Experts pore [sic] anxiously over Beijing English menus

China Daily ^ | 04/13/2007 | Xinhua

[Silly]

:-)

[Aquinasfan]

see http://www.engrish.com for some great laughs.

Thanks! Too funny.

[Doomonyou]

Menu on the island of Santorini:

I passed on the "Lamp with lemon sauce."

[dighton]

And now that it’s on the web, it’s gospel.

[1rudeboy]

My pet peeve is “could care less” when the person means “could not care less.”

[Silly]

I’ve just created another mess for Snopes.com to clean up in fifty years.

[Tax-chick]

One of my pet peeves is “soft-pedaled,”

If I were going to use that phrase, which I probably wouldn't in writing, that's how I'd spell it. I thought it had to do with sewing machines.

What should it be?

[Tax-chick]

grammatical and spelling errors just seem to leap off the page at me.

In color.

[Constitution Day]

Tell me about it.

Sometimes I just WANT to not notice them, but I can’t do it!

[dighton]

While we’re strewing petals and misconstruing pedals,

Most lesbians don’t fear rapacious women and gay men need not always soft-peddle their sexual predilections.

(Presumably meaning they’re free to make a hard sell).

[Silly]

I can’t believe that article says ‘soft-peddle.’ That’s hilarious! Everyone knows if a gay man wants to peddle it, it’s got to be hard, not soft.

More writers need to read Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

[Tax-chick]

So it’s supposed to be “soft-peddle,” as a variation on “soft-sell”?

[Tax-chick]

I just ran across “anti up” in a post. ARRRGH. At least the victim of homophonia didn’t write “auntie up”!

[Silly]

I promise to continue in this vein until everyone is confused.

[Tax-chick]

You’re so vane.

[firebrand]

The dictionaries have given up explaining a lot of things. As soon as enough ignoramuses misuse or misspell a word, it appears in the dictionary as an alternative.

A recent confusion that has appeared all over the place lately: precipitous instead of precipitate. Precipitous = steep. Precipitate = sudden.

[MozarkDawg]

Another interesting bit of wedding trivia: Brides were supposed to be well rested before their ceremonies so they wouldn’t be too tired that evening to “make the wind and the rain” with their new husbands. So they tooks naps. But sometimes a bride would stupidly take her nap after her hair dressing had taken place. It was pretty obvious when she walked down the aisle with “nappy hair.” Congregants would yell, “Ho!” as a signal to others to check out the bride’s hair. This led to everyone standing during the bridal processional.

Careful there, if Al Sharpton sees this, you may be losing your radio gig ...

[B-Chan]

I love lamp.

[AnAmericanMother]

"Soft peddle" is incorrect.

Webster's Second Unabridged (1953):

Pedal . . . (b) Slang. To exert pressure, esp. a restraining influence, upon, in the manner of a piano pedal; often soft-pedal.

No corresponding entry appears under "peddle".

[AnAmericanMother]

That's why I rely on the OED and a 1950s-vintage Webster.

The American Heritage dictionary is a piece of trash, much as I admire that estimable history magazine (at least it used to be, back when Bruce Catton was editor).