Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight (Isaiah 40:4)

KA sent me this interesting Bigstock Blog link titled "20 British words that mean something totally different in the US". Some of the "differences" -- as depicted -- are quite funny:

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/20-british-words-that-mean-something-totally-different-in-the-us

I am reminded of the word "citation". As peculiarly used in the US, you may get a "traffic citation" ie what is known as a traffic summons elsewhere in the English-speaking world:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/citation

From the same Bigstock Blog site is this one:

"19 words that mean something totally different to kids than to adults":

http://bigstockblog.squarespace.com/blog/19-words-that-mean-something-totally-different-to-adults-than-to-kids
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Meanwhile, Tom woke me up from my afternoon siesta to point out something that bugged him about this picture caption in today's ST (Oct 15):


Is crooked the correct word, he wondered. After all, there is the Leaning Tower of Pisa (but then there is also the Crookedest Street in San Fransciso!). I felt tilted might be a better choice of word. There's also bent and skewed. But in the end I thought they are all variations to express the idea of "not being straight" whether in the vertical or horizontal sense (I won't go into the sexual orientation sense here).

There was also, during my pre-university days, the General Paper textbook Straight and Crooked Thinking, by Robert H. Thouless.

Tom's query reminded me of this old nursery rhyme:

"There was a crooked man"
By Mother Goose


There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
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Finally, there is a nonsensical song by a duo of Norwegian brothers, Ylvis, that is a current online video hit. But I think credit must first go to this original children's song:

The Animal Sounds Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99ULJjCsaM

Now that you know which came first, here's Ylvis' hit song What Does The Fox Say?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE

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