Archive for the 'English' Category
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
It’s interesting to see an Aboul-Qacem Echebbi’s poem translated into English. No wonder that Wikipedia makes such an effort.
I have already translated the same poem into English and French one year and half ago, but I don’t have the skill of writing in poetic English.
In the poem “To the Unfair Tyrant”, the Tunisian young […]
Posted in General, Arabic, English, Poetry, Tunisia | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
Bureaucracy is derived from the word bureau, used from the early 18th century in Western Europe not just to refer to a writing desk, but to an office, i.e. a workplace, where officials worked. The original French meaning of the word bureau was the baize used to cover desks. The term bureaucracy came into […]
Posted in General, English | 1 Comment »
Sunday, October 1st, 2006
Research, n.:
Consider Columbus:
He didn’t know where he was going.
When he got there he didn’t know where he was.
When he got back he didn’t know where he had been.
And he did it all on someone else’s money.
The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, although here the phases
are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus:
Retribution:
I’m going to […]
Posted in General, Fun, English | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
صرخت بالناس قائلا : أود لو تصلبوني
فقالوا : ولماذا يكون دمك على رؤوسنا؟
فقلت لهم : وكيف لا تفاخرون بأنفسكم إن لم تصلبوا المجانين؟
فقبلوا قولي وصلبوني وهدأ الصلب ثورة نفسي. وعندما كنت معلقا بين الأرض والسماء رفعوا رؤوسهم وحدقوا بي وهم يتمايلون عجبا لأن رؤوسهم لم ترتفع قبل إلى ما فوق أقدامهم
وفيما هم مجتمعون حول الصليب […]
Posted in General, Arabic, English, Literature | No Comments »
Thursday, June 8th, 2006
When talking of the etymology of the word “fuck”, people refer to acronyms:
“Fornication Under Consent of the King”, because “in ancient England single people could not have sex unless they had consent of the king. When people wanted to have a baby, they had to get the consent of the king, and the king […]
Posted in General, Fun, Offensive, English, History, Etymology | 6 Comments »
Monday, June 5th, 2006
أصبحتُ أستعمل الانجليزية أكثر من أي لغة أخرى بما في ذلك العربية لغتي الأم والفرنسية لغة تعليمي
ومع ذلك فإني لم أتعلم الانجليزية جديا في المدرسة مثلما درست النحو العربي أو الرياضيات
أشغل جهازالكمبيوتر الذي يحتوي على نظام لينكس بالانجليزية أفتح صندوق رسائلي بالانجليزية والذي غالبا ما تكون الرسائل فيه مكتوبة بالانجليزية. أقرأ الأخبار بالانجليزية (لم أعد أثق […]
Posted in General, Arabic, English, History | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 8th, 2006
إنكم تستلذون أن تضعوا شرائع لأنفسكم
بيد أنكم تستلذون أكثر أن تكسروها وتتعدوا فرائضها
لذلك أنتم كالأولاد يلعبون على الشاطئ يبنون أبراجا عظيمة بحزم وثبات ثم لا يلبثون أن يهدموها ضاحكين صاخبين
فعندما تبنون أبراجكم الرملية يأتي البحر برمال جديدة إلى الشاطئ
وعندما تهدمون أبراجكم يضحك البحر منكم في نفسه لأن البحر يضحك من الأبرياء أبدا
ولكن ماذا أقول في […]
Posted in General, Arabic, English, Literature, Philosophy | No Comments »
Monday, April 3rd, 2006
Beaucoup d’amis m’accuse de “francophobie” lorsque j’évite d’écrire en français, soit dans les blogs (y compris le mien), dans les forums de discussion, les listes de diffusion ou dans les chats.
Paradoxalement, ce n’est pas la haine envers la langue française qui me pousse à ne pas l’utiliser, mais c’est par respect envers cette langue […]
Posted in General, Personal, Languages, English, French, Portuguese | 7 Comments »
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
Warning: This post contains offensive content that may not be appreciated by everybody.
If your parents don’t allow you to read this post, please don’t bother too much and click here.
bush
Noun
bush, pl. bushes
(slang) The pubic hair of a woman.
Translations
pubic hair of a woman
Swedish: buske c
vulva of a woman
French: chatte f
Italian: figa f
dick
Noun
dick (plural: dicks)
(coarse slang) The […]
Posted in General, Fun, Offensive, English | 4 Comments »
Friday, February 24th, 2006
NASA - Never Actually Sure of Anything
FBI - Fearless Band of Idiots
Fiat - Fix It Again Tomorrow
Alitalia - Always Late In Take-off
Pentium - Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Math
Windows - Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
Vista - Viruses, idiocy, spyware, trojans and adware
Java - Just Another Vain Attempt
Navy - No Anal […]
Posted in General, Fun, English | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Posted in General, English, Philosophy, Poetry | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
Adler’s Distinction:
Language is all that separates us from the lower animals,and from the bureaucrats.
Modesty:
The gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
Oliver Herford
Abbott’s Admonitions:
(1) If you have to ask, you’re not entitled to know.
(2) If you don’t like the answer, you shouldn’t have asked the question.
Charles Abbot, dean, […]
Posted in General, Fun, English, Quotes | No Comments »
Thursday, January 19th, 2006
- What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu?
- Six sick Sikhs (sic).
Posted in General, Fun, English | No Comments »
Saturday, January 7th, 2006
How did not I pay attention to that during all this time? An only-1-MB GTK-based offline dictionary!
StarDict is a Cross-Platform and international dictionary written in Gtk2 and data is availbale from the Website. I started to find out about it downloading both Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and the Russian Словарь Даля. Those data files […]
Posted in General, Free Software, GNU/Linux, OpenSource Softwares, Fedora Core, Languages, English, Russian | No Comments »
Monday, December 12th, 2005
Accident, n.:
A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.
Foolish Dictionary
Adult, n.:
One old enough to know better.
A Law of Computer Programming:
Make it possible for programmers to write in English
and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.
Beauty:
What’s in your eye when you have a bee in your […]
Posted in Fun, English | No Comments »