Throwback to the time my poor German teacher had to explain the concept of formal and informal pronouns to a class full of Australians and everyone was scandalised and loudly complained “why can’t I treat everyone the same?” “I don’t want to be a Sie!” “but being friendly is respectful!” “wouldn’t using ‘du’ just show I like them?” until one guy conceded “I suppose maybe I’d use Sie with someone like the prime minister, if he weren’t such a cunt” and my teacher ended up with her head in her hands saying “you are all banned from using du until I can trust you”
God help Japanese teachers in Australia.
if this isnt an accurate representation of australia idk what is
Australia’s reverse-formality respect culture is fascinating. We don’t even really think about it until we try to communicate or learn about another culture and the rules that are pretty standard for most of the world just feel so wrong. I went to America this one time and I kept automatically thinking that strangers using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ were sassing me.
Australians could not be trusted with a language with ingrained tiers of formal address. The most formal forms would immediately become synonyms for ‘go fuck yourself’ and if you weren’t using the most informal version possible within three sentences of meeting someone they’d take it to mean you hated them.
100% true.
the difference between “‘scuse me” and “excuse me” is a fistfight
See also: the Australian habit of insulting people by way of showing affection, which other English-speakers also do, but not in a context where deescalating the spoken invective actively increases the degree of offence intended, particularly if you’ve just been affectionately-insulting with someone else.
By which I mean: if you’ve just called your best mate an absolute dickhead, you can’t then call a hated politician something that’s (technically) worse, like a total fuckwit, because that would imply either that you were really insulting your mate or that you like the politician. Instead, you have to use a milder epithet, like bastard, to convey your seething hatred for the second person. But if your opening conversational gambit is slagging someone off, then it’s acceptable to go big (”The PM’s a total cockstain!”) at the outset.
Also note that different modifiers radically change the meaning of particular insults. Case in point: calling someone a fuckin’ cunt is a deadly insult, calling someone a mad cunt is a compliment, and calling someone a fuckin’ mad cunt means you’re literally in awe of them. Because STRAYA.
Meanwhile, “utter” works for the first (e.g., “you utter floorboard”) but somehow “utterly” doesn’t seem to work as well for the second (“I was utterly floorboarded”).
Utterly doesn’t work for drunk because it’s the affix for turning random objects into terms for *shocked*, obviously.
… huh. I thought that might just be the similarity to “floored”, and yet “I was utterly coat hangered” does seem to convey something similar.
I have to tell you, I am utterly sandwiched at this discovery.
Completely makes the phrase mean “super tired”.
“God, it’s been a long week, I am completely coat-hangered.”
Meanwhile, “utter” works for the first (e.g., “you utter floorboard”) but somehow “utterly” doesn’t seem to work as well for the second (“I was utterly floorboarded”).
Utterly doesn’t work for drunk because it’s the affix for turning random objects into terms for *shocked*, obviously.
… huh. I thought that might just be the similarity to “floored”, and yet “I was utterly coat hangered” does seem to convey something similar.
I have to tell you, I am utterly sandwiched at this discovery.
Completely makes the phrase mean “super tired”.
“God, it’s been a long week, I am completely coat-hangered.”
Something is
Something is wrong with our language
Is it a glitch or a feature?
Feature
I think this means you’ve been utterly linguisted.
“If it doesn’t have a rainspout coming out of its mouth then technically it’s not a gargoyle – it’s a grotesque” is my favourite bit of architectural trivial because that is the most hilariously on-the-nose name ever. Like, fuck, it sure is!
The word “moist” is the Number One universally reviled word in the English language due to both its definition and the way it sounds. Similarly gross words include
chunks
curdling
squirt
munch
bulbous
pustule
sink
squirm
slippery
Which got me wondering, can I elicit the same emotions with words that have no meaning? And the answer is “Yes, yes you definitely can.”
So here it is: words and phrases that elicit “thanks, i hate it!” by sheer negative sonority
scrungo
beesechurger
mingus
hurgling
tungus
Scrimmy Bingus and the Crungy Spingus
slurm
chungus
crungle
gunch
But did you know you can make it even worse by combining them??
bucket of curdling chunks
the pustulous gunch muncher
your squirming tungus
this crungy beesechurger
a squirting chungus
the slurm sink
a slippery mingus
And my all time favorite
m y ⠀m o i s t ⠀s c r u n g o
I just lost 800 brain cells and died a little on the inside from reading this
I know most of you never thought about that, but… GUYS.
“What Can I Do” [wɒt kæn aɪ duː] sounds awfully like “водки найду” [vɒtki naɪduː], which means “I’m gonna find some vodka”.
“Can’t Buy Me Love” [kɑːnt baɪ miː lʌv] is another gem, because I know a whole bunch of people who sing along to that with the phrase “кинь бабе лом” [kɪŋˈbɑːbi lom], which means “throw a crowbar to that [tough] woman”.
Don’t be alarmed, that’s just the way we hear things.
I do that even when I’m sober… T_T
Michael Jackson’s “I’m bad” sounds awfully close to “Обед” [abed], which translates as “Dinner”. So we often call this song ”The song of a very hungry man” 😉
It happens in spanish too!
“I wanna love you” sounds like “Agua en el hoyo” (water in the hole) and a lot of people sing it that way instead.
See also “This is the rhythm of the night” -> “¿Esos son Rebook o son Nike?” (Are those Rebook or Nike?)
I see this entry is revived))
I need to make another example: “Let’s twist again, like we did last summer”, the “ like we did last summer” is often sung like, “и трусы с лавсаном (and the underpants with lavsan)”. I’ve seen people singing that in karaoke. As you might have guessed, that… amplifies the fun a bit.
To conclude this part, I also need to make an honourable mention. Thanks to Taika Waititi, “VLADISLAV! Baby don’t hurt me…” has gone GLOBAL)))
In Dutch, these are called “mama appelsapjes”, in honour of the refrain in Michael Jackson’s “Wanna be starting something”, which sounds a bit like “mama apple juice”.
The real classic, however, is “ik zat alleen in een vuile kameel” (I sat alone in a dirty camel), heard in “Down under” by Man at Work.
My fave will always be the opening lines of “This Sex Is On Fire”. I genuinely have no idea what the actual English lines are, but in Dutch it sounds like
“Eeuwen geleden (Centuries ago)
Ik kom met het zout” (I come with the salt)
Doesn’t even make any good sense but it manages the get me going every time.
It gets better!! We need more stories like that ;} Other languages, anyone?
oh my god, this is a huge thing in denmark with coldplay’s yellow. the lyric “your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones” unmistakably sounds like the danish “jeg sked, åh ja jeg sked en bums” which in turns means “I shat, oh yeah I shat a pimple”. it’s gotten to the point where it’s such a beloved joke nationwide that coldplay has been informed of it and find it very difficult to play the song in denmark because people simultaneously scream the wrong lyrics and lose their shit completely
I watched a Buzzfeed video about this and now I can’t hear Sweet Dreams Are Made of This without thinking “sin jeans al mediodia” (without jeans at noon)
Hay agua en el refri (I want to break free) is my favourite
The one direction song “one thing” is famous in France for beginning with “ive tried playing it cool” which sounds a hell lot like “attrape les mes couilles” in French :’)
There’s that one song where they repeat “this kiss, this kiss”, well in Finnish it sounds like “tiskis” which approximately translates as dish washing
We even have a radio station publishing misheard lyrics like that here in Germany.
One of the classics is probably Chris Norman’s Midnight Lady: instead of hearing “Oh my feelings grow” we hear “Oma fiel ins Klo” which translates to “Grandma fell into the toilet”. Or “Aghate Bauer” (Aghate Farmer) instead of “I’ve got the Power” OR “It must have been something you said” as “Du musst besoffen bestelln” (You have to order drunk).
i say we start a meme where we take jokes that don’t work in other languages and translate them without explanation maybe only tagging with the original language and confuse the heck out of everyone on tumblr who’s not in on the meme like
in italian we say “prince light blue” (prince azzurro) instead of “prince charming” and i just saw a joke that in english would be “if you can’t find your prince charming, the solution is to take a random dude from the street and paint him”
what’s the difference between a stapler and a sewing machine? a stapler staples and a sewing machine doesn’t
i take it back, these are still funny in a completely different way
Kimchi and Justice 