I'm back

 How time flies.... and I haven't been keeping up to date, not, alas, because of a lack of suitable material. A colleague has prompted me to start writing again by sending me a photo she took in the laundry room of a campsite in the south of France this summer.

How terribly unfortunate that the French word "lessive" is used to mean both the laundry you wash and the washing powder that you use to do so, and obviously the translator (whether a machine or a person) picked the wrong one.

This would appear to be a good place to post the laundry instruction label from a garment made in China, which has so many mistakes that I'd be here all night explaining, so I'll put a glossary underneath it.

cold (adj): froid    a cold (noun): un rhume

tumble dry - sécher en machine; tumble - tomber

low (adj) - bas; at a  low temperature: à bas temperature.

bleach (noun) - eau de javel; to bleach - décolorer

non-chlorine - sans chlore

iron (noun) - le fer; to iron - repasser

a design - un motif; ∅design - la conception

to dry - sécher; to clean - nettoyer; clean (adj) - propre; to dry clean - nettoyer à sec

Language Drill

The powers that be in France have recently introduced a reform of the language which is supposed to simplify spelling by doing away with some of those pesky accents that we foreigners struggle so hard to remember - and replacing the "ph" in words like nénuphar (water-lilly) with an "f" . However, it would appear that it's not just non native speakers who don't know when they should use the circumflex ^ - which is a pity, because sometimes the meaning of the word changes completely depending on whether it has an accent or not. Which brings me to the drill of the title: the word un foret means a drill bit. Une forêt, on the other hand is a transparent word for English speakers thanks in part to the circumflex accent which reminds us that there used to be an "s" after the letter "e".  Google translate knows the difference. Unfortunately for him, the pupil who thought he'd take a short cut to doing his English homework by writing it in French and then using Google to translate it, didn't. Garbage in, garbage out: "They are standing on the edge of a drill."

He obviously couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Now I lay me down to sleep.....

Grammar 101: to lie is an intransitive verb - i.e. it doesn't take a direct object - "lay" is the past of this verb.
To lay is a transitive verb which means it requires a direct object: its past and past participle are both "laid".
What brought this on, do you ask? The sight of a printed notice which failed to differentiate between the two: unfortunately I didn't have a black marker pen to hand, so I took a photo instead.

Exhibit A

and Exhibit B: what is actually being forbidden, if you take the sign literally.

 

 Added Sept. 2020

Reassure me, surely the irregular past form of "to lie" hasn't been changed and I didn't get the memo?

This caption accompanied a photo taken at the funeral of H.W. Bush on the BBC website.

"In the past few days, however, old wounds seem to have been mended. Mr Trump welcomed the family to the Blair House, across the street from the White House, and paid his respects as the elder Bush laid in state at the US Capitol."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46449637

 

Instructions: clear as mud

I had a new dress for Christmas: I ordered it online at it came by post. When I unpacked it there was a little note saying that it would need to be pressed before I wore it. There was also a helpful (not) translation of this information into French - which told me that it would have "besoin pressant" before being worn....... this is a French expression which means an urgent need for the toilet. Woops!
Moving along swiftly, Santa brought me a cute novelty salt and pepper set. The pieces had to be taken apart to be filled and then pushed firmly back together before use - to avoid getting the entire contents dumped on your turkey. Unfortunately the instructions had been translated from Chinese (or similar) and  in fact said the very opposite: "hardly push" as opposed to "push hard". I know that hardly looks as if it should be the adverb formed from the adjective hard, but of course it isn't. In French hardly is à peine.

Wishing you a very Dictionary Christmas

My pupils have been hard at work on Christmas traditions from around the world: amongst the many gems we have learned about calendars and candles "of the front": this is an epic fail caused by a spelling mistake in the original French - Advent is "l'Avent" NOT "l'Avant"!
Apparently every house in  Germany  has "stares" (rather than stars) as Christmas decorations and  in Canada they have Christmas "day nurseries" : nativity cribs - in French it's the same word: "une crèche".  Swedes, I am reliably informed, send "maps" to family and friends - rather than the more traditional Christams cards.
However, the most suprising discovery was that Americans decorate the outside of their houses with garlands and bollocks. I wonder whose?

Why and how have the murderous barbarians responsible for so many deaths become "DAESH", and what does it mean?

If you like to understand the meaning before you use a new word, here is an excellent explanation of the meaning and significance of this word by an Arab language expert called Alice Guthrie.

https://www.freewordcentre.com/blog/2015/02/daesh-isis-media-alice-guthrie/


Thank you Alice - I will be taking every opportunity to use it.

An unhealthy start to the school year

Just received by email  from the pupils at the local catering college which is called Les Grippeaux, a message informing us that the restaurant is now open and
 "You can view the days of opening and menus on the influenza school site."
Presumably  the message has been through a machine translator which has translated the "grippe" of the name ... don't these pupils ever re-read anything and think before pressing "send"?