Saturday, August 30, 2008

Centum

Welcome to my 100th post! I will make it quick.

The following typos or mistakes were commited by my favourite website for spelling mistakes:

1. In an article about the weather, an expert said that as long as the days are longer than the nights, there is still hope for summer weather. In German, it would have been "Solange die Tage noch länger sind als die Nächte...". But instead, it said "Nächste", which means "next". But that doesn't make any sense at all, it's just a complete mistake. It's not even a typo because the letter "s" is not anywhere near the letters used for that word. That means that the writer was simply asleep or already with his brain on the way home.

2. A German football goalkeeper working in Austria was injured by fireworks during a match. In one article, he was called a former "Bundesligatrainer" instead of "Bundesligatorwart". So they made a former coach out of him instead of a former goalkeeper of the German first league. This time, it's again not a typo but another mindless mistake. A similar sounding word is used because the author only uses half of his brain to complete the article.

3. Another football-related article. A player has collapsed and almost died, and the comrades (Kameraden) achieve a victory in his name in the very same match. The only problem: The author of the article badly misspells "Kameraden" and turns it into "Kammerraden". Double "m" and double "r". This word makes no sense at all. I would like to assume that two keys got stuck on the keyboard at the same time, but that would be too nice. In this case it is simply a very, very bad understanding of our language. How can you even get a hold of such a job if you don't know how to spell such a word? I mean, one mistake in the word would be okay, but two mistakes make the word already so optically wrong that you -have to- realise that it's wrong. Didn't he struggle when typing the word? Was he in such a hurry?

Now I want to come back to the letter I mentioned the other day. You remember, I intended to write to my neighbours who like to have sex and arguments in the middle of the night with half-closed windows. Here is the letter (translated), I will just get straight the point:

Dear neighbours,

we are sorry to let you know that the standard of living has drastically changed since your arrival. [This place] is usually a relatively quiet area. However, it can lately be heard clearly how you argue loudly and then, also well-audibly, "exchange caresses", to put it mildly.

All of this happens in the middle of the night, sometimes in the evening, in any case easy to hear since your windows are half-open.

Now, unfortunately some people have to get up early in the morning. That is of course a little unusual to think of at first glance, but the reason is that these people have to work for their money. Apart from that, many people also have their windows open due to the summer-like temperatures, which is a right to everyone.

In your case you will have to keep the windows shut, at least for your nocturnal activities. However, we additionally ask you to be a little more quiet, because with the sound level up to now, not even double bullet-proof glass could prevent us from waking up.

Maybe all of this will even be to your advantage. Because when you tell your partner that you are angry, you can save yourself a lot of screaming around for the rest of the conversation. That gives the vocal cords a rest and makes it possible to concentrate on solving problems rather than throwing things at each other, only to drown them in a a five-minute mini orgy afterwards.

We expect that sensibility and discretion will win and hope for a good neighbourhood. Thank you very much and all the best!

Your sleepless neighbours

Note: Since I put the letter at their door in the middle of a night, it has been more quiet. They still like to make kitchen noise, but at least I don't hear any grunting or any more or arguments. But my personal theory is that habit makes people forget things easily. Habit is stronger than anything else.


There are more things to mention, especially stories on the bus, but I don't know how to put all of this in one entry and I fear that the number of readers decreases dramatically if I do. I will save it for later then. I would have liked a more glorious 100th post, maybe also with private greetings, but it has to be okay like this. I will collect more stupidity in the future. Farewell.

3 comments:

Aaron said...

It's 'vocal chords', not 'vocal cords' actually. Chord and cord are not the same thing.

Mighty Mike said...

Actually they are. Both is right, you can check the wikipedia page for vocal cords. By the way, this is a private blog so I don't mind if I make mistakes. I don't get paid for doing this like other people who do this for a living and get away with it.

Aaron said...

I know you don't mind. Just taking a page out of your book.