September 10, 2026 — 9:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. AAA A writer in the Herald travel section, recently mentioned unnecessary translations in phrasebooks, such as ‘Help!’” notes Geoff Gilligan of Coogee. “One of the most needless I can recall was
A writer in the Herald travel section, recently mentioned unnecessary translations in phrasebooks, such as ‘Help!’” notes Geoff Gilligan of Coogee. “One of the most needless I can recall was from a Greek phrasebook. In the chapter, ‘At The Hairdressers’ was, ‘The water is too hot, you are scalding me.’ That said, I don’t know if it can match, ‘My postilion has been struck by lightning’.”
“The things one sees,” muses Paul Koff of Glenhaven. “I was taking a morning stroll when I spied a young lady jogging towards me. Bedecked in designer lycra, she carried, in the crook of her arm, an open laptop, into which she was cheerfully conversing. A case of working from (near) home?”
Beverley Fine of Pagewood thinks the renaming of the world in the image of the US (C8) may take on a sometime corporate bearing and provides some excellent examples: Tentariff, States Of HormUS, Paypalgeria, RusCIA, Chile Dog and Costco Rica.
It’s a Strait flush, according to Eric Scott of Bondi Junction: “Since the Strait of Hormuz seems to be open and closed at the same time it can join the list of renamed locations as The Strait of Schrödinger.”
“Moving to the St George district to escape dragonflies is not advisable (C8),” says Sean Lenehan of Kogarah. “On Saturday, my wife called me out to the backyard where there was a swarm of them and on Sunday I encountered them on the 5th hole at Bexley Golf Course. I blamed them for my woeful round.”
“Speaking of tablets (C8), at lunch the other day, a retired doctor related this story,” says Edward Loong of Milson Point. “An ailing elderly patient, advised by his doctor that he will need to take certain tablets daily for the rest of his life, is then issued with a prescription – for six tablets! Hmm, a sick joke – literally!”
Regarding Peter Riley’s theory (C8) on gaining a possible green light for vehicular urination, Col Burns of Lugarno warns: “Should Peter take relief on the driver’s side rear wheel on an EV, he will be prosecuted [or electrocuted – Granny]. Apparently, the rule is only applicable to piston vehicles.”
Andrew Taubman of Queens Park adds: “While in the army in World War II, Spike Milligan used to wonder why men would pee on their truck’s wheels, when they had the whole of North Africa to pee on.”
Column8@smh.com.au
No attachments, please.
Include name, suburb and daytime phone.
From our partners
For more tech updates, stay tuned to our blog.
