This is the final note for this academic year, and it’s an odd one because it has to do with a single word. That said, the odd Language Note has of course been lexical.
The word is “odd.”
“Canada sent the odd performer behind the Iron Curtain in those years” can mean “…sent the WEIRD/STRANGE/KOOKY performer…”
It can also mean something like “EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE Canada sent a performer behind the Iron Curtain in those years.”
Check out the sub-titles next time you watch a film. Very, very often even good translators flub “odd,” making for odd translations.
Sentences like “She has the odd beer every now and then” come out as grammatical but incomprehensibly bizarre.
All Language Notes of the Week are available at:
http://www2.arnes.si/~bjason/LNW.pdf
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