Better Erections

Back when the Omega navigation system was being installed around the world, one tower was going into our part of Australia. Our local paper promised a "400 metre erection in our region!". IIRC a few editorial staffers changed jobs. :-)

Ken

Bullshit. Most Japanese - give or take a phonetician here and there - can't hear the difference between an "l" and an "r" but they can all see the difference between the characters.

If you'd care to elaborate the - pathetic - joke to include speech recognition software, you might have somehting that you could exhibit at an antique joke fair, but you really shouldn't bother.

Reminds me of when the company's marketing manager told me that they used to have a very good (crane control) customer called, "Erection Services".

I recall many years ago the "odd things" column of our daily metropolitan newspaper showed a photo of a plastic model crane truck, labelled (you guessed it) "Clane Truck".

Ken

Surely, in the interests of uniformity it should have read "Clane Tluck".

I saw some Panasonic service manuals in the '70s that were describing their brand new "Reray Logic" cassette decks. "If reray 1 not work, then reray 2..."

Bullshit. They might have siad it, but they'd never have written it - they can't hear the difference between our "l" and our "r" but they have no difficulty in distinguishing the letters.

If you want that - very old - joke to work in that contet, you are going to have make them use speech recognition software to write the e-mail.

Perhaps so Mr Sloman but I have some Sony monitor manuals telling how to set 'Y deray'. If they saw the difference, they didn't DO anything about it. Industry calls it 'Jinglish'.

GG

It causes problems when Japanese etc. people try to spell English words phonetically. Incidence in the wild probably greatly reduced nowadays due to increased use of spell chequers.

One guy said he saw a sweatshirt for sale in Tokyo that had 'AFR' on it. He asked the sales clerk what it stood for and was allegedly told "Amelican Footaball Reague". Maybe it was just a clever way of getting out of paying licensing fees.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

That was an odd thing - only one 'r' was replaced by an 'l'. It was in the "Place in the Sun" column in the Melbourne Sun. Ah, the Good Old Days......

Ken

snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote in news:1141692187.422970.146430 @p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com:

My first color video camera was a Panasonic PK300. The viewfinder came in a box printed with "Erectronic Viewfinder." I still have the box. So it's not always bullshit. Alan

Well if we can't get it right, don't expect too much of the Japanese!

Talking of which, what's the difference between the spelling 'Iraq' and that favoured by the Dutch (Hock and Platt), 'Irak'? Is there a difference or is it just a spelling affectation by the Brits?

Paul Burke

I think 'Iraq' is closer to the actual Arabic spelling. The word actually ends in the letter 'qaf' which is a hard K sound made in the throat (not unlike Q is in English) rather than 'kha' which would be a soft k sound made behind the teeth (not unlike C in English).

There we are. I didn't think there was a difference between curly-C and kicking-K. Must be a dialect thing.

Paul Burke

It was an old joke when I first heard it at school in the 1950's ...

To me, making good jokes is a serious business, and I get just as peeved by badly constructed jokes as I do by badly constructed circuits. John Woodgate's jokes are mostly original - even if they usually aren't funny - but I've still been giving him a hard time about them for some years now (going back to October 1997).

Why should I give you a special dispensation?