Pricey hobby, and can't use Windows

It isn’t libel if the allegations are true.

Of course, the person speaking (including repeating) the allegations carries the onus of having to prove them to be true and justified, which is a whole pile of stacked tortoises in itself.

Suffice to say, back in the glory days when a company could place large advertisements in the numerous monthly magazines that one would have found on the shelves of various national retailers, there was one company that….did not appear to be aiming for a five star customer satisfaction rating. This was fairly well known by various user groups, BBSs, and the like, however without the degree of person to person communication that we have today, there were plenty of people who did not get to hear the tales of woe.
Of course, one can equally accuse the magazines of collusion since I’m sure they got mail but this specific company used to burn through advertising pages larger than most of the articles. That said, we can point out one particular magazine that seemed incapable of pointing out even obvious flaws in products being reviewed, so much so that by the end each issue was routinely stripped apart on Fidonet. This is why, incidentally, there’s a fair bit of subtle taking-the-**** of of this particular magazine within Frobnicate. Indeed, the style and design of the front page logo was basically an intentionally lazy rip off, plus all of the promo materials using the expression “tells it like it is” (since said magazine didn’t). ;-)
I get that a magazine needs to not go out of its way to offend the companies that advertise, but really, it had developed a special sort of alternate reality where nothing ever went wrong……not unlike that enjoyed by those people dumb enough to still believe a “hard Brexit” is still the best option.

Clive, I have to admit you aren’t helping me with a mental association.
http://www.mckenziesfoods.com.au/product/clive

I have occasionally been given the nickname, but I don’t like it, because the original “Clive of India,” Robert Clive, was an appalling man. Do McKenzies Foods know nothing of history, do you think?

Do McKenzies Foods know nothing of history, do you think?

… or are they getting mixed-up with Clove of India?

Interestingly, the French for “clove” (as this is Aldershot) is “clou de girofle”, as opposed to “clou de tapissier”, which is what it resembles (upholstery tack).

Perhaps McKenzies Foods don’t have a “clou”?

There, that’s nailed it!

I’m not sure whether there’s anything especially interesting about the Hindi for “clove,” which is “लौंग” (laung). But it’s certainly true we get through a lot of those, too. But no, we don’t buy them in 20kg bags.

Well it’s more interesting than the Japanese クローブ which is pronounced – wait for it – “clove” (or at least as close as the Japanese tongue can get!)

It isn’t libel if the allegations are true.

You are right Rick, but English law is stupid over Libel. If Jessa family sue for Libel, the burden of proof is on the defendant to say it isn’t libel, as you acknowledge and it’s crazy expensive to defend (remortgaging your home expensive). In more sensible countries, burden of proof is on the claimant. This is why it makes sense to be careful what you personally say.

Japanese クローブ which is pronounced – wait for it – “clove” (or at least as close as the Japanese tongue can get!)

Reads more like Kuroubu. (although my kana is mega rusty so probs wrong) Speaking Japanese English is a lot of fun. サンキュー　^__^

Yep, kuroubu, which is – as noted – about as close as they can manage :)

アズ・フォー・カタカナイングリッシュ、ファン？アイ・ベッグ・テゥ・ディファー！ Seriously, this stuff can be a dog to read sometimes…

アズ・フォー・カタカナイングリッシュ、ファン？アイ・ベッグ・テゥ・ディッファー！

“As for katakana English, fun? I beg to differ.” You just wanted me to to practice my kana, didn’t you? I use it more for speaking.

Speaking Japanese English is a lot of fun.

It’s amazing how much has been taken from words closer to us – パン¹ for bread, アイスクリーム² for ice cream…

Now, kanji, on the other hand, dear lord……..

¹ pa-n, as in the French word.

² a-i-su-ku-riii-mu – say it aloud, oh the the u’s are often silent ;-)

Now, kanji, on the other hand, dear lord……..

漢字が好きです。xD

You just wanted me to to practice my kana, didn’t you?

🐮 Perhaps.

🐮 Perhaps.

Well before this little convo, it’s probably been a year since I’ve read Japanese.

Now, kanji, on the other hand, dear lord……..

A little kanji’s OK, like James’ 漢字が好きです above. Meanwhile I’ve been attempting to read manga and it’s mostly OK until I run into big strings of kanji like 長期睡眠装置 and have to try to decipher them!

I’ve been attempting to read manga and it’s mostly OK until I run into big strings of kanji like 長期睡眠装置 and have to try to decipher them!

Furigana is man’s best friend. A good furigana dictionary too. I love full metal alchemist because it had furigana. Zelda games have it too on 3DS I believe.

Furigana is man’s best friend.

What, you mean Rubi? (little kana to indicate how to say complicated stuff)?

Some day I’ll get around to actually learning all of the kana. At the moment I tend to end up with mindscrew like a Japanese film with original audio, French subs, and me translating the subs in my head into English. I’d probably have made more progress with Japanese if it wasn’t for the lack of people to inflict it upon, and my daily use of two quite different languages.
Some days I just want to come home, stick on my headphones, and crank up Nightwish and think of absolutely nothing in any language… I dunno how simultaneous translators do it and stay sane.

That said, I went to a “special needs” school, started learning French as I turned 30, and I’m in my 40s with the squiggly script, plus a smattering of Spanish, German, and Italian along the way. Probably explains why I suck at expressing myself in any language. ☺

I have occasionally been given the nickname, but I don’t like it, because the original “Clive of India,” Robert Clive, was an appalling man. Do McKenzies Foods know nothing of history, do you think?

Clive, there’s a reason I posted a link to the curry powder rather than the person. I use that curry powder. It’s an old product line. Great for curried eggs. I don’t know why they thought it was a good idea. Perhaps because they had a picture and some people had a vague recollection of the name?

Rick, you are doing well. I’m barely fluent in one language these days.

Yeah, furigana and ruby are the same thing (or at least very similar; there may be a distinction). The worst that I’ve come across so far was extensive kanji to indicate that a character was speaking Chinese: (May not render correctly in all browsers!)

Two things – firstly, how did you get the Rubi on that? What markup? Some somewhat long winded markup: <ruby><rb>東京</rb><rp>(</rp><rt>とうきょう</rt><rp>)</rp></ruby> giving 東京(とうきょう)

Secondly – my phone has a doodah where I can instantly translate anything copied to the clipboard. You don’t want to know the gibberish that Google gave me. ;-) Or, wait, maybe that’s the point?

BTW, difference between Rubi and furigana – one is Japanese, the other can be applied to Chinese and Korean (though with Japanese is by far the most common).
One could also argue that romanised hints aren’t kana so are Rubi rather than furigana… 東(tō)京(kyō)

I love Google Translate! It’s like a linguistic game toolkit. Like playing Chinese whispers… what’s the PC name these days? Hearsay perhaps? by translating a phrase through a chain of languages. It can be useful sometimes.

I tried the mobile version on the warranty sheet that came with the radiator for my car. It translated the title as “Attention suckers!”. That was all I needed to see.

Google Translate is really pretty good between some pairs of languages. In some others, it’s good in one direction and hopeless in the other; between some it’s utterly hopeless in either direction. Going via a third language almost invariably makes it worse, and at best makes no difference.

Google Translate is really pretty good between some pairs.

Languages are quite interesting in how different they are. 2 similar languages translate quite well, but Japanese and English are insanely different, and google is really bad at the translation.

I’m not much better with Japanese. I can tell you what each word in a sentence means, but I still have no idea of what they were trying to say. 笑

Exactly, James. I’m more conscious of the difficulties between Vietnamese and English – English to Vietnamese seems to work reasonably well, but vice versa is completely unintelligible a lot of the time. At least with Vietnamese, unlike Japanese, I recognize the letters – although having so many diacritics (sometimes three on a single letter) is quite – um – interesting.