More Catch-Up
Apr. 22nd, 2009 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreSouth African English: I have probably mentioned my fascination with variant English vocabularies here before and none is quite so fascinating as South African English. My favorite term is "robot" (meaning a traffic light) since I was so completely baffled by a set of directions in Pretoria which told me to turn at the robot. Most other oddities are Afrikaans words that have crept into English, e.g. "braai" (meaning "barbecue" and a word you can't go more than about 48 hours in South Africa without hearing).
I'm in the middle of reading one of Arthur Goldstuck's books on South African urban legends and ran across two terms which were new to me. The first was "smalls," apparently to refer to classified ads. The other reference was to a commercial being "flighted" on television. Obviously, that means "aired," but it strikes me as a strange usage and possibly a translation back from Afrikaans.
Printing Error of the Week: Ryan Zimmerman (and, possibly other Nationals players) were seen at a game a few days ago wearing jerseys that read "Natinals" on the front. The company that makes the jerseys apologized. I suppose it wouldn't occur to a baseball player to proofread his uniform.
Movies: I saw Duplicity over the weekend. I liked it, though I thought a few plot points were improbable at best. I was particularly pleased with a love scene in which one gets to see that Clive Owens has chest hair. Yes, I am shallow.
Another Baseball Item: Every Major League Baseball team but one is selling single game tickets for their entire season by now. That one is the New York Mets. I'd really like to go up and see their new ballpark this summer, so I wish they would at least tell me when tickets will be on sale.
Airfare: As I may have mentioned, I bought a ticket to Lima for under $250 for later this year. Today, I bought a ticket for a quick excursion to Fort Lauderdale in June. That cost just about $200. Don't even try to figure out the logic. (And, no, it would not have been cheaper to fly into Miami. In fact, the fares to Miami were all around $350.)
I'm in the middle of reading one of Arthur Goldstuck's books on South African urban legends and ran across two terms which were new to me. The first was "smalls," apparently to refer to classified ads. The other reference was to a commercial being "flighted" on television. Obviously, that means "aired," but it strikes me as a strange usage and possibly a translation back from Afrikaans.
Printing Error of the Week: Ryan Zimmerman (and, possibly other Nationals players) were seen at a game a few days ago wearing jerseys that read "Natinals" on the front. The company that makes the jerseys apologized. I suppose it wouldn't occur to a baseball player to proofread his uniform.
Movies: I saw Duplicity over the weekend. I liked it, though I thought a few plot points were improbable at best. I was particularly pleased with a love scene in which one gets to see that Clive Owens has chest hair. Yes, I am shallow.
Another Baseball Item: Every Major League Baseball team but one is selling single game tickets for their entire season by now. That one is the New York Mets. I'd really like to go up and see their new ballpark this summer, so I wish they would at least tell me when tickets will be on sale.
Airfare: As I may have mentioned, I bought a ticket to Lima for under $250 for later this year. Today, I bought a ticket for a quick excursion to Fort Lauderdale in June. That cost just about $200. Don't even try to figure out the logic. (And, no, it would not have been cheaper to fly into Miami. In fact, the fares to Miami were all around $350.)
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 05:23 pm (UTC)But, spot-checking various dates (including November, during the school year), I was still coming up with $600 to $800 per seat.
Timing is everything, so I'll keep checking. Thanks again...