Mike Kerford-Byrnes writes:
<begin snippet>
I distinctly remember an Italian referring to CICS as "cheeks". This was
amusing in itself, but was made more so since he prefixed this with "I am
having trouble with my ..."
<end snippet>
What is funny is a function of what one knows, and both type I and type II
errors are possible.
One may need to know something: Lady Dorothy Sayers' protest to her cook, "You
cannot serve cod and salmon [in the same meal]', is very funny indeed if it
resonates immediately with St. Matthew:24, "...Ye cannot serve God and mammon".
If not, it seems arbitrary.
One may instead need to be ignorant of something: In Italian, 'ci' and 'ce',
as in cielo, cimento, cello, and concerto, yield soft Cs. If they are to be
hardened, an in amica/amiche, [feminine] friend/friends, an 'h' is inserted as
a flag before the affected 'i' or 'e'. (H is no longer really a letter in
modern Italian, 'hosteria' having long since been replaced by 'osteria', ecc.,
ecc.)
Or again, many Japanese eat soup in a fashion that is noisy to Western ears.
Is this funny? Only if one does not know that in Japan it is customary to do
so.
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
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