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| Author |
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| 25 new of 79 responses total. |
albaugh
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response 50 of 79:
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Mar 15 18:35 UTC 2001 |
Oxymorons
An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class. "In English", he said,
"a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages,
such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a
single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative."
A voice from the back of the room retorted, "Yeah, right."
TOP 50 OXYMORONS
50. Act naturally
49. Found missing
48. Resident alien
47. Advanced BASIC
46. Genuine imitation
45. Airline Food
44. Good grief
43. Same difference
42. Almost exactly
41. Government organization
40. Sanitary landfill
39. Alone together
38. Legally drunk
37. Silent scream
36. British fashion
35. Living dead
34. Small crowd
33. Business ethics
32. Soft rock
31. Butt head
30. Military Intelligence
29. Software documentation
28. New York culture
27. New classic
26. Sweet sorrow
25. Childproof
24. "Now, then...."
23. Synthetic natural gas
22. Christian Scientists
21. Passive aggression
20. Taped live
19. Clearly misunderstood
18. Peace force
17. Extinct life
16. Temporary tax increase
15. Computer jock
14. Plastic glasses
13. Terribly pleased
12. Computer security
11. Political science
10. Tight slacks
9. Definite maybe
8. Pretty ugly
7. Twelve-ounce pound cake
6. Diet ice cream
5. Rap music
4. Working vacation
3. Exact estimate
2. Religious tolerance
1. Microsoft Works
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keesan
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response 51 of 79:
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Mar 16 20:02 UTC 2001 |
From a translator friend:
From sandralayman@earthlink.net Fri Mar 16 15:00:28 2001
Brussels struggles with language of integration
As the EU prepares to incorporate a dozen new languages, vital translators
and interpreters are thin on the ground, reports Ian Black
Friday March 16, 2001
It was just another routine European Union meeting: five men in suits - the
interior ministers of Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Italy - sitting
on a podium, waiting to deliver their message, about Basque terrorism, to
the journalists in the auditorium.
But there was a sudden hitch: the glass interpretation booths were
inexplicably empty - apparently because of scheduling problems the council
of ministers staff had overlooked.
The result: embarrassing, throat-clearing delay and patchy, time-lagged -
and distinctly amateur - interpretation by harassed diplomats, not the
professional, multilingual voiceover that is the norm.
Europe cannot function without its interpreters and translators, so, in the
Babel that is Brussels, feverish attempts are now under way to prepare for
the biggest enlargement the EU has ever seen - and the dozen new languages
that will come with it.
With 15 members now and 12 official languages already in use (though Irish
is used only for written texts), plans to take in up to 12 new candidate
countries in the coming years are imposing a huge strain.
>From Latvian to Bulgarian and Lithuanian to Czech, the search is on for the
linguists who can do this vital job. The only bright spot is that Malta,
the smallest candidate, has agreed to forgo the use of its own tongue - an
obscure mixture of Arabic and Italian - just as Luxembourg did when it
joined back in 1957.
None of this is optional: the European community's first ever regulation
stipulated that all official documents have to be available in all
languages: current output is a staggering one million pages a year or the
equivalent of a 100 metre high tower. Full interpretation has to be
provided.
It is highly sensitive stuff, with issues of cultural diversity, national
pride and democratic legitimacy always coming up against hardheaded
officials worrying about budgets, efficiency and logistics.
And they are on a awesome scale: every candidate country has to have 80,000
pages of the EU's official journal rigorously translated - a basic
requirement of bringing national legislation into line with the body of
community law, and sometimes compared to climbing Mount Everest without
oxygen.
Yet there is no choice. Globalisation and the practice of multinational
companies have created expectations that cannot be ignored: if Microsoft
can publish its manuals even in minority languages like Catalan, Europe's
institutions cannot afford to lag behind.
And there is a powerful democratic incentive too for an EU which worries -
quite rightly - about the distance between Brussels and ordinary Europeans.
"A Spanish farmer doesn't care about the Greek or Danish version of some
commission publication," says one veteran of its translation service. "For
him the EU isn't multilingual at all. It just speaks to him in his
language."
Interpretation is technically more complicated. With 11,000 meetings a year
and 50 to 60 every day, there are already 110 possible combinations when
working with the current 11 languages.
With 25 languages the figure will rise to 600 and the chances of finding
someone who can turn Greek or Portuguese into Slovak or Hungarian are
virtually nil - even though there are some weird and wonderful combinations
of expertise.
Much routine business is done in English and French (spoken by 31% and 10%
respectively of the EU's 375m people) and thus the two official working
languages. But ministers meeting in the council have to have their own
interpreters - thus that awkward silence over the Basque problem.
The solution is the so-called "relay" system, in which a more obscure
language - say Slovene or Romanian - will be rendered into French or
English, and thence into Danish, German and Spanish and so on.
It's not perfect: "Every filter that you go through, you lose something,
however small, from the original," says one expert. And there is always the
possibility of what one minister called "Kafkaesque misunderstandings". But
overall it is a tried and tested method.
Relay interpretation creates practical problems too, not least of finding
the physical space for all those booths. But modern electronics allows for
creative if expensive solutions: for example with delegates in Tahiti and
interpreters in Brussels working via a satellite link.
The commission already has 1,900 in-house translators and interpreters -
12.5% of total staff - and uses outside freelancers at an annual cost of
£180m. When all other EU institutions are included, it rises to £415m.
Even so, it still only costs 2 euros (£1.25) per citizen per year or 0.8%
of the total EU budget. "It enables all European citizens and their
governments to play a part in the building of Europe, in their own mother
tongue," the commission says.
Currently, some 120 commission translators in Brussels and Luxembourg are
doing in-house courses in Hungarian, Polish, Estonian, Slovene and Czech -
roughly reflecting the order in which the candidate countries are likely to
join from about 2005.
Courses in Romanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Slovak will be
started later this year.
The European parliament, with 626 MEPs (and 840 translators and
interpreters), is a special case, because democratic fairness mean that
elected representatives cannot be expected to have the linguistic abilities
of diplomats and civil servants.
So, despite the costs, arrangements will have to be made for a
post-enlargement situation where the increase in language combinations
becomes a problem more complex than a Rubik cube.
Interpretation and translation issues include a well stocked bank of jokes
and anecdotes, throwing the drier aspects of EU life into
uncharacteristically humorous relief. There's the one about how "shooting
the rapids" became a disconcerting "shooting the rabbits". Or how "frozen
semen" in an agricultural working group became, in French, "matelot
congelé" (frozen seaman).
Much, inevitably, is lost in translation. Wit, especially irony, historical
or literary allusions, and vivid metaphors, do not often work. Memorable
European speeches are thus few and far between.
Yet even the driest of eurocrats relishes the one about the interpreter,
who struggled with the leaden speech of a German minister - who had
compared the pace of a negotiating session to a hedgehog - and translated
it as: "This meeting is slow, ponderous and full of pricks."
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rcurl
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response 52 of 79:
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Mar 16 21:17 UTC 2001 |
Could you please write a brief summary of that?
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keesan
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response 53 of 79:
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Mar 16 21:26 UTC 2001 |
I think the last sentence was usable as a summary.
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kami
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response 54 of 79:
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Mar 25 18:02 UTC 2001 |
That's delicious! Thanks.
I'm really glad, at a cultural level, that they are trying to respect
individual countried. At an environmental level, ouch! What a lot of trees!
Even if they recycle everything, it's still resource- expensive.
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keesan
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response 55 of 79:
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Mar 27 20:36 UTC 2001 |
At a recent church wedding I noticed that they had painted the ceiling with
Jesus in many languages. Primarily those of western Europe, but also Greek
and Korean. And then there was some Cyrillic, which read, in transliteration:
IISUS? (complete with the question mark). Jim just helped me design some
Cyrillic fonts and agreed that ? is not correclty part of the word Jesus in
Cyrillic (Russian). His guess is that someone made up a list of spellings
for the painters, was not sure of the Russian, and left a ? mark after it to
remind them to check the spelling, then forgot to remove the ? .
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kami
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response 56 of 79:
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Mar 27 23:24 UTC 2001 |
Or perhaps Russians and other users of the Cyrillic alphabet are less certain
of their beliefs? (sorry, being silly.)
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orinoco
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response 57 of 79:
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Apr 19 21:00 UTC 2001 |
(There's a Unitarian Universalist joke in there somewhere, I know there is...)
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keesan
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response 58 of 79:
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May 5 22:44 UTC 2001 |
From a translator friend:
Subject: Oaxaca--a unique view
Hola Amigos,
Here's an excerpt I just got from a correspondent in Hawaii who used to be
an interpreter. Enjoy! :-)
s
<
Here's a Mexican translation this same [person--a friend of said ex-terp]
just sent me:
I wanted to share with you one of the local sites we visitors to oaxaca are
daily charmed by...I, speechless, must fall back on the tourist brochure
available at the tourist office for the lovely convent at Cuiliapan:
"This group arquitectonic have gothique
influence, who is adverting in the pilots by coro and in the arcs why
singled the trams of the navy and why contrasting when the rascals romantics
why distended in the principal facade. In the posterior part of fusillade
Vincent Guerrero in February 14th, 1831."
Tomorrow we are going to Zaachila, which is
"last capital of Zapoteco
imperious, and important center of economy and politic in the valley, who
permitted admirer in her tombs, magnifies representations of persons how the
'lords of inferno' and others why ¥'5-flowers' and '9-flowers'. Named too
Teozapotlan, name azteca."
As you can see, we are sucking up local culture just as fast as we can,
before its meaning escapes us altogether.
>
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albaugh
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response 59 of 79:
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May 18 05:43 UTC 2001 |
INCREASE YOUR WORD POWER
Arbitrator: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's.
Avoidable: What a bullfighter tries to do.
Bernadette: The act of torching your mortgage.
Burglarize: What a crook sees with.
Control: A short, ugly inmate.
Counterfeiters: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.
Eclipse: What an English barber does for a living.
Eyedropper: A clumsy ophthalmologist.
Heroes: What a guy in a canoe does.
Left Bank: What a robber did when his bag was full of loot.
Misty: How golfers create divots.
Parasites: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Pharmacists: A helper on the farm.
Polarize: What penguins see with.
Primate: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV.
Relief: What trees do each spring.
Rubberneck: What you can do to relax your wife.
Seamstress: Describes 250 pounds in a size 6.
Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does.
Subdued: A guy that works on submarines.
Sudafed: Bring litigation against a government official.
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davel
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response 60 of 79:
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May 18 12:07 UTC 2001 |
Um, a guy in a canoe *paddles*.
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rcurl
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response 61 of 79:
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May 18 14:23 UTC 2001 |
"Hepaddles" isn't a word.
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davel
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response 62 of 79:
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May 18 19:51 UTC 2001 |
Right. That's why that one is pointless. Now, if it had said:
Heroes: What a guy in a dinghy does.
I'd have no gripe.
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orinoco
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response 63 of 79:
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May 21 19:38 UTC 2001 |
Yeah, but the word "dinghy" is a joke in and of itself. Using it in another
joke would be redundant.
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albaugh
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response 64 of 79:
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Dec 10 18:12 UTC 2002 |
REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS SO HARD TO LEARN AND TO SPELL:
1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present,
he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into the sewer.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant,
no ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither
from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
groce, and hammers don't ham? If the of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural
of booth - beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?
One index, two indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all English speakers should be committed to an asylum
for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite a play and
play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that
run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the
same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to
marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up
as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which
an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people and not
computers and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of
course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out,
they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
P. S. Why doesn't BUICK rhyme with QUICK?
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davel
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response 65 of 79:
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Dec 11 13:37 UTC 2002 |
See also response 45. Kevin, you're repeating yourself. You're repeating
yourself.
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albaugh
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response 66 of 79:
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Dec 11 18:27 UTC 2002 |
Just an enhanced version. Shall I scribble the earlier version? :-)
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albaugh
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response 67 of 79:
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Jan 17 18:39 UTC 2003 |
See http://www.engrish.com/
(unless you're politically correct brain damaged)
Now I know how my Filipino probably sounds to Filipinos...
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albaugh
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response 68 of 79:
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Aug 22 16:24 UTC 2003 |
cut and pasted from Ziff Davis newsletter:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes Virginia, I Need An Editor
Our WNN editor took a well-deserved vacation last week, and I thought I could
sneak by without him. As more than a few of you noticed, I certainly had
a lot to loose by that assumption. The best response to my boneheaded blunder
came from Bill Campbell. I don't know who wrote this, but thanks in advance
for letting me re-run it!
Eye have a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight for it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew!
That's it for this week. Welcome back Craig!
--Jim Louderback
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albaugh
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response 69 of 79:
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Jun 25 17:12 UTC 2004 |
Do you recognize these well known adages?
-----------------------------------------
Try to figure these out yourself. Answers are below...
1. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
2. Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
3. Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.
4. Neophite's serendipity.
5. A revolving lithic conglomerate accumulates no congeries of small, green,
biophytic plant.
7. Members of an avian species of identical plumage tend to congregate.
8. Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
9. Freedom from incrustations of crime is contiguous to rectitude.
10. It is fruitless to become lachrymose
of precipitately departed lacteal fluid.
12. Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.
13. The stylus is more potent than the rapier.
14. It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate
a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.
15. Surveillance should precede saltation.
16. Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minim. (not a proverb)
17. The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation
possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation.
18. Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes
of hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow.
19. Individuals who make their abodes in vitreous edifices
would be advised to refrain from catapulting petrious projectiles.
20. Where there are visible vapors having their provenance
in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
(see answers below...)
1. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
ANS: All that Glitters is not Gold.
2. Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
ANS: Beggars cannot be choosers.
3. Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.
ANS: Dead men tell no tales.
4. Neophite's serendipity.
ANS: Beginner's luck
5. A revolving lithic conglomerate accumulates no congeries of small, green,
biophytic plant.
ANS: A Rolling Stone gathers no Moss.
7. Members of an avian species of identical plumage tend to congregate.
ANS: Birds of a feather flock together.
8. Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
ANS: Beauty is only skin-deep.
9. Freedom from incrustations of crime is contiguous to rectitude.
ANS: Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
10. It is fruitless to become lachrymose
of precipitately departed lacteal fluid.
ANS: Don't cry over Spilt Milk.
12. Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.
ANS: Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child.
13. The stylus is more potent than the rapier.
ANS: The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.
14. It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate
a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.
ANS: You cant teach an Old Dog new Tricks.
15. Surveillance should precede saltation.
ANS: Look before you leap.
16. Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minim. (not a proverb)
ANS: Twinkle twinkle little star
17. The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation
possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation.
ANS: One who laughs the last, laughs the best.
18. Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes
of hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow.
ANS: All work and No Play makes Jack a Dull boy.
19. Individuals who make their abodes in vitreous edifices
would be advised to refrain from catapulting petrious projectiles.
ANS: Those who live Glass Houses should cast no stones.
20. Where there are visible vapors having their provenance
in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
ANS: Where there is smoke, there will be fire.
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albaugh
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response 70 of 79:
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Jun 30 19:38 UTC 2004 |
Now that Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas has become firmly established in
Hollywood, the Welsh film industry is to receive additional lottery
funding to step up production.
They are going to remake many well known films,
but this time with a Welsh flavour.
The following are planned for release next year...
* Cwmando
* The Lost Boyos
* An American Werewolf in Powys
* Huw Dares Gwyneth
* Dai Hard
* The Wizard of Oswestry
* Sheepless in Seattle
* The Eagle has Llandudno
* The Magnificent Severn
* Haverfordwest Was Won
* Austin Powys
* The Magic Rhonddabout
* Independence Dai
* Severn Sisters for Severn Brothers
* Welsh Connection
* Welsh Connection II
* The Bridge on the River Wye
* Lawrence of Llandybie
* The Welsh Patient
* The King an Dai
* The Sheepshag Redemption
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gelinas
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response 71 of 79:
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Jun 30 20:58 UTC 2004 |
(Should "Severn Brides for Severn Brothers")
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albaugh
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response 72 of 79:
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Jul 1 19:11 UTC 2004 |
Aye (or whatever the Welsh say :-)
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twenex
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response 73 of 79:
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Jul 1 19:41 UTC 2004 |
I especially like the last on the list!
You could also have "Sleepless in Swansea", or "Cardiff/Cardigan Kane"
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albaugh
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response 74 of 79:
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Jul 7 16:20 UTC 2004 |
http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml
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