A linguistics professor was addressing his class one day, and made the following remark: “In some languages, like in English, a double negative will make a positive. In some other languages, such as Russian, the double negative will remain a negative. Yet there is no language on the planet in which a double positive becomes a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room popped up, “Yeah, right.”
Imperfection is part and parcel of how we communicate, and one of the beautiful things about the evolution of language is how little imperfections can create entirely new constructs, as words and phrases are misheard, misunderstood, misinterpreted and misstated. One of my favourite examples in this regard is the ‘mondegreen’, a term normally used to denote a misheard song lyric, although it originated with a line of poetry:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray, And Lady Mondegreen.Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
This post is also available in English .
Kleine Randbemerkung. In meiner Zeit als Sprachdozent habe ich oft den Fehler bei den Steigerungsformen gehört, wobei der Deutsche die Präposition ‘als’ durch ein ähnlich klingendes englisches Wort ersetzt:
Die Grünen sind beliebter als die SPD.
The Green Party is more popular as the SPD.
Jedoch wo man eine andere Komparativform verwendet, ob umgangsprachlich oder als Dialektform, führt dies zu anderen Fehlübersetzungen in dem Englischen:
As a pacific type, I like to feel that there are few things that can get me enraged. Whilst I may oft quote the remark attributed to Voltaire, ((See this link.)) “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” you’d have to be saying something pretty damn meaningful. Indeed, being brought up as an Englishman, not only am I likely to stand and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I’m liable to apologise for getting in the way of said arrows, and offer them back at the end for good measure!
Yet over the years I’ve discovered a couple of things in life that I’d be willing to bear arms for. The British Isles are not renowned for their cuisine, but some things have been honed to an art there. One of these is the pie. Now quite how the humble pie could come to be threatened is quite a stretch of the imagination. If something so base could be in danger of disappearing, then there are probably problems for its basic ingredients, in which case there are much greater issues to be worrying about. Yet the prospect of a pie tax or some other form of rationing has me sharpening blades in preparation for the event, a veritable cataclysm by any standards! But this is nought compared to my second item.
All About H. Hatterr
It’s difficult to know what to make of G. V. Desani’s ludicrous autobiography, All About H. Hatterr. As a pure work of literature, the confusing employment of language has led to its comparison to Joyce , and as an author Desani has been compared to the likes of Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov for his use of English instead of a maternal tongue. Yet it is also a work of continued interest to the post-colonialist in its epitome of cultural interchange, Desani being described erroneously as a métèque author.
