Re: CHAT: autological linguistics terms; faux amis

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, John Cowan wrote:

> Another to add to my ongoing list of Strange Reversals between
> English and French.  (So far the best is the churchly pair
> _cure_ 'vicar' and _vicaire_ 'curate').
Dutch "dirigent" is English "conductor" and Dutch (from French)
"conducteur" is English "train guard" (but "lightning conductor" is
"bliksemafleider", "lightning diverter").

German "wetter" is Dutch "weer" (weather)
German "wer" is Dutch "wie" (who)
German "wie" is Dutch "hoe" (how)

A friend of mine had a sign on his door: "Bellen Sie bitte".

(For those who don't know German or Dutch: it means "Please bark",
but "bellen" in Dutch means "to ring".)

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas