Showing posts with label english. Show all posts
Showing posts with label english. Show all posts

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Midnight Tea Time

MCAT should not stand for Medical College Application Test. No. It's more like a warning: May Cause Anal Tearing. Why? Because it's currently raping me up the arse. It is Summer and I want to be not studying, dammit. I was going to post something earlier, but for some reason my brain had a responsible adult moment and decided I should study for the MCAT. I even had an idea as to what I wanted to write about, but I guess ye olde hippocampus decided no to store that idea into long-term memory as soon as brain started studying asinine things like electronegativity, ionization, electron affinity and azimuthal quantum numbers. Silly chemistry with your silly words. You're so silly.


Also? I had a good laugh when I saw that the translation for the French term 'hippocampe' is 'hippocampus'. HIPPO. CAMPUS. See, I studied Human Kinetics almost entirely in French and I've gone to French schools my entire life. Naturally, there are terms that I've learned in French for which I don't know the English translation. And when I go looking for the English equivalent? Oh, boy, do I find some gems. HIPPOCAMPUS. It's a campus for hippos! IN YOUR BRAIN! Although I think the best translation to date is phalanges. Now, you're probably thinking, "What the hell is the big deal? Phalanges. Nothing special about them." And for you guys reading this, sure, it may not be so big of a deal, but to me it is absolutely hilarious. Let me explain. 


You see, 'phalanges' is spelt the exact same way in French : phalanges. And it means the exact same thing : fingers. The difference, however, lies in the pronunciation. It French, we say 'fa-lawn-je' (pronunciation at the bottom of this page because I can't type out pronunciations to save my life). Now, I remember there was a day when I was talking to a friend about English and French anatomy terms and I jokingly said "Ha, and what the hell is 'phalanges'? Fuhlanjeez?" And then I found out later that my pronunciation was RIGHT. In English, 'phalanges' is pronounced 'fuh-lan-jeez'. FUH. LAN. JEEZ. fuhLANjeez. FUHLANJEEZ. fuhlanjeezfuhlanjeezfuhlanjeezfuhlanjeezfuhlanjeezfuhlanjeezFUHLANJEEZ.


...in hindsight, this might seem only absolutely hilarious to me. But I don't care because FUHLANJEEZ! Extra emphasis on the LAN. fuhLANjeez! I'm typing fuhLANjeez with my phalanges. 


I think Bones would be able to explain this better than I would ever be able to:


DANCING PHALANNNNNNNGEES!!!! SHOW ME YOUR PHALANNNNNNNNNNNNGEES!


I think the all the hippos on campus would appreciate some phalanges instead of whatever the fuck terms I had to study tonight. Poor hippos.