hair raising issues

The other day at lunch Talia (a fellow EL major) was talking about a funny incident she had asking her friend for advice on hairstyles, particularly to do with 'fringe'. She said something like "should I cut fringe or no fringe?" and her friend found it hilarious because she interpreted it as Talia asking if she should or should not have any fringe at all, meaning no hair at the front of her face/head (you know, that part of the head). The word her friend would find more acceptable would be something like 'bangs' and I thought this was really interesting how the use of the word 'fringe' has increased to include describing hair.

according to dictionary.com:
bang  /bæŋ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bang] Show IPA


–noun 1. Often, bangs. a fringe of hair combed or brushed forward over the forehead.


fringe  /frɪndʒ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [frinj] Show IPA noun, verb, fringed, fring⋅ing.


–noun 1. a decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate strip.

2. anything resembling or suggesting this: a fringe of grass around a swimming pool.

3. an outer edge; margin; periphery: on the fringe of the art world.

4. something regarded as peripheral, marginal, secondary, or extreme in relation to something else: the lunatic fringe of a strong political party.

5. Optics. one of the alternate light and dark bands produced by diffraction or interference.

However, according to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary:


fringe noun (HAIR)


/frɪnd ʒ/ n [C]

UK (US bangs) an area of hair hanging over the forehead (= part of the face above the eyes) that is cut shorter than the rest of the hair
 
Hence according to dictionary.com, fringe would point to the position being peripheral or on the outer portion while bangs refer to hair on the fringe of the forehead, while Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary would classify fringe as referring to hair in the UK context as one of the uses and it's equivalent in the US context as bangs.

CONFUSING ISN'T IT?
Well, what I got from all this was that, words can take on many different meanings for different people, AND also, probably due to our massive exposure to American media and television shows and what not, the word 'bangs' (used in US context) has invaded our vocabulary (for some at least) and made 'bangs' a more acceptable word than 'fringe' (UK context) when talking about hair at that part of your head which is shorter than the rest of your hair (if we're basing it on Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary of course) :)

crabby confusion

I was just recalling an incident I had which was eerily similar to what Prof Ooi mentioned in class about the Mandarin words for hot "re"热 and "shao". I was eating at Jumbo Restaurant and many of the servers there were from China. The crabs had gotten cold so we called one of them over and asked them in Mandarin whether we could heat it up. So it went something like this:


Me: Ke yi nong shao ma? (can make hot?)
Waitress: ah?
Me: nong shao?
Waitress: (looking totally puzzled, probably wondering why this Chinese girl isn't making sense at all) lai, lai! (calls another waitress)
Me to Waitress 2: ke yi nong shao ma? (can make hot?) (gesturing desperately to the plate of crabs)
Waitress 2: (stares blankly for awhile) Ah! nong re shi ma! (make it hot is it?)
Me: Ah! shi, shi! (yes, yes!)


Isn't it interesting that we always assume we as long as we're speaking the same language we'll definitely understand each other. I think this example shows how in different countries people may be speaking the "same" language in name but might not understand each other due to the different ways the words are used and how the individual is primed in their use of language.

it's all in the name

I saw this sign in Krabi, (as you can see I'm trying to make my observations last haha), and I found it hilarious. Every single time I walked past it I couldn't help laughing but besides doing all the laughing, I did think about it more. On a slightly more serious note, I saw that it wasn't just another shop randomly taking some English word just because they wanted to attract more customers. They were taking a word that is always associated with the designer label Burberry, made it two separate words and used it as their shop name in order to associate their shop with the luxuriousness and high quality the word indexes. Also, the shop is located in a tourist swamped area where many would be familiar with the brand Burberry and seeing the word might lead them to associate what the brand represents to the goods produced by this shop. I cannot guarantee this was what the shop owners were thinking but just making a guess! I wonder if Burberry would be offended or flattered if they knew about this, they might sue actually :s