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[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info] [main site] [f.a.q.] [blog roll + ...] Below are the 3 most recent journal entries recorded in the "the auroran sunset" journal:
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02:42 am
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silly french time three
Anyone who has tried to watch a streaming video on a French computer may have double-taken at the following French:
mise en mémoire tampon From the context, it obviously means "buffering", but i could swear the literal translation would be "putting into tampon memory". I'm not quite sure what a tampon memory would be - probably quite bloody: "Saddam has a tampon memory, all he can remember is..". No, maybe not.
The French word "tampon" normally means a "wad" or "pad", but it also has a secondary meaning of "buffer".
The French for a bicycle "inner tube" is "une chambre à air", literally that's an "air bedroom". OK then.
Anyone who has done even a very little French is likely to know the word for a bank: "une banque", pronounced like the English word "bonk". What they may not know is that in French a "seat" is a miniature bank: "une banquette". I think the French must use the seats for more than sitting.
That's all the silly for tonight. :-)
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03:39 pm
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silly french
from my tiny ikkle dictionary:
tièdir vi to cool; to grow warmer
it does kind of make sense when you realise that 'tiède' means lukewarm or tepid, but still! ^_^
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11:11 am
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paine on unreferented words
yet another quote from thomas paine， this time on the absurdity of titles：
Titles are but nick-names, and every nick-name is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. [...] When we think or speak of a Judge or a General, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we think of gravity in the one, and bravery in the other: but when we use a word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. [...] What respect then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which means nothing? --1883011035, p476/7。
paine's statement reminds me of a similar one from abelard：
i regard 'proper nouns' as a false dichotomy....
a table is as due deference, as is a person...
and the use of capitals for the ridiculous vanities
that 'titles' such as 'the!! queen' and 'most
reverend'....indicate...... are to me offensive...
rather like a dog riding a bicycle... most undignified....
such wordy appendages dehumanise....
eg to call that great thinker jesus of nazareth, 'christ',
is greatly insulting....
Current Mood:  tired
Current Music: nippy tv
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