardly even got an accent! : )

 The winners of the first round of the design competition will be announced next week, on Leap Day, and I, for one, am really interested in seeing the results.

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Wisdom

The only disability in life is bad attitude