| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Off topic: Two paninis...............NOOOOOOOOOOOOO Thread poster: Susanna Garcia
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Cetacea 
Switzerland
Local time: 09:47
English to German
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| You think you have problems, Suzi? :-D | May 4, 2010 |
A long time ago, A Swiss physician named Bircher invented a breakfast dish that's made of oatmeal, grated apples, chopped nuts, milk and/or cream, and nowadays any fruit you can think of. In Swiss German, that's called a "Birchermüesli" (note the "e" after the umlaut).
When the Germans adopted the dish, they found that "müesli" thing impossible to pronounce or spell or both, so they dropped the "e", turning it into a "Birchermüsli".
Unfortunately, in Swiss German, a ... See more A long time ago, A Swiss physician named Bircher invented a breakfast dish that's made of oatmeal, grated apples, chopped nuts, milk and/or cream, and nowadays any fruit you can think of. In Swiss German, that's called a "Birchermüesli" (note the "e" after the umlaut).
When the Germans adopted the dish, they found that "müesli" thing impossible to pronounce or spell or both, so they dropped the "e", turning it into a "Birchermüsli".
Unfortunately, in Swiss German, a "müsli" is a little mouse, so now, every time I see it spelled that way in a German text, I have to think of someone having grated baby mice for breakfast. Ugh. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 00:47
English to German
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In memoriam | Grrrrmmmmmppppfffhihihi!! | May 4, 2010 |
Cetacea wrote: A long time ago, A Swiss physician named Bircher invented a breakfast dish that's made of oatmeal, grated apples, chopped nuts, milk and/or cream, and nowadays any fruit you can think of. In Swiss German, that's called a "Birchermüesli" (note the "e" after the umlaut). When the Germans adopted the dish, they found that "müesli" thing impossible to pronounce or spell or both, so they dropped the "e", turning it into a "Birchermüsli". Unfortunately, in Swiss German, a "müsli" is a little mouse, so now, every time I see it spelled that way in a German text, I have to think of someone having grated baby mice for breakfast. Ugh.
Never thought of that... but:
| | | | Krzysztof Kajetanowicz (X)
Poland
Local time: 09:47
English to Polish
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Doesn't exactly make me wanna scream but... I often see paparazzi used as singular, as in 'A paparazzi spotted her from his tree as she was getting ready for her shower'.
| | | | Susanna Garcia
Local time: 08:47
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER In memoriam
Oh yes, forgotten that.
Back to my Dr Who Prom queue now................again, number 24!
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| I rest my case... | May 4, 2010 |
if you are in Auckland...
| | | | Susanna Garcia
Local time: 08:47
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER In memoriam
What fun.....maybe they should offer games by a certain computer company!
| | | | | Nice one Giovanni! | May 4, 2010 |
Susanna Garcia wrote:
What fun.....maybe they should offer games by a certain computer company!
Maybe they already do - there's an interesting hand symbol forming part of their logo, after all
[Edited at 2010-05-04 12:44 GMT]
| | | | Gianni Pastore
Italy
Local time: 09:47
Member (2007)
English to Italian
| Buahahahahaha!!! | May 4, 2010 |
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote: if you are in Auckland...
[Edited at 2010-05-04 13:01 GMT]
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LoL Giovanni and Gianni!!!
Italians are always amazed when I tell them that "footing" (which they presume to mean "jogging") is not an English word...
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 10:47
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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That what I saw in Portugal.
Originally it's of course German, or where do you think Hamburg is?
In Finnish one such issue is "muffins". One muffin, two muffins. But mostly they are called "muffinsit", the Finnish plural out of the English plural form.
There was once an American professor for German, who seriously suggested that the German language should drop its 20 different plural endings and use the English S-plural exclusively. Big laugh!
It does... See more That what I saw in Portugal.
Originally it's of course German, or where do you think Hamburg is?
In Finnish one such issue is "muffins". One muffin, two muffins. But mostly they are called "muffinsit", the Finnish plural out of the English plural form.
There was once an American professor for German, who seriously suggested that the German language should drop its 20 different plural endings and use the English S-plural exclusively. Big laugh!
It doesn't matter how they do it in the source language. Every language has to use its own tools. Or would you like to use "saunat" (FI) for the plural of sauna instead "saunas" (EN) or "Saunen" (DE)?
Cheers
Heinrich ▲ Collapse
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I don't mind the 'ing's so much in French (bowling, footing, shampooing) - strangely enough, I kind of like how they roll off the tongue, too. What drives me crazy is the trend of taking an English word, adding an s - and pronouncing it, too, even though the s in plurals is not pronounced in French - and then using it with a singular word!
Un cookies, un pumpkins and, horror of all horrors, un pins!
Sometimes, when these are written, an apostrophe gets thrown in just for the f... See more I don't mind the 'ing's so much in French (bowling, footing, shampooing) - strangely enough, I kind of like how they roll off the tongue, too. What drives me crazy is the trend of taking an English word, adding an s - and pronouncing it, too, even though the s in plurals is not pronounced in French - and then using it with a singular word!
Un cookies, un pumpkins and, horror of all horrors, un pins!
Sometimes, when these are written, an apostrophe gets thrown in just for the fun of it (un pin's), but that's a whole other kettle of fish... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Paul Dixon
Brazil
Local time: 04:47
Portuguese to English
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An interesting discussion here.
Regarding "visa", I can't see it being plural, except possibly in Old English or Latin. What would the singular be? Visum?
The mention of the word "shampooing" raises another point - what would the past tense be: shampooed, shampood or shampoo'd? I prefer the last form, so we would write shampoo'd, shanghai'd, subpoena'd and so on.
Finally, regarding Italian plurals, I studied Italian and learnt that foreign words do not chan... See more An interesting discussion here.
Regarding "visa", I can't see it being plural, except possibly in Old English or Latin. What would the singular be? Visum?
The mention of the word "shampooing" raises another point - what would the past tense be: shampooed, shampood or shampoo'd? I prefer the last form, so we would write shampoo'd, shanghai'd, subpoena'd and so on.
Finally, regarding Italian plurals, I studied Italian and learnt that foreign words do not change in the plural, so il film/i film, il blog/ i blog (I had actually thought the plural was "blogghi" or something). As for "spaghetti" and related words, they are apparently all plurals although the singular is rarely used, so: lo spaghetto/gli spaghetti, il raviolo / i ravioli, lo gnocco / gli gnocchi etc. Out of these words, only gnocchi is pluralised in Portuguese: um nhoque (or inhoque) / nhoques (or inhoques). My guess is that plurals are used as you never eat just one, so "uno spaghetto" could be one strand of spaghetti.
Maybe some Italian speakers could shed light on if "spaghetto", "gnocco" and the like have other meanings? ▲ Collapse
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Erik Freitag
Germany
Local time: 09:47
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
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Paul Dixon wrote:
An interesting discussion here.
Regarding "visa", I can't see it being plural, except possibly in Old English or Latin. What would the singular be? Visum?
The singular is "visum". I know (and have no real problem with the fact) that "visa" as a singular is correct English. I'm just so used to the German usage, which keeps the latin singular and plural "Visum/Visa" that the English usage makes me squirm.
I would be interested to know how other languages handle this...
| | | | Jan Willem van Dormolen (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 09:47
English to Dutch
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efreitag wrote: Paul Dixon wrote:
An interesting discussion here.
Regarding "visa", I can't see it being plural, except possibly in Old English or Latin. What would the singular be? Visum?
The singular is "visum". I know (and have no real problem with the fact) that "visa" as a singular is correct English. I'm just so used to the German usage, which keeps the latin singular and plural "Visum/Visa" that the English usage makes me squirm. I would be interested to know how other languages handle this...
Dutch uses 'visum' too. First time I encountered the English use was when I wanted to travel to the USA. I wondered, why do I need several visa for just one trip?
And, as I translate a lot of hifi/it stuff, I always bump into this media thing - why can't the English grasp the concept of 1 medium?
| | | | Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 09:47
Italian to English
In memoriam
Jenny Forbes wrote:
I hadn't realised - shame on me - that "visa" was (were?) plural!
Don't worry, Jenny. It isn't.
According to the OED, "visa", the Latin feminine past participle of "videre", replaced the French participle "visé" fairly recently (the OED gives a 1904 example of "visé" from The Times).
And then there's the currently ubiquitous "a criteria" and "a media" - ugh, I can't bear it!
Not to mention double plurals like "cherubims".
[Edited at 2010-05-04 16:49 GMT]
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