Arr Yu Smaater Van E Tin Yere Auld?

Darlo — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:25:35 +0000

Are you smart enough to spell 'which'?

After watching an episode of ‘Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old’ on Sky One the other day, I thought I’d have a go at the online version just to see how I’d do. Admitadly up until today I’d not managed to complete the entire quiz, always falling at the final question where they throw a history or natural science question my way.

Well anyway, when I was playing I noticed something odd on one of the questions; a spelling mistake. Ironically a game to test whether you’re smarter than someone only a decade old had it’s only mental problems.

Whioh of these would you find near a lighthouse?

The question presented to me was “Near WHIOH of these would you find a lighthouse?”, and I could only presume that they intended to use the word ‘which’. The main thing that stumped me is if you have a look down at your keyboard, where is the ‘O’ key in relation to the ‘C’ key? Sadly enough I “hit the wrong button” and got the question wrong.

I had another moment of ‘eh?’ last night when I was flicking through one of my Japanese grammar books. Oxford Japanese Grammar and Verbs by Jonathan Bunt was recommended to me by a friend and to be honest it’s a very good little book. It’s explanations are clear and easy to follow. However it seems that even the Oxford University Press has it’s off days.

授業が早く終わったら電話電話します
Jugyō ga hayaku owattara denwa shimasu
If the class finishes early, I will ring

For those who don’t do Japanese you might want to just skip on ahead. For those that do, have a look at ‘電話電話’ which is apparently read as just ‘denwa’. If you have the book and want to have a nose it’s on page 134.

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Arr Yu Smaater Van E Tin Yere Auld?