"Noises"

Today's lesson on communication noises was interesting.

My students pointed out how Psychological Noise (which include Cultural and Religious bias) can be a problem even with a simple thing like a Zebra crossing. To us in Singapore, a zebra crossing is a zebra crossing, for crossing the road. In Africa, zebra crossing may mean an actual herd running past you.

The word 'malu' means 'shame' in Malay. 'ma lu' in Chinese means 'road'. So the Road to Shame must surely be the Malu Ma lu.

Likewise, dog is 'anjing' in Malay, but 'an jing' is 'peace' in Chinese. So is a quiet dog an 'anjing an jing'?

What took the cake must be the response from the class when I told them how my late mentor Dr Douglas once remarked that exclamation marks should never be used 'unless it is an actual ejaculation.' I pointed out to the class that the Biggles books, written during the early part of the 20th century for boys were full of 'ejaculations' of the verbal type.

Din, my student pointed out that is must surely be a 'semen-tic' noise.

Very punny.