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Chris -- 2018-04-11
The guys at Language Log are perpetually annoyed by the endless stream of ill-considered talking animal stories in the popular press. But this is going too far. Even if Pidgins have simplified vocabularies and grammars, they’re well beyond the average bird brain. 30,000+ ghits vs. 300,000, e.g.,
pigeon english – definition by dict.die.net Pigeon English [perhaps a corruption of business English], an extraordinary and grotesque dialect, employed in the commercial cities of China …
dict.die.net/pigeon%20english/
The Code Project – C# Programming this is written in pigeon english. Can we have it written in clearer english please, grammar checked etc. www.codeproject.com/csharp/leftrightshift. asp?df=100&forumid=2873&exp=0&select=983268
Then he turned to the several hundred villagers now assembled behind the dancers, and proceeded to bellow a torrent of distorted, pigeon English …
www.bootsnall.com/articles/06-01/ seduction-and-sorcery-kiriwina-in-the-trobriands-png.html
‘Pigeon English’ is also commonly spoken throughout Ghana which is a combination of English and local Ghanaian languages…
www.camfed.org/gsp/Education_and_School_Life.pdf
Some of it appears to be the worst pigeon English I have ever witnessed. All of it appears to be bollocks.
www.weebls-stuff.com/forums/ /archive/index.php/t-39576.html
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Dear Ken, for once this one’s already been caught—a very early entry that needs polishing, but still … thanks for the cites.
(I thought of it when I entered “sandscript” the other day.)
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Yes, it certainly needs polishing… For starters, it would be good to list it as pidgin » pigeon, not pidgin » pidgeon! :-> Also, note that “pigeon English” is attested all the way back to 1857, about a decade earlier than “pidgin English”. See cites in the online OED and this alt.usage.english post.
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Oops.
What’s worse, to admit I can’t read my own typescript or I can’t spell pigeon? When in doubt, I opt for the former.
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I think this is a pretty common one. Here’s an example I just encountered (in an email inviting me to a poetry reading): “The languages include Spanish, French, Italian, german, Dutch, Danish, Hungarian, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Cockney, and Pigeon Hawaiian.”
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Caveat eggtor on these ones.
Sous son apparente insignifiance, la petite étrangère s’exprimant en bitchin’ English – non surtitré – renvoie les témoins de sa chronique à leur propre façade, souriant face à leur tragique condition.
Swiss Theatre blurb
My translation: “Under cover of her apparent insignificance, the small foreigner speaking in pidgin English – without subtitles – brings the audience members to reflect upon their own social face, smiling before their tragic condition.” (The ambiguity of who is doing the smiling is in the original).
I had hear it in the news today. Is this the only apparentley sniper or his stepson too? (I hope you understand my bitchin’ English)
German forum post
These are malaprops, of course, not eggcorns. Characterizing someone’s English as bitchin’ can cover a lot of territory though I guess.
Last edited by burred (2012-12-25 09:26:25)
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