Have just returned from another of those interminable trips to a Mediterranean country that is having problems with its debt.
I am continually amazed at how foreigners with an execrable command of English manage to make other foreigners with an equally bad command of English understand them.
Imagine the scenario - two chaps of different nationalities, neither of whose English could even vaguely be called passable, chatter away in English and make themselves fully understood to the other. I'm sitting there totally bemused, not understanding even the gist of the conversation and nodding sagely.
Incroyable, as they say in France. Must be something to do with the grammar of their respective languages being similar, hence they both make the same mistakes.
Some councils have been caught out by the snow; hardly surprising really, it is only mid December after all and it's not as if snow would be expected.
4 comments:
Thank you for another ontstanding post which has brightened my day as I watch the snow falling outside my window.
Merry Christmas, Bill.
See you in the New Year.
You might care to look at one of my old post - "English as the preferred language of the EU" (http://newsfromnowhere1948.blogspot.com/2007/05/english-as-preferred-language-of-eu.html) which looks at what might happen after the European Parliament adopted such a scheme.
JF: And a Merry Christmas to you too.
Alan: Yes, I remember that joke well.
All I've had here is a miserable dull drizzle, but yes, the country does grind to a halt in such circumstances. As if they have never seen snow before
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