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Re: soundalike phrases

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Friday, September 5, 2003, 16:45
michael poxon scripsit:

> Just been listening to some Magma, which stirred a thought - when I > first heard some of their lyrics, part of one song sounded exactly like > the English phrase "Oh we don't get on" which prompts this question: > can you think of any words or phrases in your own langs that sound like > a word or phrase in your L1? (or indeed in any other realang)
There is quite a bit of Latin like this (disregarding exact phonetic details, of course): "O Sybilli, si ergo / Fortibus es in ero". A friend and I, on first hearing Philip Glass's _Einstein on the Beach_, interpreted the lyrics as "Winnipeg Monday". Also google for "mondegreen". Real, genuine ambiguities in spoken language are actually rather rare, never mind across languages: beauties like "British left waffles on Falklands" usually occur only in writing. There was, however, the gentleman in (the) hospital whose prescription was "an air-ring", a inflatable rubber doughnut used to prevent bedsores. Instead, he got put in a wheelchair for a trip around the grounds! -- And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic tenebrous ultimate gods -- the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. (Lovecraft) John Cowan|jcowan@reutershealth.com|ccil.org/~cowan