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My Postillion Has Been Struck By Lightning
"My postillion has been struck by lightning", "our postillion has been struck by lightning", and other variations on the same pattern, are often given as examples of the ridiculous phrases supposed to have been found in phrase books or language instruction in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The word ''postillion'' may occur in its alternative spelling ''postilion''. Although various forms of the sentence are widely cited, the exact wording and the context in which it is said to have originally been used vary. For example, a teaching manual attributes it to a Portuguese-English phrasebook (possibly alluding to ''English as She Is Spoke''): The phrase-book for Portuguese learners of English which included the often-quoted and bizarre sentence 'Pardon me, but your postillion has been struck by lightning' demonstrates a total lack of sense of context: who can have said this, to whom and in what circumstances? By contrast a linguistics textbook mentions the supposedly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postilion
A postilion or postillion is a person who guides a horse-drawn coach or post chaise while mounted on the horse or one of a pair of horses. By contrast, a coachman controls the horses from the vehicle itself. Originally the English name for a guide or forerunner for the post (mail) or a messenger, it became transferred to the actual mail carrier or messenger and also to a person who rides a (hired) post horse. The same persons made themselves available as a less expensive alternative to hiring a coachman, particularly for light, fast vehicles. Postilions draw ceremonial vehicles on occasions of national importance such as state funerals. On the battlefield or on ceremonial occasions postilions have control that a coachman cannot exert. Mount Postilions ride the left or nearsideBecause horses are mounted from the horse's left side (the horse prefers no surprises) that side is nearest to the rider. The postilion rides the left horse of the pair because there is no access to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Can Eat Glass
''I Can Eat Glass'' was a linguistic project documented on the early Web by then-Harvard student Ethan Mollick. The objective was to provide speakers with translations of the phrase "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" from a wide variety of languages; the phrase was chosen because of its unorthodox nature. Mollick's original page disappeared in or about June 2004, but the phrase has continued as an absurdist example in linguistics. The project is housed on the current website for The Immediate Gratification Players, a student improvisational comedy group of which Mollick was a member and which hosted the original site. As Mollick explained, visitors to a foreign country have "an irresistible urge" to say something in that language, and whatever they say (a cited example being along the lines of "Where is the bathroom?") usually marks them as tourists immediately. Saying "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me", however, ensures that the speaker "will be viewed as an insane nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English As She Is Spoke
, commonly known by the name ''English as She Is Spoke'', is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as a co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book. However, because the "English" translations provided are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic, it is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour in translation. The humour largely arises from Carolino's indiscriminate use of literal translation, which has led to many idiomatic expressions being translated ineptly. For example, Carolino translates the Portuguese phrase as "raining in jars", when an analogous English idiom is available in the form of "raining buckets". It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English and that a French–English dictionary was used to translate an earlier Portuguese–French phrase book, , written by José da Fonseca. Carolino likely added Fonseca's name to the book, without his permi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monty Python's Flying Circus
''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became known as "Monty Python", or the "Pythons". The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September 1969 and premiered on 5 October on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. The series stands out for its use of absurd situations, mixed with risqué and innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. Live action segments were broken up with animations by Gilliam, often merging with the live action to form segues. The overall format used for the series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his groundbreaking series '' Q...'', rather than the traditional sketch show format. The Pythons play the majority of the series' character ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook
"Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" is a Monty Python sketch. It first aired in 1970 on ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' as part of Episode 25, and also appears in the film ''And Now for Something Completely Different''. ''Atlas Obscura'' has noted that it may have been inspired by ''English as She Is Spoke'', a 19th-century Portuguese–English phrase book regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour, as the given English translations are generally completely incoherent. Plot A Hungarian (John Cleese) enters a tobacconist's shop carrying a phrasebook and begins a dialogue with the tobacconist (Terry Jones); he wants to buy cigarettes, but his phrasebook's translations are wholly inaccurate and have no resemblance to what he wants to say. Many of them are plainly bizarre (for example: "My hovercraft is full of eels.") and become mildly sexual in nature as the skit progresses (for example: "Do you want to come back to my place, bouncy-bouncy?"). After the customer uses gesture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Crystal
David Crystal, (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist, academic, and prolific author best known for his works on linguistics and the English language. Family Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, on 6 July 1941 after his mother had been evacuated there during The Blitz. Before he reached the age of one, his parents separated. He remained estranged from and ignorant of his father for most of his childhood, but later learnt (through work contacts and a half-brother) of the life and career of Dr. Samuel Crystal in London, and of his half-Jewish heritage. He grew up with his mother in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England, where he attended St Mary's College from 1951. Crystal is a practising Roman Catholic. He currently lives in Holyhead with his wife, Hilary, a former speech therapist and now children's author. He has four grown-up children. His son Ben Crystal is also an author, and has co-authored four books with his father. Career Crystal studied Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as ''Doctor in the House'' (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess". In a second career, he wrote seven best-selling volumes of memoirs, six novels, and a volume of collected journalism, mainly from articles in ''The Daily Telegraph''. During five years of active military duty during World War Two, he reached the rank of major and was awarded seven medals. His poetry has been published in war anthologies; a painting by Bogarde, also from the war, hangs in the British Museum, with many more in the Imperial War Museum. Having come to prominence in films including ''The Blue Lamp'' in the early 1950s, Bogarde starred in the successful ''Doctor'' film series (1954–1963). He twice won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patricia Beer
Patricia Beer (4 November 1919 – 15 August 1999) was an English poet and critic. Biography She was born in Exmouth, Devon into a family of Plymouth Brethren. Her mother died when she was fourteen and it affected her entire life and the way she saw death. Patricia Beer was strongly influenced by the Plymouth Brethren Church, a loosely structured, fundamentalist sect. She attended Exmouth Grammar School before reading English at Exeter University. Beer moved away from her religious background as a young adult, becoming a teacher and academic. She took her B.Litt at the University of Oxford following which she spent seven years in Italy where she taught English Literature at the University of Padua, the British Institute and the Ministero Aeronautica in Rome. She began to write poetry after World War II, while living in Italy; she is most often classified as a 'New Romantic' poet comparable to John Heath-Stubbs. On her own account, however, there is a discontinuity in her w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. In 1934 they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'' in the Anglophone world. ''Ulysses'' transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it absorbed the firm of Smith and Haas—Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sayonara
''Sayonara'' is a 1957 American Technicolor drama film starring Marlon Brando in Technirama. It tells the story of an American Air Force fighter pilot during the Korean War who falls in love with a famous Japanese dancer. The picture won four Academy Awards, including acting honors for co-stars Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki. The supporting cast also features Patricia Owens, James Garner, Martha Scott, Ricardo Montalbán, and Miiko Taka. The screenplay was adapted by Paul Osborn from the 1954 novel of the same name by James Michener, and was directed by Joshua Logan and produced by William Goetz. Unlike most 1950s romantic dramas, it deals squarely with racism and prejudice. Plot Fighter ace Major Lloyd "Ace" Gruver, of the United States Air Force, the son of a U.S. Army general, is stationed at Itami Air Force Base near Kobe, Japan. He has been reassigned from combat duties in Korea by General Webster, the father of his fiancée, Eileen. While Ace and Eileen have been togethe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Michener
James Albert Michener ( or ; February 3, 1907 – October 16, 1997) was an American writer. He wrote more than 40 books, most of which were long, fictional family sagas covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating detailed history. Many of his works were bestsellers and were chosen by the Book of the Month Club; he was known for the meticulous research that went into his books. Michener's books include ''Tales of the South Pacific'', for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948; ''Hawaii''; ''The Drifters''; ''Centennial''; ''The Source''; ''The Fires of Spring''; ''Chesapeake''; '' Caribbean''; '' Caravans''; ''Alaska''; ''Texas''; ''Space''; ''Poland''; and ''The Bridges at Toko-ri''. His non-fiction works include ''Iberia'', about his travels in Spain and Portugal; his memoir, '' The World Is My Home''; and ''Sports in America''. '' Return to Paradise'' combines fictional short stories with Michener's factual description ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
