Friday, December 5, 2008

NIGTH

If it's been said once, it's been said a hundred times: don't use foreign expressions in your speech or your writing unless you're 100% sure that you're using them properly. English speakers just can't get enough of using "fancy" borrowed expressions... but they're not the only ones.

Seen on giant posters that have been plastered all over town:

LADIES NIGTH

Nice try, y'all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Given that you are a translation student, I thought this may have been a cross-lingual thingy ... so I did a little translation research and found the following: German and Dutch (nacht) Spanish (noche), Portuguese (noite), Norwegian and Swedish (natt), Danish (nat), Czech (noc), Finnish (yo), French (nuit), Russian (hoya), Italian (notte), Catalan (nit). Conclusion ... mispelled english? But that doesn't explain why 'nigth' is in song/album titles by performers such as The Beeges, Celion Dion, et al. If you ever see that phrase with English and Portuguese cross-linked, i.e., "Ladies Noite" please let us know!

Princess Cat's Pajamas said...

Yup. Misspelled English. It's "upscale" or "classy" to have things written in English here, just like it is to have things in the States written in French. Problem is, a lot of the "French" you see in the States is nonsense, as is a lot of the "English" you see here!