In the past, I have had a few posts on the topic of company names or advertising slogans that, strictly speaking, make use of incorrect English. A good example is the slogan “Cheat legal” used by a company called SKINS, see here. As in the famous case of Apple’s “Think different“, one may argue that
A colleague recently made me aware of the widely used yet incorrect expression on-premise for software that can be run on a customer’s servers rather than in the cloud. If you look out for it or ask your favourite search engine, you will see just how many people make this mistake. In hindsight, I have
The word lounge is commonly used in several languages. For example, in English and German, you may talk about a lounge at the airport or in a hotel. Despite its common use, you may soon realize (after reading this post) that quite a few people get the pronunciation wrong. Actually, this post is very much
I recently came across an interesting false friend in the form of the word scrupulous, providing great potential for thorough confusion. According to Merriam-Webster, scrupulous means, in particular, having moral integrity, acting in strict regard for what is considered right or proper. Its opposite is unscrupulous. As a German native speaker, I find that quite
A fellow member of my gym tried to find someone to take over her membership. She posted on Facebook in German, but also included the following English translation: Hallo! Ich gebe meine Fitnessstudio-Mitgliedschaft ab. Bei Interesse gerne melden. Hi! I’m giving away my gym membership. If you’re interested, let me know. The problem is that
Almost every week, I hear one of my German colleagues say I have to charge my card just before we go to lunch in the canteen. Interestingly, this means essentially the opposite of what they mean to say. When you charge a card, the card owner will have less money than before. What my colleagues
At a physics conference I attended last week in Berlin, I came across yet another example of tricky distinctions to master. Several speakers confused the words monotonic or monotone with monotonous. While these words can be used interchangeably in some situations, only monotonic and monotone are correct in a mathematical context. The Oxford online dictionary
As a regular commuter, Deutsche Bahn has caused me quite some headaches in the past. However, they also provide valuable input for this blog. Today, I want to share some of my recent observations regarding their special version of the English language. While it is quite common for passengers to make fun of the staff,
German (and very likely other) speakers sometimes use the phrase at best incorrectly, and have no idea how big a blunder that is. The problem is that at best has the meaning of the best thing in a bad situation, and therefore has to be used with care. For example, I’m at best qualified for
While reading an article about BMW’s Harald Krũger, who apparently fainted on stage at the Frankfurt Auto show but is OK, I noticed that BMW cited “circulation problems” as the cause. The term is a translation of the German expression Kreislaufprobleme. However, circulation problems in English refer to a serious and often lethal condition caused