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ArchivesRe: Ooops!!!
in reply to a message by Selwyn
Selwyn ,
Don't you EVER feel silly about a minor mistake in English! I'm in AWE of people who handle a foreign language as competently as you do. Both my French and German are pretty pathetic, even though I grew up in a household where everyone else is fluent in French (guess I was out torturing flies...).
I did run across a weird error today. I was back from the hospital going through about 60 new e-mails, and one was from a guy who does the same job as me at our Mexican plant. He's Mexican, of course, but his English is usually excellent. Today, though, his memo gave me a series of lame excuses as to why he couldn't buy some excess parts we have until September , and he ended it with the conciliatory(?) sentence "Thanks for your compression."
We were all baffled. Did he mean comprehension (understanding, even if wrong sense)? Compassion (puh-leeze!)? Constipation? Cooperation (he KNOWS I'm gonna bitch to his boss)? Is a puzzlement!
Re the license plates:
You're probably far too young, but many of my generation recognize "28 IF" as the license number of the parked Volkswagen on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album. It was part of the "Paul is dead" mythology: Paul would be 28 (at the time of the rumor) "IF" he hadn't died. A quick-thinking friend of mine at college managed to get this same number for his shitty VW as a very early vanity plate. It's about the only reason we ever consented to ride in that 1957 deathtrap.
THX 138 was the license plate of the character John Milner's hotrod coupe in George Lucas 's second film, "American Graffiti". It was a sly reference to his first movie, a slight sci-fi thing titled "THX 1138". I didn't really expect you to get that one, altho the "THX" should be a tipoff to any Lucas fan.
Regards,
Dave
Don't you EVER feel silly about a minor mistake in English! I'm in AWE of people who handle a foreign language as competently as you do. Both my French and German are pretty pathetic, even though I grew up in a household where everyone else is fluent in French (guess I was out torturing flies...).
I did run across a weird error today. I was back from the hospital going through about 60 new e-mails, and one was from a guy who does the same job as me at our Mexican plant. He's Mexican, of course, but his English is usually excellent. Today, though, his memo gave me a series of lame excuses as to why he couldn't buy some excess parts we have until September , and he ended it with the conciliatory(?) sentence "Thanks for your compression."
We were all baffled. Did he mean comprehension (understanding, even if wrong sense)? Compassion (puh-leeze!)? Constipation? Cooperation (he KNOWS I'm gonna bitch to his boss)? Is a puzzlement!
Re the license plates:
You're probably far too young, but many of my generation recognize "28 IF" as the license number of the parked Volkswagen on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album. It was part of the "Paul is dead" mythology: Paul would be 28 (at the time of the rumor) "IF" he hadn't died. A quick-thinking friend of mine at college managed to get this same number for his shitty VW as a very early vanity plate. It's about the only reason we ever consented to ride in that 1957 deathtrap.
THX 138 was the license plate of the character John Milner's hotrod coupe in George Lucas 's second film, "American Graffiti". It was a sly reference to his first movie, a slight sci-fi thing titled "THX 1138". I didn't really expect you to get that one, altho the "THX" should be a tipoff to any Lucas fan.
Regards,
Dave
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