I hope you hear these postings in your head in the voice of Simon Callow. The next sentence, however, will probably sound a bit more like Brian Blessed, or Tom Baker.

THE HORSE RACED PAST THE BARN FELL.

The all-caps is deliberate, there. I've only tried out this famous sentence on one other native British English speaker so far, but we both interpret "THE BARN FELL" as being some geographical feature.

A Canadian, I notice, has already spotted this, but I'm a native speaker, and the garden-path interpretations never occurred to me.

posted at: 22:07 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

Once, when someone complained about Americans, it's always Americans, "turning nouns into verbs", I would grit_VB my teeth and bite_VB my tongue_NN, or launch_VB into a volley_NN of sentences_NNS about how people_NN have turned nouns into verbs_NNS since time_NN immemorial.

Now I can just say "Ha ha, the Euphoric State part-of-speech tagger does that all the time!".

I don't know which is more insufferable.

posted at: 21:54 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

Last Monday, on hearing Italians chanting the riff from "Seven Nation Army" on the Today programme, I briefly wondered whether it was something to do with the Risorgimento. Then I remembered that we don't mention the Risorgimento.

I was in Italy this year and I didn't see a single garibaldi biscuit. Apparently the green hemp leaves spray-painted on walls were promoting the Northern League, rather than the legalization of cannabis. The full logo looks like a spoof, but I understand they've been elected to parliament and have even taken part in government.

posted at: 21:38 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

...does not translate into English as "Virgin Radio".

posted at: 18:47 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry