The original Thai "Hello" actually means "Have you eaten rice yet?", says this short article about travelling in Bangkok. It brought a smile to my face because this is identical to the Cantonese greeting <食咗飯未> that I have grown up with. Have you eaten rice yet? Its use has long since faded and it sounds funny today to greet each other with this. Who care about the boring rice when you can have any fancy food throughout the day? This phrase really takes you back to a time when after a hard day at work, people would enjoy the simple pleasure - a meal with a bowl of rice.

2006.08.07 [culture, language] - comments (0)

I have found a new use of google. For years I was looking for an excellent electronic English dictionary to no avail. It turns out Google is the answer.

For example, I want to use the phrase at no avail but I am not sure if it is used correctly. It does not help that the dictionary does not have such entry. But a search with news.google.com quickly turns up many examples. It also shows me that the correct phrase is to no avail instead of at no avail. Now I can use the correct phrase with confidence.

2003.07.29 [language] - comments (0)