Friday, January 22, 2010

500 Words XXIII - This Week's Sentence

This week’s sentence is taken from Alan Paton’s wonderful novel of apartheid-era South Africa, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’.

It is:
‘Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.’

Let us know why.
The usual rules apply.

Oh, and sticking to our literary theme, this reminder of the perils of incorrect spelling appeared on Engrish.com this morning.
I do enjoy the cute way that Japanese folk will wear any old crap as long as it has some English writing on it (the same way that I will wear any old crap as long as it has Japanese writing on it); the difference being that I can read Japanese whereas most Japanese appear to neither know nor care what English words are written on their clothing.
My favourite can be found in the archives of www.engrish.com and shows a sweet little toddler wearing a teeshirt emblazoned with the phrase 'Fuck Off!'

This young lady seems inordinately pleased with her own message. It's just a shame that the consistency of spelling is about as sloppy as the consistency of the message.
They got 'diarrhœa' almost right (they forgot the ligature), but 'feces' for 'fæces' is straight out of Webster, which is indeed shitty.

6 comments:

Scout said...

OK, so spelling aside, why would anyone want to wear that shirt?

dive said...

Robyn, the Japanese seem to think that any English text on a teeshirt is cool, even though they have no idea what it means, something which keeps engrish.com in business and provides me with many a cheap giggle.

Lulubelle B said...

Is my story first?
But I'm Lulu, always late
Here's mine. It's "Knowing"

http://lulu-unlimited.blogspot.com/2010/01/knowing.html

Off to enjoy the beautiful sunny afternoon before the rains return tomorrow.

:^D

dive said...

Yay, Lulu! Yes indeedy; your story is first.
I've already written mine so I can safely pop across and enjoy yours.

MmeBenaut said...

What a ghastly T-shirt and the spelling makes it even worse!

dive said...

Ghastly is a good word, Mme.