www.alphadictionary.com

As this old Chestnut really worth the revival?

mark the-roasted-variety Bailey

'speaking of Chestnuts:

posted just now on the local Freecycle board:

wanted: Chester Drawers

Goodnight, Chet...

lol, I run our local freecycle and cloths is invariably the request when one needs clothing. I'm always tempted to 'fix' the writing but I just chuckle and post them 'as-is'.

Out east chester drawers are called draws.... I find that hilarious.

mark goodnight-David Bailey

Ok Res Diversae ...
Does it bother anyone else that the words LANE FIRE adorn many urban streets? Who decided that the average person would read large letters in the pavement as slowly as a Burma-Shave sign? For that matter, ECNALUBMA (wish I had the font available). Tax dollars at work etc. If it's boxy and has flashing lights, I move over. Lane fires seem to keep slow drivers to the side though. Radioactive steampipe explosion lanes would be a breeze.

-melissa

Thank you Melissa. Back where I grew up I 'member my amazement that every time I passed a particular intersection there was always a House Fire, yet it was enough under control that they had time to paint the fact on the street.

Say, why don't we have a mirror font?? No wonder Leonardo daVinci never posts here.

... For that matter, ECNALUBMA (wish I had the font available). Tax dollars at work etc. If it's boxy and has flashing lights, I move over. Lane fires seem to keep slow drivers to the side though. Radioactive steampipe explosion lanes would be a breeze.

-melissa

Well, if you have some (C)Rap music or other music blaring loud enough to vibrate nearby cars you may not hear the siren, and if the ambulance is so close that you can see ECNALUBMA in your mirror, you may not notice the lights, especailly in the daytime.

I think the first time I saw that was about 1972 or 1973 in Worcester, MA, late one night, with the radio blaring, on a run to Drunkin' Donuts.

Every little bit helps! I mean, we all know what IXAT means when we see it in the mirror in a large city: SHIELDS UP!

Alas, we do not appear to be able to use HTML in posting, which is a safety issue for the board. If we did, the following, courtesy of w3schools.com, would take care of the mirroring part. Leonardo, as usual, was ahead of his time.

<p>
If your browser supports bi-directional override (bdo), the next line will be written from the right to the left (rtl):
</p>

<bdo dir="rtl">
Here is some Hebrew text
</bdo>

Try going to this page:

http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp ... ryhtml_bdo

and try to select the reversed text in the right-hand window. Play with the code in the left side to change the message, then click the button on the top left to see your changes.

w3schools.com is a good intro to HTML, CSS, and other topics.

Seen on a website, with no avenue to send protest:

Its name is Public Opinian. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God... Mark Twain 1925

Notwithstanding Twain's attitude toward spelling, I was most impressed to learn that he continued to write some 15 years after his own death.

Not a visual sign, but a clever aural one in a local radio ad:
"Other real estate companies have branches; we have roots"

Seen on a website, with no avenue to send protest:

Its name is Public Opinian. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God... Mark Twain 1925

Notwithstanding Twain's attitude toward spelling, I was most impressed to learn that he continued to write some 15 years after his own death.

Not a visual sign, but a clever aural one in a local radio ad:
"Other real estate companies have branches; we have roots"

It sounds like someone was quoting from Mark Twain's Autobiography, which was written before his death but was not published until 1924 "to protect the guilty."

Stargzer: I seem to remember a post some time ago in which you reproduced a French/English 'sign' conforming to -- and commenting upon -- Canadian (Quebec?) rules for French vs English type sizes in signage.

My searches have turned up rien. Do you remember this and if so, would you link to the post or post it again here?

Merci tellement jamais.
(I hope I mangled that enough in Babelfish!)

Yes, I'll dig it out. It was a response to a 60 Minutes episode in which Katz's Delicatessen in Montreal had to change its name to Charcuterrie Katz. While charcuterie can be translated as delicatessen, the first translation in one of my dictionaries is hog-butcher's shop and Systranet translates it as pork-butchery, neither of which sounds very Kosher to me. Systranet translates delicatessen as épicerie fine. A one-time correspondent from Montreal fine-tuned my original translation.