I joined the meeting late and took refuge on a tiny Ottoman footstool as this serious-looking group of working class radicals met in the back of a pub, somewhere in Birmingham, England. It was proposed that they crash a speech by Labour “life peer” and union fat cat Baroness Margaret Prosser.
Brassed Off
August 23, 2009 at 1:00 am (British English, English)
Tags: Bill Bryson, British, Regional Expressions
Word Fun: Issue No. 3
This one comes from Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way. Below is a list of British terms that Bryson, writing in 1990, challenges his mostly American audience to identify.
Provisions en Français
August 18, 2009 at 10:02 pm (English, French)
Tags: française, French, Occupational Terminology
I was ringing groceries, provisions, the other day and had a fantastic little exchange en français. To resume my French studies, left to decompose after high school, I started with learning how to say the various robot phrases that we, as caissiers and caissières, have to repeat to customers un mille times throughout the day. I would try one phrase out on a French-speaking customer and then ask them how to say another phrase. In this manner, my répertoire would grow with each transaction.
Danza Negra
August 8, 2009 at 11:45 pm (Caribbean Languages, English, Spanish, World Languages)
Tags: Afro-Antille Poetry, Español, Spanish, Word Origins
Danza Negra
The following poem is a rhythmic song that’s going to be a really fun piece. First, we are going to learn how to sing the song or poem using a certain cadence. Second, we will read the poem in that manner. Following this, you can read my translation. In translating the poem, I employed my beginner level Spanish skills as well as a heavy dose of artistic license. We will discuss my word choices and interpretation and your preferences in the commentary. Lastly, there’s a word about what I know of the origins of the poem and my perspective on the subject.
