Catching up on Michael Kaplan’s Blog

Language Translation of Plurals

This is a good post that underscores the difficulty in translating one language to another.

One Hippopotami

One hippopotami cannot get on a bus,
Because one hippopotami is two hippopotamus.
And if you have two goose, that makes one geese.
A pair of mouse is mice. A pair of moose is meese.

A paranoia is a bunch of mental blocks.
And when Ben Casey meets Kildaire, that’s called a paradox.
When two minks fall in love, with all their heart and soul,
You’ll find the plural of two minks is one mink stole.

Singulars and plurals are so different, bless my soul.
Has it ever occurred to you that the plural of “half” is “whole”?

A bunch of tooth is teeth. A group of foot is feet.
And two canaries make a pair–they call it a parakeet.
A paramecium is not a pair.
A parallelogram is just a crazy square.

Nobody knows just what a paraphernalia is.
And what is half a pair of scissors, but a single sciz?
With someone you adore, if you should find romance,
You’ll pant, and pant once more, and that’s a pair of pants

Sorting It All Out : Don’t let commas distract you from the big money!
And this post is good one talking about the variable use of commas in numbers. In some countries, where numbers are 123,456,789 money might be in the format $123456,789

She typed in ‘God damn clippy’
Remember the Clippy paperclip help from Office. It’s off by default, but if it’s on you can find out how to turn it off by looking for ‘God damn clippy’. Help will be displayed on how to turn him off. These are the little things in programming that go unnoticed every day.

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