The choice of language, namely French, to illustrate a dialogue of incomprehension, I assure you, is totally accidental. Not · illustr.byGuacamole Goalie

Whenever an attempt to communication or action fails, people get very creative when they encounter a lack of understanding. Both German and English have a vast repertoire listing expressions ofincomprehension.

Proceed In The Face Of Utter Incomprehension -Of course, people should always follow that rule, however, we have so many ways to let others know that we just didn’t get what the heck he or she was talking about. Buh-n-howf?

In the US, intersections and the upcoming yield, stop or traffic light are not only announced by signs to the right of the street but also with big letters painted on streets. You read the word that is closer to you first, followed by the one that is further away. So for example, STOP AHEAD or LIGHTS AHEAD. Not Ahead Stop, but that will not work either: SOTP AHEAD.

ALTERNATIVE SPELLING or TYPO AHEAD would have been appropriate to prepare thin-skinned people. Well, as Metroblogging LA put it, SIHT HAPPENS, right?

Must have been LA county’s final spelling bee contestant · via Metroblogging LA

As much as some enjoy Spelling Bee contests, others are fed up with this infinite inconsitancy · photo by For Ever Soul

You are not alone… Confusion rules over Englishas a rule in terms of vocabulary, phrasal verbs and so on. We know that. Being an English as a Second Languagespeaker I am more than familiar – compellingly – with the phonetic unreliability as The Guardian describes the messed uppronunciationand spelling relation of English words. If you know how to pronounce a word in – say – Italian, you automatically can construct the word’s spelling for there are clear rules. This rule does apply for many languages, but English does not feature thisconsistencyas a world language. Unfortunately this gives English speakers (both natives and ELS speakers) a really hard time. What do these 100 words have in common? Visible for you and you only, after the jump.

Following my blog religiously you will probably notice that I am religiously into accents. Accents in the English speaking world are fascinating if it’s up to me. Plus, I absorb pretty much anything that teaches you how to improve your phony Texan or English accent. The video attached to this entry is full of lessons to improve your world accents.

Amy Walker did a pretty good job in covering a variety (21 to be precise) of accents. I love her Sco-ish, German and New Zealand accent. I also recommend the interview the the 21-accent-lady (it’s very captivating to hear her natural accent).

In the unlikely event you feel the sudden urge to relieve your bladder’s pressure, make sure nobody catches you and most importantly can track you down to exact spot you committed the crime. For your information (FYI) only. The background story for the attached picture, after the jump.

Paris, je t’aime! · photo by arique on flickr.com

It’s time to face the truth… Are you abusing lol? You are most likely to be one of the internet generation LOL Abusers according to a statistic by theNational Acronym Monitoring Board of Linguistic Anomalies. Research could reveal a devastating misusage of lol since people actually don’t laugh out loud whenever they add lol in a chat message, text message on their cellphone or even worse in everyday conversations in real life. Caution:“False Lolling” [...] is a class G felony punishable by permanent IP banning and in rare cases death by pawnage.”, it says on nomorelol.com

Remedy LOI: Laughing on the inside.

False usage of the abbreviation lol (laughing out loud) is committed by so called lol addicts whose remedy should be found in loi, as in laughing on the inside. LMAO (laughing my ass off) and ROFL (rolling of the floor laughing) are most likely to be replaced with an alternative as well. Since how often do you roll over your floor.

Nomorelol.com – Check it out and make sure you don’t misuse internetacronyms. I guess someone might haveconfoundedfiguratively and the more commonly used literally.

Literally

Ever since the Internet got accessible easily, an Avant Garde descended from Linguistic Heaven to educate us, the stupid common people, literally point at our linguistically weak Achilles’ heel. Ouch, doesn’t the usage of “literally” sound wrong to you? Well, if you are a representative of today’s online patrol on misusage of the English language, you probably answer the previous question with a loud, stark Y-E-S. If your answer is no, please, don’t stop reading now. You already made it this far.

Blogging Outside of Your Community By Not Blogging in Your Native Tongue — A person writing in a language that is not their own, especially when those words are published for all to read, may bear a responsibility to their readers to disclose that the language in the blog is not their native language, thus, giving readers a chance to forgive them before they correct them. — Read More… | Digg Story

I do agree with the author, that blogging outside your community has an impact on the number of people following you inside the community. For philafication.com, it has had a postive effect, too — at least on my blog, there are about 50% international visitors.