Saturday, November 25, 2006

A few linguistic thoughts

1. I was listening to the radio the other day, and they were discussing Hizbullah, putting the stress on the last syllable. I thought to myself, "That's probably correct--why do I stress the middle syllable?" Then I realized: I pronounce "Hizbullah" like an Ashkenazi!

2. I recently tried to refer to "palm hearts," and I got corrected by my family: "They're called hearts of palm." Yesterday I heard my daughter ask "Mommy, can I have one hearts of palm?"

3. Google auto-translation works better on the official Syrian news site than it does on Palestinian sites. It must have to do with a difference in dialects.

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