The made-for-TV demonstration looked Spanish, but in fact the v/b confusion that may put an end to Shimon’s secret literary career (Charlotte Roche is a pseudonym) seems to have taken place in either southern Hezbollandia or northern Hamasistan, depending on the views of the protestor consulted. Bilabials are still causing problems closer to home, though. Our latest greatest comes from a Barcelona office of Correos, the national post service, which on its printed slips advertises that packets can be picked up on dissaptes, Saturdays. A man in the bar with 14 years compulsory schooling in Catalan told me that dissapte, not dissabte, is actually the correct spelling. I’ve bought him a year’s subscription to Google. Correos also missed the accent off sábados, so lay down your rockets, all you Catalan language persecution conspiracy theorists. [JD points me to an interesting basic English, German and Spanish phonetics demo at the University of Iowa, featuring video, sound and animations.]

Tags: correos, spelling
Categories: Empires, rulers and warfare, Languages, Les bourgeois, Splog

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