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At our very own Second cup: can you tell what's missing? now sure y ' all are thinking:"come on Marilyn, it's just a typo! You grammar nazi!" Well, maybe. But how come they didn't correct it yet? And also what do I care? I got what they meant. Why is this annoying?!

Remember in one of our classes,how we talked about signs replacing language? Like a heart instead of the word love? Thought this fits in perfectly, seen on the highway on some street whose name I dunno.

So I was at Virgin Megastore, and I came across an entire section of "how to be/ know you're Lebanese". There seems to be a lot of confusion in terms of our identity. So I saw this in one of the books. A little political background first: Lebanon is a small country, we all know each other or have seen one another at some point; therefore, it seems to be pointless to go through all the exhausting formalities and wait in line, when you can just go to the head of the department and ask for a favor or "wasta"! Wasta is stepping over the little man, and connections. It's who you know and if you can squeeze what u want, sometimes illegaly! It has become a joke here, since almost every Lebanese citizen and politician has a Wasta! It's a sad joke. This is not strictly a Lebanese thing, Wasta is everywhere. And why not use it, right? Also it's note worthy that they translated everything except that word.

We've had many menus in this tumblr of ours, and here's an extra one from this place in ABC. I forgot the name.... anyway, notice the literal "mezze". Mezze is very popular in Lebanon, you could say it's appetisers, but it's more of a meal before the meal for us here! All the names of the food are literally written in english: in case you really want to know just read below each meal, it explains what it is in english! The audience could then be foreign as well as Lebanese.

Saw this on a billboard in ashrafieh.there are a lot of new shows now, talking about how much social media shapes our lives, this is the ad for one. It says "like halhaky like" I.e. "like this talk like", the "like" is off of Facebook of course. So is social media the new media?

Saw this by Nahr el mot, it's the name of a drive through market, it literally means:" hand me", as in hand me something. I found it interesting because it combines arabic Internet language and the french "accent aigu" I talked about before. Another sign of post colonial residue.

Saw this also in Sin el fil (or the other area that I forgot) it says:”on the go” or literally ” quiclkly”, it’s a sign for a kind of drive through market. Notice the Internet language in the title:”3al sari3” and notice how they wrote “threw”! We were talking in class about how these english words we see written like this are not “wromg” merely Lebanese people making language their own. Not to mention how the "thru" is written... So which wins? Communucation? Or grammar?

Saw this on a billboard in Kaslik (are you as happy as I am that I finally saw something outside of Dbayeh?!!) In the spirit of easter and the Lebanese tradition of cooking a special pastry desert for this holiday called:"maamoul" in the picture), this add has a double entendre on the latter, which placed in a different context means "done"; hence the ad:"maamoul Al ousoul" I.e. "done the way it's supposed to" &" the original maamoul(the desert)". "Ousoul" technically means origin. Translation problems!

Saw this in Sin el fil or somewhere, I'm not good with directions. It's the name of a street "street Al ghazal" translated from arabic to French. In fact all streets and road signs are in french and arabic, very rarely in english!Post - colonialism? Yes, please!

Saw this on the billboard, it's an ad for the egg exhibition (eggsibition:p ) that they are having in Le Mall at Dbayeh. Driving hence the terrible picture... it's just another interesting example of word mash up: eggs(as in easter eggs) and expression = eggspression! You guys should check out the eggs though, real cracking stuff.... I suck at puns!

Sent by a friend. I think this is called word-mash up? When u stick two words together like "shark" & "sarcasm" = sharkasm! Or "booty" & "delicious"= "bootylicious" OED anyone?

Saw this in Zalka: warde is the Arabic word for rose. Notice the accent on the "e" which makes it sound like the "e" in "expectation". It's a French thing, called accent aigue". So Latin letters with a sprinkle of French post colonialism, just how I like it.

I "would" go beyond too! Saw this near Geant, thought it would be a nice follow up to my previous post on the importance of word play and language manipulation in advertising. It also draws attention to the difference between how a word sounds like and how we write it. Think about it: what difference does it makes If I write "would" or "wood" if I'm pronouncing it the same? That's why we're confused sometimes when people say one word but they mean another one pronounced just like it! Phonetics!

We went to a game store, and the guy gave us his card. Wordplay is a very important tool in advertising. "Injoy" "enjoy", get it? It's really amazing how many slogans, stores and products are in English in Lebanon! I'm pretty sure that the French advertise only in French, so why is almost everything in Lebanon, not in Lebanese?! We don't even speak arabic that much anymore!

On the highway of Dbayeh, (I spend a lot of time there because of traffic). "Abniah" is the arabic word for buildings. Interesting why they wrote it in Latin letters...