Subj : Re: To learn English read something interesting ;-)
To   : Ardith Hinton
From : Gleb Hlebov
Date : Tue Dec 02 2025 13:54:17

Hi Ardith,

28.11.2025 3:12:21, Ardith Hinton wrote:

 AH>            Excuse me... but in linguistics it's important to use
 AH> slash lines to indicate the pronunciation.  That's what I was 
 AH> trying to do here.  As usual, we borrowed the word from another 
 AH> language & pronounced it a bit differently.  :-)

Excuse my news reader, for it does see paired slashes and treats them
as "italics" marks, but when I do quote-reply, the message editor
slashes them slashes... :-) If that makes sense at all.

 GH>> Which particular type have you imagined: passenger railroad
 GH>> car, station wagon, hippie van, horse-drawn cart? :-)
 AH>            Good question.  In those days the Volkswagen was a
 AH> passenger car made in Germany & designed to be reasonably 
 AH> affordable to people on a limited budget. Later on I saw a whole 
 AH> streetful of them parked in UBC's University Village, but 
 AH> unfortunately we didn't have cell phones with cameras back then.

It was a mild attempt to make fun of the "brand name" ambiguity and how
it could be perceived across different languages. For example, in
American English, I believe "wagon" could also bring to one's mind an
image of the "wagon and horse" vehicle, while "folks" might as well
amplify the impression of "rurality". Meanwhile in Russia... "wagon"
conjures up a (passenger/freight) railroad car in the first place, but
isn't directly linked to wheeled vehicles in general; it could even
become a stationary shelter or trailer with its wheels off (e.g. a
small hut for construction workers). In a similar manner, a North
American "station wagon" in no way seems to decode into a Russian
"family car with an extra cargo volume", because "station" again would
involuntarily link it to the railways. So... :-)

 
.... "An empty stomach is not a good political advisor." - A.Einstein
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