The Smarmy Carny

There was another bit of Spanish in this week's episode of My Name Is Earl, Frank's Girl. Throughout the episode, Joy and Catalina get into a war over . . . pooing themselves, of all things.

After Joy exacts her revenge on Catalina and takes a picture of the result, Catalina pops her head outside of the women's bathroom door and shouts:

Esperamos que no te daba asco este cuento, nosotros pensabamos que era chistoso!

The "unilingual" viewer assumes that Catalina is yelling at Joy and is possibly promising her own revenge. What Catalina is actually yelling at Joy, however, is:

We hope that this tale doesn't disgust you. We thought it was funny.

At least the writers of Earl know when they may be close to crossing the line on their humor.

My Name Is Earl has done it again. Previously, we have seen several Spanish-language jokes that break the fourth wall, and now they're expanding their efforts to Japanese.

In this week's episode, The Frank Factor, we see the origins of the various characters before they all end up together. As Catalina has freshly landed in the United States, she is walking along the side of the road just as Darnell (a.k.a. Crab Man, f.k.a Harry Monroe) is dropped off by FBI agents. She walks up to him and starts speaking Spanish to him in a concerned tone. She says:

¿Disculpe, disculpe — señor? Mira, yo sé que ésto no tiene sentido con este programa porque como hemos visto yo vine después de "Y2K", pero en realidad quién quién pone atención a esos tipos de cosas?

The viewer is left to believe that the new arrival is concerned about finding a place to live, to eat, or may just be concerned with what to do now that she has finally reached the United States. What Catalina has actually said is this:

Excuse me, excuse me — sir? Look, I know that this doesn't make any sense with this show because we have seen that I came after [in the episode] "Y2K", but in reality who — who pays attention to those types of things?

Catalina is talking about the fact that in the Y2K episode, she is seen starting her journey to the United States while Earl and the gang are meeting Darnell at the Crab Shack for the first time. In this episode, the timeline/canon is broken because Darnell has just been dropped off by the FBI van and certainly has not started working yet, however Catalina has already arrived in Camden County. The writers have skewed the show's timeline to have the origin stories line up better for this episode, and they wanted us to know that they are aware that we viewers notice these sorts of things. My wife also translated the phrase as "I2K", and I have to assume this is a mispronunciation of the Y2K flashback episode. Another blog has also verified this mispronunciation.

The episode also has two Japanese lines spoken by Patty's Japanese "client". He speaks only Japanese in the scene, and none of the characters are aware of what he is saying. Randy keeps cracking up about him speaking "gibberish".

Update: I was finally able to get a partial translation of the Japanese. After Patty introduces Yoshi to Earl and Randy, the Yoshi character says a phrase in Japanese, and right before they exit the scene, he speaks again. Here are the two lines in Japanese:

tenkeiteki na nihonjin no yaru ga kirai da. demo agent ga kore wa yaru no hou ga ii to itta

kare wa dokyun ga kare wa zenbu nandemo shite wo wakan nai no. ikou!

Though this seems to be poor grammar according to the people translating, the two lines are roughly translated as:

I really hate doing Japanese stereotypes, but my agent said I should do it.

He's a dumba**. He has no idea what he's doing. I'm going!

I'll keep posting updates as I get them.

The blog Spanengrish Ramblings posted the following translation, which varies a bit from what I got:

I really hate doing Japanese stereotypes, but my agent said I should probably do it.

Where is he? He's always doing this to me. Let's go.

Let's hope that My Name Is Earl keeps up the great work and inside jokes to multilingual viewers!

How do these tongue twisters stack up? Please, feel free to try saying these tongue twisters right now!

• Cher shot Sharif, the shoddy city sheriff: B Here's one you don't want to mess up in front of grandma!
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?: F I don't know if this one has ever twisted my tongue.
• I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant pluckers mate and I'm only plucking pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's late: B+ This four-line tongue twister is a bit long for my taste, but it's a great one to try out. Though it's not particularly hard if you can read it, it's a doozy when you do mess up!
• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers: D- The only hard part about saying this traditional tongue twister is that I always try and figure out what a "peck" is.
• Red rubber baby buggy bumpers: C- This one is a classic tongue twister, though I've never seen a bumper on a baby buggy before.
• She sold six Swiss wristwatches: A I like this tongue twister because it has just five words, but gets me almost every single time.
• Unique New York: A I appreciate this one for its simplicity. When I tell this one to people, they scoff — until they try to say it. I like the deceptiveness hidden here.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why? Which items do you wish were included that I didn't cover here?

Ever since we were small children, we have learned the sounds that animals make. We are even taught at a young age how to "properly" spell these sounds. But how accurate are they?

• Baa: B- Sheep do seem to make a "baa" sound of sorts, though I'm not sure I can hear a "b" at the beginning. I'd be happier with it if there was an obligatory hyphen to show that they are making that repeated guttural pause.
• Bow-Wow: F This may be one of the worst animal sounds. The closest a dog comes to making this sound is when it's yapping repeatedly, and even then it rarely just says two syllables. I've heard more dogs say "I ruv you, Reorge" than I have heard saying "bow-wow".
• Caw: A Crows say it, no doubt about it. So does my friend Joel D — seemingly nonstop.
• Croak: D- No, no, no. Frogs don't croak at all. "Ribbit" works well for some frog sounds, but not "croak." Whoever it was who first thought they heard this particular sound was probably licking the frog a couple minutes beforehand.
• Hoot: C I've heard an owl say "who" before, but never with a "t" on the end. Hilarious comedian Brian Regan has a spiel on how the owl doesn't go "hoot".
• Meow: A- I can hear "meow" coming from a cat. It's definitely two syllables and definitely has "e-ow" in it. I'm not so sure about the "m" at the beginning, but we'll roll with it.
• Moo: D- I think "moo" is one of the most popular animal sounds, but it's not one of the best. Go listen to a cow. The sound they make is not "moo". It's the same sound I make when my wife tries to wake me up in the middle of the night. I can tell you one thing — it's definitely not "moo".
• Oink: F As far as I can remember, I've never heard a pig make the "n" sound, so how can they say "oink"? They also don't make the "oi" sound, unless perhaps you've got an Australian pig. A pig's snorting sound definitely needs a new name.
• Quack: D+ When you say "quack", you're not making a duck sound, but part of your word is. That "wa" sound in the middle is spot on. The rest is just filler to make you say that sound.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why? Which examples of animal sounds onomatopoeia do you wish were included that I didn't cover here?

NB: Not only do I love onomatopoeia, I even know how to spell it.

Just like last year, this season's final episode of My Name Is Earl included another inside joke for the Spanish-speaking public.

Earl visits multiple people in a desperate attempt to find a positive character witness for Joy. After failing with one of her old friends, her minister, and a celebrity, Earl tries to convince Catalina to be a character witness despite the abuse that Joy has heaped on Catalina.

Joy responds by saying the following sentences in Spanish:

Gracias por ver nuestro programa. Los vamos a extrañar este verano. ¿No te parece cómico que Earl piensa que yo le estoy diciéndole cuánto yo odio a Joy pero en realidad yo les estoy diciéndole cuánto los quiero?

Since the only understandable portions of the speech are "Earl" and "Joy," the non-Spanish-speaking audience is left to believe that Catalina goes on a brief tirade about Joy and her lack of character.

What Joy really said, however, was much more fun:

Thank you for watching our program. We are going to miss you this summer. Don't you think it's funny that Earl thinks I'm telling him how much I hate Joy when in reality I'm telling you how much I love you all?

The show has included a few Spanish language jokes from Catalina. Check out the My Name Is Earl category for the others.

This is a years-old internet classic. I thought of it again today, so I figured I'd be the eight millionth person to post it. OK, OK, so it's more like the 435,000th page to include the info, but who's counting (other than Google)?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

According to Snopes, the origins are undetermined, but this particular paragraph was popularized by languagehat.com's RDIAENG post, which also attempts to find the source with varying degrees of success.

A grocery list

This week's site is The Grocery List Collection. Just as you might think, the site collects abandoned grocery lists, scans them, and places them online.

There are currently 1100 lists posted, and plenty of them are mundane — but that's what a grocery list is, isn't it? In the mix, you'll find some interesting lists, like lists of completely unrelated items, lists from the anal retentive (like me), lists worth five dollars, and lists with bizarre items such as kitten faces or poop bags.

You'll see lists from hastily written lists on Post-It Notes to carefully written, multi-column lists on notebook paper. You'll see the world's worst spelling. You'll see the various ways to mark off which items you have retrieved, from check marks to scribbling items off to no marking at all, which happens to be my method of choice.

Other than the pictures of the lists, there's not much else on the site. There are a few features missing from the site that I would have preferred: A rating system and a comments system would have given a community feel to the site and would have brought me back repeatedly. Also, keywords/tagwords would have been nice, particularly if each photo listed all the foods on it, so you could bring up all of the lists including bananas or rank food items by popularity. I have a feeling that either of these would probably require a site overhaul, though. It's too bad.