This is a page of translations of graffitti found on the walls of Pompeii! It's amazing how little people have changed, but what's even more fascinating is the translations from Roman and how although the ideas are the same, the phrasing is quite archaic in the sense that even translated the phrases sound a bit old and contrite.

I loved this because it's a bunch of signs in different languages that built up over time. What's the name of the street, after all of this?

The Arabic in this guy's display name says "Rawi," which makes the whole word spell "Drawing." I'm not sure if it's more clever or confusing honestly...

Not about Lebanon, but about Arabic calligraphy so certainly of interest to us!

This is just a regular receipt from Chamsine Bakery on Khalde. Notice how the only Arabic stuff is the title (which just says "Chamsine Bakery Khalde" and a couple other businessy details) and the stuff I actually purchased (if you're curious, 2 bags of brown Arabic bread - it's called "3adeh" bread, so "normal" Lebanese bread as opposed to a baguette or "franjeh" bread, which are small sub breads), and half a kilo of mixed petit fours - and notice if you read Arabic that the word "petit four" in French has been adopted by Arabic and transliterated according to the pronunciation, so it says "betee foor"). The rest is in English, including even the "Thank You" at the bottom. No translations from one language to another.

I saw this at Starbucks Beirut City Centre earlier this week. Bit late for mothers day but, well. The English: Love your mom "a latte" The Arabic: The most delicious latte for the best mama I get that the pun in English wouldn't translate directly to Arabic, but they could have tried to keep a punny spirit! Unless I missrd something in my mediocre knowledge of Arabic and now you're all laughing at me...

The Arabic translates "Car park." The English is "Barking." Classic example of a misdirected translation...There is no letter "p" in Arabic so whoever translated it to English wrote it with a "b". Like "Bebsi".

This restaurant called Las Cidas opened up recently on the street perpendicular to Akil Bros. On Hamra that takes you up to Concorde. The sign translates to "Our day3a (village, hometown) is in Hamra" I really really love this one because there are Arabic letters and roman letters and both are saying the same exact thing, just transliterated, and the best part is that the romanization includes the number 3 that we've unofficially assigned to represent the Arabic letter 'ayn (I can't copy paste it here from my phone right now) and then says "By Las Cidas," which is in plain English (although I've looked up "Las Cidas" on Google Translate and though it looks like Spanish or Portuguese or Italian it's none of those) followed by the phone number which has no equivalent in Arabic, and which people are of course expected to know are NUMBERS as opposed to the letter function the "3" serves in day3a. Also, of course, it says "Free Delivery" on top, which also has no Arabic equivalent of any sort. They're basically assuming that people read English and yet don't need the sign to be translated into it either, and also people who read the Arabic know how to understand "Free Delivery" in English...? Think about all of those assumptions! It's enough to make your head spin. Luckily Hamra is probably the best place to have a sign like that!

Ths is from our very own Hanine's twitter account. The big tweet translates to "Is it too late to change my name?" The conversation is a silly one about how USJ (Université St. Joseph) students have a certain day off for St. Joseph's birthday, and Hanine asks why she doesn't go to USJ, and then her friend answers almost entirely in Arabic, "Because you're from AUB." Another friend says "My name is Joseph and I want a vacation as well." The interesting thing is that the thread that proceeds this tweet starts out in English and gradually dissolves more into Arabic. One does wonder why! My poster for the MAD2014 poster session will be full of tweets and threads like this and my thoughts on them.

Thought this would be quite a timely thing to share! 

So that's what "ATTENTION: WET FLOOR" signs look in Italy, in case you were wondering! Except - wait a moment - that's at TSC Supermarket Concorde in Beirut! And yet the loud yellow hard plastic sign with the universally recognized image of someone slipping on a wet floor - and hey, even that is kind of abstract come to think of it. But we, denizens of planet Earth, know it's a wet floor sign mostly by the color, shape, size and position of the sign more than what's written or printed on.

This is a cute one. It translates to "After every 'why' comes a 'like this'?" "Leish heik" is a popular phrase in Lebanon. It's actually funnier if you don't translate it to be honest....

imane09: Hahah yess I love you whatsapp #bobn18 I changed my numb(er))

"Dancing with the who are these people? I've never seen them in my life" aka a bilingual jab at the "stars" one usually sees on "Dancing with the stars". Even funnier in 2 languages really!

Yet another photo from yesterday's protest at AUB. This was taken by Ahmad Beyh, from whose Facebook album "AUB Protest Part One" I snagged this because I didn't get a photo of my own of it. This says "Ana mish ATM" - "I am not an ATM." I'm pretty sure that nobody even knows what "ATM/Automated Teller Machine" means in Arabic! More comments (and a link to the album) later when I'm at my computer and I'll try to have a clip up of Tarek Shehab's bilingual speech if my internet allows for it.

This is a fun link that shows the nuances of common Lebanese expressions. You find things like this everywhere, of course!

As always, this is more than meets the eye: it assumes a Lebanese reader (especially Lebanese, as “Wean Safet” is Lebanese slang) who a) reads and understand English, b) has watched LotR and c) is privvy to internet memes. Also the choice of how to spell “Wean” is a personal one on behalf of the person who created the post, as it could be spelled “wein,” “wen,” etc.