language

Word nerds will love this. Everyone else might have some mixed feelings about the strange complexities of the English language. 

Yep, it would seem that the latest buzzword to come out of Coronavirus coverage across news media outlets, is the word, "amid." What about amidst? What'd amidst ever do to anyone? In all seriousness, everyone stay safe, and wash those hands!

Someone on AskReddit asked for women to share the most ridiculous things that they've had men try to explain to them. You know, things like dad explaining to his daughter how mortgages work, while she's in fact a real estate agent. Some people are just blind to their own ignorance. Maybe they'll figure it out at some point, or maybe they won't. 

Turns out those seemingly indecipherable scribbles actually do mean something. 

Tumblr users apparently have a lot of time on their hands, and they use it for amusingly specific and labor intensive thoughts like the relationship between elves eyes and the curvature of middle earth, or discussing the full versions of classic sayings. We're glad people get so into stuff, like this Tumblr thread that makes history fun.

This makes my head happy. 

Someone on AskReddit asked for people to share their hot takes on those common sayings that are actually total BS. The resulting answers might come across as pretty bleak. 

This guy made a grave mistake. And that mistake was one of him trying to tell a lady asking for money that he didn't speak English, while he very well did the whole time. It's tough to pull off the whole "I don't speak your language" thing when you're literally speaking their language right back to them. 

Somewhere along the way, classic idioms and sayings with two parts got shortened to the first one, and everyone's just been using them wrong for a while. Tumblr gets itself into spirals of informative weirdness, like this Tumblr thread that actually makes history fun.

Someone on AskReddit asked for bilinguals to share their experiences with overhearing other folks that had no idea they could understand them. If there's one valuable lesson in this particular form of "overheards", it's that you never know who's listening! 

In this wide world, we see a lot of hilarious translations and translation fails. Languages are complex and hard to understand completely. These frustratingly interesting observations on language and silly literal translations are a good example of that. This can come to a head when overzealous tourists try to get a tattoo in not only a language they don't understand, but in characters that are also completely foreign to them. Case in point, you don't want to misstep and end up as the "goldfish man"

We know that languages are all weird, and the one we use can be particularly confusing, but that can make it a more fun and nuanced thing to explore. We're all for seeing some creative uses and misuses of the English language. If you just wanna see people totally suck at English, then here are people who failed at using the English language.

Learning the words for things in other languages can be particularly eye opening. From overly literal German translations like "hand shoes" to more poetic euphemisms you'd never think you'd hear, every culture has come up with it's own particular brand of funny words for things. For more, here are non-native English speakers sharing common phrases they wish we had.

Well well, how about that? You learn a new thing every day! Turns out a whole lot of us have been going around dropping the term, "just deserts" in an improper fashion. Seems to be a commonly shared fail. 

Sometimes the language barrier can hurt you more than others. In this case, the guy thought that "gasoleo" would get the job done for him, when he went to fill up his Petrol car. Unfortunately, that actually translated to Diesel, and he found himself in quite the bind, and in need of a mechanic. Fortunately he was able to resolve the issue, and move forward. But you gotta love the fail!