tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jul 24 13:43:33 1997

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Language jokes show English speaking bias...



On 23 Jul 97 at 15:05, Robyn Stewart wrote:

> It was I.  And Marc also confirmed the suspicion of a list member
> about its origin: Electronic goods sold in the United States have a
> sticker on them saying "UL." (It stands for Underwriters
> Laboratories and indicates that the item has passed saftey
> standards, like the CSA label in Canada or the ISO one in some
> European countries.)

And in the Netherlands the KEMA label ("KEMA-keur"). Of course it 
seems more than logical, but somehow I find it unfortunate that so 
many of the language jokes are so English (American) speech biased, 
or better: American culture biased.

I cannot really appreciate the jokes like 'ul and 'awje' after I'm 
told what UL and A&W are (I've never even heard of them). In fact, I 
cannot even recognize them as funny in any way until told.

Like I said: it's probably more than logical and cannot be avoided, 
but somehow I don't like it. The Internet, the tlhIngan Hol language 
community, the Star Trek fandom community, etc. are all global and 
not restricted to just the US.

On the other hand, I'd rather have these jokes in the language then 
no jokes at all, of course. <grin>

Qapla'
peSHIr

Jarno Peschier, computer science student, Utrecht University
   mailto:[email protected]    http://jarno.home.ml.org/
____________________________________________________________
    'avwI' nejDI' narghta'bogh qama' reH 'avwI' Sambej


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