Misuse of Foreigh Words.

[Giggity]

It depresses me that fewer and fewer people understand that it's "chaise longue" not "chaise lounge." Yes, you can lounge in it, but "chaise longue" is French for "long chair." Even the one person at my workplace who is an even bigger grammar/spelling/pronunciation geek than I am got this wrong. That's why I've developed the habit of changing it to "lounge chair."

I just call mine the fainting couch.

Bonus: my chaise has both arms. It's rare like that. It's okay. You mid-century furniture junkies can be jealous.

[blue2000]

It depresses me that fewer and fewer people understand that it's "chaise longue" not "chaise lounge." Yes, you can lounge in it, but "chaise longue" is French for "long chair." Even the one person at my workplace who is an even bigger grammar/spelling/pronunciation geek than I am got this wrong. That's why I've developed the habit of changing it to "lounge chair."

I just call mine the fainting couch.

Bonus: my chaise has both arms. It's rare like that. It's okay. You mid-century furniture junkies can be jealous.

I'm not a mid-century furniture junkie. Can I be jealous anyway??

[Twik]

As an amusing aside, I recall the French side of a box of a certain popular cereal (I'm in Canada, where pretty much everything has an English side and a French side) used to translate to "Crunchy flakes of corn with a suspicion of honey."

"Suspicion" (soupcon, with the cedilla I'm not going to look up how to type), in French, is an actual gastronomic term, like "hint" in English.

[Giggity]

It depresses me that fewer and fewer people understand that it's "chaise longue" not "chaise lounge." Yes, you can lounge in it, but "chaise longue" is French for "long chair." Even the one person at my workplace who is an even bigger grammar/spelling/pronunciation geek than I am got this wrong. That's why I've developed the habit of changing it to "lounge chair."

I just call mine the fainting couch.

Bonus: my chaise has both arms. It's rare like that. It's okay. You mid-century furniture junkies can be jealous.

I'm not a mid-century furniture junkie. Can I be jealous anyway??

You wouldn't be if you saw it. It's in good shape structurally, but its fabric, oh dear Lord above, its fabric. It's mostly gold, with big sort-of-paisley-shaped leaves and vines, in olive and black. I think my grandparents had it re-covered in the '70s.

[mechtilde]

My parents were in a church in Austria which had a sign up saying that the church buildings were available for "Both sacred and profane purposes"

[Diane AKA Traska]

It depresses me that fewer and fewer people understand that it's "chaise longue" not "chaise lounge." Yes, you can lounge in it, but "chaise longue" is French for "long chair." Even the one person at my workplace who is an even bigger grammar/spelling/pronunciation geek than I am got this wrong. That's why I've developed the habit of changing it to "lounge chair."

I just call mine the fainting couch.

Bonus: my chaise has both arms. It's rare like that. It's okay. You mid-century furniture junkies can be jealous.

I'm not a mid-century furniture junkie. Can I be jealous anyway??

You wouldn't be if you saw it. It's in good shape structurally, but its fabric, oh dear Lord above, its fabric. It's mostly gold, with big sort-of-paisley-shaped leaves and vines, in olive and black. I think my grandparents had it re-covered in the '70s.

If I ever get a time machine, I'm going to make it my life's goal to move the 80s up one decade.  Yes, music will be weird (I mean, Culture Club as a grunge band when the actual 80s rolls around and it's the 90s will be bizarre), but what are going to do?  I'm preserving the sight of millions here, people!

[blue2000]

It depresses me that fewer and fewer people understand that it's "chaise longue" not "chaise lounge." Yes, you can lounge in it, but "chaise longue" is French for "long chair." Even the one person at my workplace who is an even bigger grammar/spelling/pronunciation geek than I am got this wrong. That's why I've developed the habit of changing it to "lounge chair."

I just call mine the fainting couch.

Bonus: my chaise has both arms. It's rare like that. It's okay. You mid-century furniture junkies can be jealous.

I'm not a mid-century furniture junkie. Can I be jealous anyway??

You wouldn't be if you saw it. It's in good shape structurally, but its fabric, oh dear Lord above, its fabric. It's mostly gold, with big sort-of-paisley-shaped leaves and vines, in olive and black. I think my grandparents had it re-covered in the '70s.

I think we had furniture similar to that when I was a kid. Gold paisley was quite the thing in the 70's. I'd be more upset if you said it was brown polyester - the really thick, nubby kind. Some things should just be left to memory.

[Marisol]

My parents were in a church in Austria which had a sign up saying that the church buildings were available for "Both sacred and profane purposes"

I want a picture of that sign!

[GreenEyedHawk]

At a hostel in Holland I saw a sign saying "Please do not feed the pigeon."

I thought it was just poor English that they hadn't pluralised "pigeon"; the courtyard at the hostel had TONS of pigeons that hung out there so I figured they were just discouraging hostel guests from feeding them and attracting even more.  Then I went out into the courtyard and actually saw the pigeons.

There was one that was seriously about triple the size of the other pigeons, then I realised what the sign meant.  Just don't feed THAT pigeon.

[Wonderflonium]

At a hostel in Holland I saw a sign saying "Please do not feed the pigeon."

I thought it was just poor English that they hadn't pluralised "pigeon"; the courtyard at the hostel had TONS of pigeons that hung out there so I figured they were just discouraging hostel guests from feeding them and attracting even more.  Then I went out into the courtyard and actually saw the pigeons.

There was one that was seriously about triple the size of the other pigeons, then I realised what the sign meant.  Just don't feed THAT pigeon.

Somethign about that cracked me up! I'm just picturing that pigeon.

[GreenEyedHawk]

He looked like the Godfather pigeon from "Goodfeathers" on Animaniacs.  Just...really freakin' big. LOL.

[Wonderflonium]

He looked like the Godfather pigeon from "Goodfeathers" on Animaniacs.  Just...really freakin' big. LOL.

I literally laughed out loud at that. The cat lying next to my head was not amused.

[GreenEyedHawk]

LOL.  My apologies to your cat.

[Lynn2000]

This is not so much the "sign" that was wrong, but me. I got a survey in the mail from the post office about which services I use most, and one morning... before I put on my glasses... I glanced at it on the counter and thought one option was, "Flying Monkey Orders."

You know, the things from Wizard of Oz that scared the snot out of me as a little kid. I must admit my first thought was evil glee, like, "I can sic those on people through the post office?! YES!"

Then I realized it actually read, "Buying Money Orders."  Much more boring.

[GreenEyedHawk]

Flying Monkey Orders?  Who WOULDN'T use that??