June 13, 2007

T-SHIRTS.

1) Strč prst skrz krk (thanks, Songdog!). ("Strč prst skrz krk is a Czech and Slovak tongue-twister meaning 'stick finger through throat'.")

2) bad grammar makes me [sic] (thanks, dame!).

Posted by languagehat at June 13, 2007 05:07 PM
Comments

I like this one.
Or perhaps this one. *giggles*

Posted by: bulbul at June 13, 2007 05:28 PM

I've seen that second shirt before; I always feel like out-snobbing it and asking, "seek what?"

Posted by: parvomagnus at June 13, 2007 09:29 PM


bad grammar makes me [sic]

It goes without saying that...

Posted by: Noetica at June 13, 2007 11:55 PM

Anyone got a link to an audio file of someone reciting that tongue twister?

Posted by: Basso Profundo at June 14, 2007 01:33 AM

And, ironically, you can only pronounce: "Strč prst skrz krk" correctly with a finger through your throat.

Posted by: RavinDave at June 14, 2007 04:36 AM

Basso,

try here.

Posted by: bulbul at June 14, 2007 07:11 AM

God, I hate sic. I think it's only used by people who want, with a wink at the reader, to laugh at the people they're quoting. How small.

Does anyone know anything about its history?

Posted by: James at June 14, 2007 08:05 AM

Nothing on the history, really, but there is a short Wikipedia article about sic here.

Posted by: Jordan at June 14, 2007 09:22 AM

I think a better translation of "strč prst skrz krk" would be "stick a finger in your throat." Skrz means "through" (in the sense of motion through something), but in this sense is probably closer to "in" or "into."

And that's not really an especially difficult thing to say with a native English speaker's toungue. Czech has some wonderfully awkward consonant cluster laying about in some fairly common vocabulary, like "skříň" (wardrobe), which after 2 and change years of studying the language, I still can't pronounce properly.

Posted by: phleabo at June 14, 2007 09:48 AM

What's so weird about "skříň", except for ř?

Posted by: bulbul at June 14, 2007 10:36 AM

I'm with you, James. There's a guy at TWOP who puts "sic" into quotes from characters - like this: "There's [sic] too many people like that around."

I personally save [sic] for things that are incomprehensible.

Hey - maybe that means we're just confident no one would ascribe the error to us?

Posted by: The Ridger at June 14, 2007 11:50 AM

[sic] has an important function when used in a scholarly context to indicate that an unusual spelling or usage that might be taken for a typo is in the original. Unfortunately, it is a magnet for twits as well.

Posted by: language hat at June 14, 2007 01:23 PM

While we're on the subject of sic, I have a usage query for the Hatters. If a quoted text contains an obvious typo (for example "attack" for "attach"), should I leave it as is and add a [sic], or should I just correct it without further comment? Or a third option? Perhaps something like 'attac[h]'? or 'attack [sic: =attach]'? There must be an official line on this.

BTW I loved the T-shirt but would prefer it without the clipart. What it is to be fussy.

Posted by: nomis at June 14, 2007 10:17 PM

Nomis, I think it's acceptable to leave it as is and insert a [sic], or to correct it, provided there's a footnote or something informing the reader that the original contained such and such a typo.

Ridger, that's terrible. It suggests that he believes there's an objective reality about there is/are verb agreement, which is not the case at all. That to me, is a clear misuse.

That wiki page on [sic] appears to have been copy-pasted straight out of a Guardian column, indeed it asks for better sources at the top. I have a comprehensive guide to Latin tags and phrases at home, if no one's given a good account by the time I get there, I'll do a little bit of copy-pasting myself!

Posted by: jangari at June 14, 2007 11:25 PM

Consonant clusters are genuinely difficult. My son had a hard time learning to say "Squirt" (the pop), which he called "Stroot".

Posted by: John Emerson at June 17, 2007 10:02 AM

You can check this link. There are high quality t-shirts at this store. Here is the link:

www.crenoms.com

Posted by: tce at June 22, 2007 10:58 AM
Consonant clusters are genuinely difficult.

Fine, but in strč prst skrz krk there is no consonant cluster longer than two consonants, because the r is always syllabic here. There's not even a plosive cluster. No comparison to German geröntgt "X-rayed".

Sounds best with tightly clenched jaws. (Then it's easiest to get the r right.)

Posted by: David Marjanović at June 22, 2007 09:10 PM

That happens when I don't write the parts of a post in the right order. I mean that strč prst skrz krk sounds best with the teeth in occlusion.

Posted by: David Marjanović at June 22, 2007 09:11 PM

The site with the quadruple letter words in the other thread also has a page with long strings of consecutive consonants. It uses an orthographic definition, but some of the English and German words still end up with long clusters. latchstring was the required Jeopardy response (i.e., question) the other day.

Posted by: MMcM at June 22, 2007 11:48 PM

Latchstring, yes. But how about Hirschsprung’s [disease] (in SOED)?

Posted by: Noetica at June 23, 2007 07:57 PM