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Loser's Guide Loser's Guide

 Loser's Guide to Life

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Directions 

You know what's damn confusing? The words “East” and “West” sound similar, but they mean exact opposite things. What if you hear it on the radio and you have a bad link? “...thertzsh gzzzzhhhh rty kilometrzzz ersht bzz.” “Sorry, say again, 'east' or 'west', over??!!” “bzzzz 'ERSHP' bzz” “What, confirm 'EAST', over??” “..wersht bffp...”.

I notice it's the same problem in Irish except worse: “east” is thoir, “west” is thiar. They've gone to a great deal of trouble distinguishing between “location”, “motion towards”, “motion away from”, and so on, so you have a whole bunch of words siar/soir, thoir/thiar, iarthar/oirthear, aniar/anoir, and they all sound exactly the same, complete madness.

People complain that Russian is difficult to learn, but at least they had the sense to make “east” (vostok) and “west” (zapad) very different.

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Watching TV is a good way to tear yourself away from the computer.