Linguistic Soup

I attended FADE IN:'s 1 year birthday party not long ago and they were distributing these mugs at the ceremony. The mugs have the definition of the word 'screenwriter' printed on it, complete with the phonetic spelling of the word, only it's not the definition we're used to.

Bae is a slang word used very often on the internet (much like selfie!) and it's short for 'babe', which is also a variation of the word 'baby'. The photo above was originally a photo of a bottle of shower gel. It has bay leaves extracts. The photo now reads "I hate it when bay leaves" and it's a word play on actual bay leaves and the sentence "I hate it when my baby leaves."

The caption on the photo above is a word play on the expression "let that sink in" which means get used to it or get accustomed to the way things are, and the noun "sink" which is pictured above. Allow the basin in which you wash your hands inside your home.

The screenshots above were tweeted by a girl called Juliette and they're of a conversation between her and her mum. Her mum keeps making hilarious typing mistakes all caused by autocorrect!

My friend tweeted that she stopped her car in the middle of traffic to pick up a turtle, then the turtle peed in her car. What's funny is that the whole tweet is in English except for the word "zoulohfa" which means turtle in Arabic. Why she didn't use the word turtle is still unknown to me. What's even funnier is that "zoulohfa" isn't the word we use in everyday Arabic. It's the way it's pronounced in written Arabic. In everyday Arabic we would say "zelehfe."

This tweet was retweeted on my timeline and it shows how the words for "straw" in English, French and Arabic are literal translation of each other. However, the word in Lebanese Arabic is completely different.

The photo above is meant to look as if the Arabic text is a translation of the English text, but it's not. The English text reads "for better life you need to have weed, vodka and drugs." The Arabic text reads "for a better life you should be honest, kind, and polite. Those who know English should shut up." Not to mention that there's a missing word in the English part.

They were handing these out on main gate at some point in the semester. 7abibi is a new restaurant in Hamra and it’s interesting how their slogan (lyrics from a Fairuz song) is in Arabic except for one word that is the restaurant's name. However, the restaurant’s name is originally an Arabic word.

Lebanese people tend to refer to rubbing alcohol as “sbirto” for some reason. I never really knew why until I saw this bottle. The full name of “sbirto” is “sbirto al-ethanol” or “the ethanol’s sbirto.” It’s still a bit confusing; if you weren’t to read the English part, you’d be like, “what’s an “ethanol’s sbirto”? Apparently it’s the ethanol’s spirit. However, I’m still curious as to where the O in "sbirto" came from and why the word "spirit" became "sbirto" if we already have a word for it in Arabic that is “روح” (pronounced rou7).

"Fakhar ykasser ba3do" is an expression in Lebanese Arabic that literally translates to "let the pots break each other" and is used when someone doesn’t care about a certain situation. For instance, if two people are fighting and a third person doesn’t want to interfere, they could say this expression. The image above shows different sized pots holding hammers and breaking each other.

I found the inscriptions on this bottle of laban interesting because the title is in Armenian yet the rest is in English. The title is not translated into English for non-Armenian speakers yet the description of the drink is not in Armenian. No sign of Arabic even though we're in Lebanon.

I was in Dora yesterday and I saw this sign. Apparently, the street I was on is called "Armenia Street" (or "Armenia Avenue", I'm not sure). What's funny about this sign is that in Arabic it says "share3" which means street, but in French it says "avenue." What's even funnier is that the street is completely packed with Armenian signs, however the official street name sign only has Arabic and French on it. No Armenian or English translation.

I was in Jdeideh yesterday when my friend pointed out this place while laughing. A snack and cafe called Carloann! Not only is it not a place for car loans but "car loan" is also misspelled seing as they made it into one word and added an n at the end.

Who knew that inverting Arabic letters can give us Latin characters? The sentence above, which reads "After every dark night comes a brighter day," is entirely spelled with inverted Arabic characters. It's also worth noting that Arabic characters are normally attached too but here they're not. My best friend sent me this photo and she's thinking about doing something similar. I'm not sure I'm very fond of the "latinisation" of Arabic.

This Egyptian guy claims to be an English teacher and to guarantee to parents that their kids won't fail, yet he made spelling mistakes in both English and his native language Arabic. Almost every single word is misspelled. Wow.

Arabic is a great language once you fully grasp it and know how to use it in function with other languages. Unfortunately, when you don't, it can get rather messy. Many words in the Arabic languages have different meanings, like the word "3omoom" shown above. It can mean "public" but it can also be the plural word for "uncle." It's funny how this public parking seems to be only for uncles. Found on Kunhadi's Facebook page.

I found this fascinating article on how some words like "Arsenal" and "Broker" originated from the Arabic language. I only knew "Alcohol" and "Checkmate" from this list.