Wednesday 19 December 2007

Quello che gli inglesi non dicono

Pretty much everywhere you go these days you will come across new and colourful varieties of English. As a rule, you would be advised to avoid the following turns of phrase, which are peculiar to the University of Bari:

1) When I finish university, I will do the teacher. Unless you have violent or sexual intentions towards one of your professors.
2) My boyfriend has a little bird. Unless you are a dwarf and wish to draw attention to the fact. (Disappointingly, it turned out that the speaker here was simply mistranslating "un pò di barba").
3) I don't know how I feel myself. Oh, I think you probably do.
4) Men are higher than women. Only at certain parties.
5) Can you get me off at the station? No, no, no, no, NO! You've no idea where the taxi driver might go from here!
6) She is very beautiful: she has long blond hairs. Whatever turns you on!
7) Do you get on your girlfriend's mother okay? Yeah, but she always pushes me off.
8) Can you make me a pleasure? At least, not in the sense of "do me a favour".
9) I work well in a team and am good at hand jobs. ALWAYS get a native speaker to check your CV before you destroy your career prospects.
10) She came on the stairs. We're clearly talking one hell of a nice staircase here...
11) Our teacher is the biggest in the world! On second thoughts, I think this is fine.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or things like "I'm hot" said on the 15th of august, midday. Er.. you meant the weather right? So , sorry for jumping on you, then. I apologise.
I guess you've collected, in years, quite a collection of such ... gems. A true "little shop of linguistic horrors".. isn't it? (maledette question tags)

b said...

To be honest, Manuela, I wish I'd written more of them down, innit?

Anonymous said...

Maybe you did not write them down for a sort of.. traumatic denial.. could that be?
"The Rape of the English: a true story"
You could make money on that, think about it ;-)
(aniway, maledetto "the")

Anonymous said...

ah, e non sono anonimo.
e comunque è anyway (dannato spelling)