Speaking in Tongues

Highway signs can be misleading. For example -- we have towns in Australia named The Entrance, Speed, and Young.
Signs read -- The Entrance Exit --- Speed - Slow Down, and Young Senior Citizens Centre.
Any more examples from your country?

headmagnet.com is an interesting online flashcard program to help improve your vocabulary, remember important dates, or match face with names.

Supposedly, it can predict when you'll start to forget things and act as a reminder though I haven't got to that point yet.

I have set up a list of simple Chinese sentences (which you can search for if you so desire).

This morning, I studied them using the question:answer option. In other words, it showed me the Chinese and I had to try to remember…

I've always thought of 'gotten' as primarily North American usage and have never heard it used by Brits living in the UK. But recently I've noticed one of my colleagues (white, female, 20-something, university educated, from just outside London) using it quite regularly - and she's never lived/spent long periods abroad. I also heard a couple of young English people use it on TV recently.

Has it always been used (by a minority) in the UK, or is it enjoying a resurgence?

There's a sign at the entrance to Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate, saying that guides are available in a number of languages, listed by name in each language, Deutsch, Italiano, etc. They're about what you'd expect: those two plus Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and some others. Hungarian was perhaps the least expected one.

Except for Ykpai Hebka. (Maybe it said Ykpal Hebka.) Google doesn't know about it. There may have been a transcription…

Hello,

Can anybody translate 'i'm trying not to...' into Spanish for me as in 'i'm trying not to drink beer' or 'i'm trying not to spend too much' etc.

My friend said put 'no' at the beginning (i don't know why i ask him these things, his English isn't even that good) as in
'no trato de hablar espanol' but that is 'i'm not trying to drink beer' which means something completely different. Maybe 'trato de no bebir cerveza', is that possible?

Help much appreciated

Patrick

I'm posting this in the Speaking in Tongues branch, because I feel this is mostly about the definition of race. It's census year here in the US and I recieved my 10-question form in the mail today. The wording of questions 8 & 9 (5 & 6 for subsequent people sharing a house) seems archaic, narrow in scope and just irritates me:

NOTE: Please answer BOTH Question 8 about Hispanic origin and Question 9 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.

1. Is Person 1 of Hispanic…

I'm advised I live in Scotland. Why don't I live on Scotland?

What does a Martini mean to you?

4 parts gin and 1 part vermouth, with an olive, might be the typical answer...

And, where does the Martini name come from?

I just saw a classified ad in the New York Review of Books. A publisher writes: "For our series on gender studies, I still need volumes on the 11th and 19th genders. Is there anyone who can write these for me?"

Is this some new meaning of the word "gender"? I tried googling, but didn't find anything. Any ideas?

Watching an informercial about Dubai on CNN, lots of people said what a wonderful place it is to work, and ends up with three people, A local guy who says, 'Dubai', a guy, who could be German, says 'One city' and then a Spanish guy who appears to say 'And less opportunities'. It took me a second or two to get it, but it did make me smile.