Comments on: Ambiguity (105)

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:13:11 +0000

As the German that I am I’d like to correct you, “to run”/”laufen” has roughly the same amount of various meanings in german as in english - “running nose”/”laufende Nase” just as well. Only the synonym of “laufen”, which is “rennen”, couldn’t be used that way. You might have thought of that since “running” and “rennen” are pretty homonymous (”gehen” by the way means either “to go” or “to walk”, not “to run”).

Best wishes from Bavaria, Germany.

By: Armin

Armin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:55:45 +0000

Hi Dave,

congratulations on this informative show. As you have touched upon this topic, please do a whole episode on diplomatic language.

Greetings from Vienna, Austria

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:12:12 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Phil.

The survey is actually the property of Wizzard Media. We just link to it, because Wizzard is our hosting service and ad agency. I’ll try to remember to let them know about the misspelled “audience.” However, the question “So, what are you waiting for?” is really how at least 95% of the population of fluent English speakers would say that, so I think I’ll leave that one alone!

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:31:43 +0000

Hello, my fellow podcasting pedants! I enjoy your podcast immensely, not only for the incomparable topic but also for its very personable and eloquent hosts.

I just wanted to let you guys know that on the “Thank You” page for your survey, the word “audience” is misspelled (it’s written “audeince”). Also, is the phrase “So, what are you waiting for?” on said webpage grammatically correct? I believe it should be “For what are you waiting?”.

Thanks, you guys are awesome!