Miss-communication

...it would be a minimalist joke

LOL. How the heck can I beat tha

As a slight spin off from what you wrote, the stupid French laws are having a negative effect on French people generally in a modern world.

The possibility of a French person speaking a foreign (to him!! Don't say it!!!) language is probably far less than 1000:1....sadly. And even if they do, often their accent makes understanding them difficult.

I personally was lucky that most of my earlier (I am retired) French colleagues spoke better English than my French, but they had got their jobs with a US company in France BECAUSE they could speak English....although it is illegal I believe in France to refuse someone a job because of not knowing a certain foreign language!!! But there are of course ways & means.....

France is one of those countries where films are always translated for the cinema & TV. If you go to smaller countries where it is not economical to do that, look how well and with little accent English, French and German is spoken in Sweden, Finland, Denmark & Holland for example, embarrassingly well.....!!!!

They mostly have subtitles, but the overall effect is to educate the population brilliantly in this aspect....

Spain does not have the stupid laws as far as I am aware, but they do otherwise have the same problem, as does Italy to a strong degree.....

I didn't go to France but I did go to Switzerland once. This was in Morge, just across the lake from France.

It being dinnertime, I went in search for a place to eat. The restaurants do not have signs that say, "English is spoken here", so I went into one and tried ordering a meal.

The waitresses all didn't speak any English. It must have seemed funny to others, me talking to the waitress in English, she answering in French and both of us not understanding a word of our conversation.

Unable to interpret the French menu, I moved from one restaurant to the next. Finally, hungry and tired from all the walking, I spied what turned out to be my dinner place for the rest of my stay in Switzerland... McDonalds!

I'd rather order 'blind' than go to Mc Donalds.....

....yes, but vulcan did have the sense to escape France ! No, I'm joking, honest !

Maybe vulcans dining dilemma arose through using English - any other language may have got a result other than that 'knowing' blank stare. I'm useless at languages ( even my native tongue), but a few words in a hosts language do seem to help on occasion. Even saying 'thanks' in such a mangled way it sound like 'murky bucket' can elicit some local help. Having said that, I shall probably go to my grave without knowing the nuance of 'tu' or why so many French objects have gender. London and bigger cities can be cool on occasion - a street artist who I think was mid-european, looked at my then girlfriends name (written down), pronounced it perfectly, and then launched into conversation in Nigerian language. This hugely talented woman had acquired a mass of knowledge from years of travelling and meeting people. It sure made me feel like an idiot ! I probably looked it as well, with my jaw dropping somewhere down to pavement level and my eyes falling out of my head.

<'murky bucket'>

As an explanation for the reader that does not speak French, 'murky bucket' is an Anglicised, corrupted pronounciation of the French words 'merci beaucoup', which means 'thank you very much'. The corrupted form is best avoided in the presence of those who have French as a native tongue, for risk of causing offence. The correct pronounciation of 'merci beaucoup' will never do this.

Use of the second person singular in both French and German is reserved for close friends, family members and in the case of an adult addressing a small child. To be 'auf Du' with someone in German means that one has arrived at the inner circle of friendship; a similar situation also occurs in French.

The second person singular, its posessives and pronouns has largely died out in the British Isles except within a 10 mile radius of the city of Doncaster, where it can still be heard occasionally. "Get that inside thee, lad, and tha'll be goin' oop that hill as fast as tha comes down".

It is individual, personal, and rather touching, to use the second person singular as part of one's wedding vows.

It's still hanging on around Bristol, specifically in Bedminster, where one would speak "Bemmie" (and not that bast@rdised dialect promulgated in The Crekt Way to speak Bristle since no native born Bristolian says Bristle, it's BrisTOLL*

'Ow bist 'ee then? Where bist 'ee bin?

I bin down the Malago.

You'll spot that the verbs have a passing (!) resemblance to German. This dialect is dying out. My mum used to speak it, but no longer does. I doubt that there are many people under 70 that can. I remember about 10 years ago sitting on a bench in Bedminster listening to elderly gentlemen catching up and talking in this accent. It was lovely.

And my personal favourite (as a non native speaker) is: Thee cast talk like the cudst, cast? And if thee cudst, the ussn't**

* The original name for the settlement was Brigstow - Bridge over the River Stow - but the local insistance on adding "L" sound to the end of words ending in a vowel meant it morphed into Bristol over the years. My mother was advised not to call me Ida or Eva, if she didn't want me to be known as Idall or Evall... It seemed like a good ideal <sic> at the time.

**the "st" ending has an almost silent "t" - it's there more as a stop than a sound, so cast is pronounced somewhere between cass and cast.

I had an Aunt who taught down there and told us how one kid read out 'Africa is a malaria area' sounding like Africal is a malarial aerial.

Thee cast talk like the cudst, cast? And if thee cudst, the ussn't

Rose - Help! Translation, please, for us Yanks!

I think what they are saying is something like:-

You would like to talk like "someone with a better accent"? If you could, you wouldn't..

But I am really guessing.....I do not know this accent at all.....hopefully someone will translate it properly for us soon.....

This is similar to a point in German, when a German word or name ends in a "d", you are not allowed to pronounce it as a normal "d" as it sounds like "dee" and then you are adding sounds that are not actually written.

The name "Bernd" springs to mind as a good way to explain it, "Bernd" is always said "Bernt" in German or better spoken in an English pronunciation "Burnt". The "t" sound is used so that you can cut off the name in a proper manner....

How many times have I heard English speakers trying to pronounce this name and getting into serious mispronunciation areas and problems because they want to use a "d" at the end. Another version of the name does use a "t".........

Remember with regards to German and English words of the same meaning, if they are spelt the same they sound different and often if they are spelt differently, they sound the same.....crazy! It is not always true, but often enough to be funny...."Fein" and "fine" sound the same and mean (usually) the same....

Why do "thumb" and "plum" rhyme in both languages, but use completely different words....

Finger nail and steel nail are somewhat similar, the same word is used in a language for both.......but the words are different between the languages (Nagel).

German has really only a hard "g" sound, but some imported words like "Etage" and "Garage" are spoken with an (imported) soft "g" more as in a "j" sound in English.

The letter "ß" confuses a lot, it is only a shorter form of writing "ss" as in "Straße" and "Strasse", which both mean "street"!

An "s" sound is generally more like and English "z", and a "z" is more like an "s" sound in English. This is not 100% correct but near enough for government work....

"Th" is only a strong "t" sound in German, not a "THe" as in English for example....

Umlaut is easy, just think of it as the letter in English (without the dots!) but with an "e" added. "Ä" = "ae", "ö" = "oe", "ü" 0 "ue" for example.....So the name "Düsseldorf" can also be written "Duesseldorf".

You may ask, why can it not be written as "Düßeldorf"? Its because the "ss" are terminating one word and starting another in the name.....

Some German words have "sss" in the middle, I cannot think of a good example at this time, because of ending one word and beginning another in a longer word. You might also see years ago "ßs" but since the language was revised a couple of years ago, that is not allowed anymore.....

The longest German word/name without a space that I know is (in English) "Rhine Ship's Captain's wife".....there may be longer ones too that are quite legal in German.....

The biggest problems in German are "der", "die" and "das" (not to be confused with "dass"!!), that is the word "the" in a masculine, Feminine and a neutral form!!

What is crazy is that a "boy" is masculine, but a "girl" is neutral!!

"Die" is also used for a plural "the" as well.....crazy!

Then you have three ways of saying "you" in German, "Sie" for your Boss or people you do not know personally or for those you do not like!

"Du" is the personal "you" for family and friends, but also for road idiots " Du Arschloch" = "You Ar***ole"......for example.....

"Ihr" is the equivalent of "you lot" or " you'all" so to say, for when you are addressing a King or many people.....Not the Royal "we", more the Royal "you"!!

I will do my best to answer your questions, but please remember I am not a German teacher, I learnt the language at 35, far too late......under 10 is better.

Both my children speak excellent accent free German and English and have passed all their exams (22 and 24 years old!) both at school and professionally, but they learnt English at school, not from me. We communicate ONLY in German.....

If you want to know why that is so (and why it should be so), it is a possible subject for CR4 on its own!!! If you wish......ask me.

The longest German word/name without a space that I know is (in English) "Rhine Ship's Captain's wife"...

My cousin Fritz in Germany gave me this noun:

Ludwigmaindonaukanaledampfshiffarhtsgesellschaftkapitanswitwenrente

Pardon if it's misspelled, I'm typing from memory and the CR4 spell checker is at a loss on this one! The English translation: Pension for the widow of a captain on the steamship line operating on the canal between the Main and the Danube (built by King Ludwig).

I have not seen this one before, you did a good job on the spelling from memory I must say, very few errors and it does mean exactly what you said it means.....

I think it should have been something like this, but you were very good indeed, compliment:-

Ludwigmaindonaukanaldampfshifffahrtsgesellschaftkapitanswitwerente

the three "f"s in the middle are better as Schiff has two and fahrt has one....

If I split it up into the original words it would look something like this:-

Ludwig main donau kanal dampfshifffahrtsgesellschaft kapitans witwe rente

I have left Steamship company as on word, otherwise it looks too strange to me.....

Haven't we seen this somewhere B4 (on CR4)?

'Die Hamburgsudamericanischerdampfschiffartgesselschaft' comes to mind as a long word (the Hamburg - South American Steamship Company), though it would probably have the addedum 'GmbH' these days (Andy Germany may be able to advise on the correct spelling).

Antidisestablishmentarianism, in English, doesn't come close!

Neither does:-

Dichlorodiphenylytrichloethane.......to give its full name in English (spelling close if not exact!!)

I believe the longest word in the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary is: Floccinaucinihilipilification - "the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless"

One of the few words around that is actually shorter in German "die Geringschätzung".

But it can be shorter still in English, I think - "denigration"

Fyz

Yeah. My mother is native Austrian, and I've seen some words in her papers, with more than 20 letters in length.

Is this the assembly of few words into one?

In comparison, Hebrew is such a compact language, because even with mostly 3 to 4-letter words, translation to Hebrew from Latin-based languages, often result in about half the resulting volume.

It must be something in the grammar.

Doubtless true of Hebrew grammar, but does the opposite apply to Jewish Grandma?

Huh?

Please explain, I'm slightly dyslectic:

How can anything opposite a grandma, Jewish or otherwise?

The "similarities" can be funny, all right.

Several years ago, when my daughter was small, we were playing some sort of tossing game with one of her friends. I kept missing, and would say, "missed" which they thought was hilarious because it sounded like "Mist" which is what you clean out of animal stalls and pens. In Franconia, at least, it is the linguistic equivalent of "crap." It is often used in German the same way we use it in English -- "oh, Mist!" vs. "Aw, crap!" -- when something goes wrong.

Very true, the Germans do use it like this.

Look up "Gift" in the German side of a German to English dictionary. That is something you don't want as a present either!!!!

Here is an online one if you do not happen to have one handy:-

http://dict.leo.org/

You need to make the > or < point in the direction of the language to translate into first....

Great dictionary, Andy, thank you very much!

The first time I saw the German word "Gift" was on a bottle of rubbing alcohol. This wasn't a "for sale" bottle, but a small plastic bottle that was refilled from a larger container. It threw me for a loop because it made no sense to me -- until I asked. Sometimes, I think I must have been the butt of many jokes in Germany or the source of their stories like this!

http://www.anvil.clara.net/essexdialectguide.htm

http://www.oldlambourne.co.uk/glossary.html

And on being a few minutes late at the station?

"Last trine's gone. Yew'll hev ter walk ut, boey."

'Ome, swee' 'ome (sigh!).

As ever, I am indebted.

In 1971, all attempts to communicate in English in a shop in the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog were disregarded by the occupants, who persisted in Welsh.

In 1986 an English person and a German person went into Franz-Karl Weber's excellent toy shop in the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich (other toy vendors are available). Some discussion ensued in English over the qualities of a certain jigsaw puzzle, intended as a gift for a family member. An enquiry went to the shop assistant in the Zurich-German dialect, which has significant differences in pronounciation and vocabulary to Hochdeutsch. The reply came back in good English.

Earlier the same two people were in a village shop in Burnham Thorpe, the village of Admiral Nelson's birth and well off the beaten track in Norfolk (though PlbMak might disagree). The shop assistant was on the telephone with someone else in the village. The German asked whether what was being discussed was actually in English. The English person replied to the effect that it was English, but so deep in accent and dialect as to be practically unintelligeable to anyone other than a local.

In 1999 two English persons presented themselves at the ticket kiosk at a railway station on the west side of Paris. One of them asked a number of questions in rusty French for the correct tickets for a destination on the east side of that city, and all response from the ticket vendor came back in English despite the persistence with French by the purchasers.

In 2007 an Engineer went to South Korea to look at a water-maker plant for an oil platform. The Resident Engineer was Russian, the technicians Korean, and they were using English as a common language with which to communicate. Attempts to use some Korean and Russian words were greeted with surprise, kindness and a level of amusement by all parties.

It's a funny old world, isn't it?

Some partially-true generalisations:

Everyone appreciates the attempt (however incompetent) to communicate in their local tongue.
Some groups will not respond in English unless initial attempts are made in their own tongue.
German-speakers love to practice English.
(Even if you speak decent German, it is polite to claim it's very poor. And if you appear English or American, you will be believed; in technical meetings, this can free up discussions between the Germans to everyone's advantage.
Bretons prefer English to French - even if they can't speak it.
The Welsh Welsh love to annoy the English interlopers - even since devolution (the no-English problem often evaporates if you look and sound foreign)
Received (English) pronunciation can open up resentment in some areas of England.
The combination of US syntax and pronunciation can have the same effect in many more places than that.

I found that to be true living in Germany for 14 years. Try as I might, I could never completely lose my American accent. The best I ever got was having one German neighbor ask me if I was Dutch!

My German wife and German-schooled daughter used to tease me mercilessly about mispronunciations that I could not hear. For them (and all other Germans, too) there is a difference in pronouncing "Stadt", "Statt", and "stat" which are all proper German words. They sound the same to me and I always pronounced it wrong whichever word I tried to use.

My wife and I divorced and I am now paying my daughter's way through graduate school, so the teasing has stopped!

<Try as I might, I could never completely lose my American accent. >

Ouch! An accent is a useful indicator of origins, individuality and preferred location on the planet. It is tragic that a perceived need to lose a particular accent ever comes into consideration.

Only when speaking German! I would never dream of trying to lose it in English.

But you make a very good point. In fact, it was interesting to note that one German was able to tell me where I learned to speak German simply by my pronunciation. You're right, PW, it is a useful and good thing.

Same thing happened to me in Italian. When I moved house and therefore Italian teacher, the new one listened to my (pathetic) attempts at her language and asked "Was you last Italian teacher from Rome?"

Needless to say, she was. I presume that I now speak Italian with a slight Sardinian accent...

Not a sleight of English as well, then?

I took Spanish in high school, then German and Spanish in college. One of my college professors (a German) looked quizically at me whenever I tried to speak. Finally he told me what puzzled him: that I spoke German with a Spanish accent, but had no Spanish accent in English.

In one restaurant, after giving up on trying to woo the waitress, I stood to leave and said, "merci", in the way I always hear it in the movies. The waitress exclaimed, "oh ho!" and launched into a sentence that I think meant, "so you do understand French!".

I replied, "Nein!", and walked out.

I guess if I had said, "hors de oeuvres", I might have gotten something to eat.

• USA: Truck
• UK: Lorry or HGV ("Heavy Goods Vehicle")
• Germany: Der Landkraftwagen [LKW]
• France: Le camion
• German-speaking Swiss cantons: Der Camion - now how abstruse is that?

Why is is that a 'table' is genderless in English, feminine in French and masculine in German?

It's still a funny old world!

Ah ze table, she is beautiful non? Lurk at 'er beoootifurl legs..and she as four of zem n'est ce pas.. 'ow can you sa' she eez not feminine mwah mwah I smooch ze table sheeez ma lurve.... mwah mwah mwah...

(ok it's Del really )

Sorry, "LASTKRAFTWAGEN".....is Germany for Lorry or Truck.....

Danke. Mein Deutsch ist zehr schlecht!

Sehr schlecht.......!!

But its great fun too!!!

Surely that's specifically a slow cheese lorry?

I've just remembered another nice verbal mistake (malapropism?)

'Hydroglyphics'....

The display is corrupted, it's showing a load of 'hydroglyphics' (my current Boss... shhh)

I was once in a shop in Brussels (Bruxelles if preferred) with a college friend who lived and was educated there and in Holland. He addressed the shop keeper in Flemmish, I in French (schoolboy). We spoke to each other in English. Understandably little progress was being made untill a feintly exasperated shop keeper asked if we could agree on a language to conduct the conversation in - in English. So that's what we did.

Did he feint left or right? Sorry, you said feintly exaperated, does that mean he was able to dodge your schoolboy French?

I was in Flushing (Vlissingen) Holland about 30 years ago to bring a yacht back to the UK for a couple of friends. I had taken the ferry overnight from Sheerness(?) in Kent and the friends that had used the yacht were on the ferry going back. Remember this is before everyone got a Mobile Phone..... (they had only been invented a few years before and were very, very expensive!!)

They had told me the name of the town in Holland where the yacht was moored was spelt GOES. So I go to the station to buy a ticket, the ticket seller spoke excellent English (as does about 95% of Dutch people do!!), so I asked for a ticket to Goes (Go in plural). I get a completely blank look back and the question "Is this town in Holland or another European country?" Now I am mystified and thinking it will be 24 hours before I can call my friends to find out where the yacht is.......HELL!!!

Then I had the brilliant idea (if I do say so myself!) of asking for a piece of paper and I wrote the name down and gave it to the Railway Guy. He took one look and said "Oh, you meant (spelling it approximately how it is pronounced!) HOOSS (sounds a bit like the middle of Shoes with an "H" at the beginning and a double "S" at the end. Something like maybe a Highland Scot saying "House".....but much more guttural and in the back of the throat.....I cannot write it!!

I got my ticket an found the yacht about an hour later!

In Holland Gouda is also pronounced "Houda" or nearly so!! (Gwen will correct all this into proper words and pronunciations for us if I am lucky), Hi Gwen!!

Thank you!! I amused several people on Friday night describing this gentleman, in an effort to find out his name - but those who worked out who I meant couldn't remember either, and those who didn't know just thought I was mad.

Stanley Unlow, all recitey-kindly and much mangle-it in the word-loppers. Now that's a deep joy!

"thought I was mad."

Would you be here if you weren't? Well, that's all right then, Alice.
Oh and welcome back.

Marsh Hair (aka Dour Moose)

Here in America, we drive on the parkways and park in the driveways.

When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible.

If your house catches fire, it will burn up as it burns down.

You fill out a form by filling in the blank spaces.

Alarms go off when they go on.

Inaction does not describe in action.

According to G.B. Shaw, "ghoti" can be pronounced "fish." "gh" as in tough, "o" as in women, and "ti" as in motion.

Frosted Flakes do have frosting, but pitted prunes do not have pits.

Go figure!

Those poor prunes.....

( 'pitied' prunes... geddit?)

I goddit.

Oh, how I love a bad pun! Thanks, Del.

You kook the words right out of my mouth.

There is no cream in a cream cracker.

Bombay Duck is a fish dish.

There's a problem with prawns and shrimps in the antipodes....

Cullen Skink is nothing to do with smelly animals and typos. Oysters may be found on a Chicken, but I've yet to locate a 'nugget'. Fish-fingers are equally strange.

LMAO ^ ∞.

This thread is about miscommunication... well Kris I take my h@ off to you!!!

I clicked your meerk@s linm and it put me into 'Outlook' so that I could try (unsuccessfully) E-mail the little buggers!

This is is a masterstroke of misconumication....

Del

That's '^ off' Del .

The funny thing is that it just happened ! PMSL

LMAO ^ ∞

I think that implies that the relevant part of your anatomy has now left the known universe. If it had been a different part, that would truly have been a "Miss" communication.

It could mean he chuckled, pitched tent, had a meal, then fell over. If I ever get a message on my phone in 'Text-ese' it gets deleted straight away.

H@s off 2 u 4 ef4t

ectually you could have dropped the 'H' ! I also suspect 'ff' could would been changed to 'v' by a true text-talk officianado. What we need here is a teenager, to give a really terrible example of how to mangle a message. Added points will be given for one who manages this by using a mobile phone. The only feature of my phone that I understand is dialing a number (though that frequently goes wrong as well !)

Your ommission of ponctuation is however admirable points deucted for extra letters and capitalization it might make it really bad in other words good if you had done so so I shall now go and hang myself on an apostrophe or possibly just choke myself on a full stop because it seems easier to spell and after all we do have halloween soon which is the begining of the end what with firework night then the descent to christmas thanksgiving should be assigned a whole new meaning for the younger generations my spelling mistakes are of corse inunciational

And what about 'prairie oyster' ?

This guest was actually an anlogged me.

How does the dagitally version look ?

I was put off computing for many years because of the phrase 'Digit on a laser' being 'heard' by myself. The Greek lecturer was speaking in English, and the accent somewhat confused it ( it was 'Digit Analyser'). The situation was all the more funny because a friend explained to me his difficulty with himself being Portuguese, comprehending a Greek lecturer speaking in English and explaining this problem to his Hungarian Professor. The matter was reported to the head of facculty.....Yes, it goes on. I guess we all end up 'in the same boat' at some point in time, and that's without even getting into metaphor and idiom !

Is you "a" and your "u" next to each other on your keyboard? Not on mine...

Anal retentive?

Have a great day in spite of my poor attempts at humour!!!

Either 'anal retentive' or a special keyboard. Perhaps I had 'analogy' sitting somewhere among my poor id, my deflated superego and my linguistic ego.

Your humour is fine!

'Peasants' in ye Oldie Englande' used to have a clause in their contract of indenture that they didn't have to eat Salmon or Oysters too often. Smart move on the second item. Oh, hang on, that was a Texan type question. Is Balut onomatopoeic ? Google forth if ye dare. euch.... I suspect that the said 'Oysters' are fairly nutritious ( even if a little chewy). 'Waste-not, want-not' as the saying goes.

Prairie Oysters are Bull's Balls as in B***ocks......or Testicles!!!!

The definitions I found in our twin fountains of knowledge are untesticular: They are a raw egg yolk with salt and pepper according to one. The other adds some ketchup, vinegar and I forget what else. This concoction is supposed to be the best cure for a hangover, better than 'a hair off the dog that bit you'.

I do believe that in Colorado, in the Steak Houses, it is what I said it was.

It is a few years ago, I am not now 100% sure...apologies if I am wrong!!

Perhaps someone could clear it (me?) up!!

According to Wikipedia it is either a yolk (plus condiments) or a rock group. Answers.com says:

prairie oyster
n.

1. Slang. A drink made from a whole raw egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt, and pepper that is taken as a palliative for a hangover or as a cure for hiccups.
2. Chiefly Western U.S. The testis of a calf, cooked and served as food.

It seems to be a multinomial entity (or is that a malapropism?)

I WAS RIGHT, THE OLD GREY (whistle test) CELLS ARE NOT SO FAR GONE!!!!

dovy said:-

2.Chiefly Western U.S. The testis of a calf, cooked and served as food.

Hee hee. Yeah, I knew. Some nice detail on this and related 'Cattle snacks' appeared in one of the Challenge Questions a while ago. I think there was reference to something looking like a length of meat - It wasn't a strip of Bacon, and it wasn't conventional strips of Biltong ! I don't think they carry sausage-making equipment out on the open-range either .

@ may be 2 keystrokes, but they are simultaneous. You could perhaps assign a shortcut key to @. Being a Del the c@, you shouldn't feel too hard done by. I think the most unused key on my keyboard is ¬. The Return key is the one that should be on a time-lock.

I feel you need to have a word with Jorrie about simultaneity.....

( Just see a squiggle, probably one of your mates) sitting on out patio table eating a nut...must be the time of year..he was getting pretty f@ ) D'oh...

'- other idea. Are Meer-k@s some lesser type of feline ? ~ a next time I make a # of it!

A friend years ago used to say, "Hasta la watermelon!", obviously a play on the Spanish "hasta luego" (i.e., until later; that is, I'll see you later).

One time I came back with "Hasty bananas!" ("hasta mañana" - until tomorrow)

Excellent...

I often sign off with

Zebu later (see you later)

Del,
If we ever meet in person, Alaska Hawaii! (I'll ask ya how are ya!)

Talking of word plays, the most memorable one I've ever heard came from the an old TV sitcom, F Troop, a spoof of westerns. The series featured a fictional Indian tribe, the Hekawis. When asked how the tribe got their name, Chief Wild Eagle told of how they left the east after the white man began to settle there, they wandered for a long, long time without meeting anyone, and when they finally encountered other people, they asked, "Where the heck are we?"

An ancient (slightly ribald) riddle: There are four islands whose names are questions. What are they?

1) One friend greeting another: "Hawaii?"

2) One frat brother to another after date night: "Jamaica?"
(That's the ribald one.)

3) Hostess to a guest with empty plate: "Samoa?"

4) Hawaiian visiting New York: "Staten Island?"

Seems to me there was a fifth island, but now I can't recall it...

That reminds me, you can take the names of four towns in Oklahoma and string them together in the right sequence to form a sentence:

Sallisaw Henryetta Wagoner Bowlegs!

Other Oklahoma towns, with names that sound like answers to questions:

What do you say to someone who is about to lose their balance? Eufala!

What did we do when the alarm clock went off? Wewoka.

How do you describe a desert? Nowata.

How do you describe your father because he eats too much? Pawhuska.

How do you describe moist grass in the morning? Dewey.

What do you call an oversized, rustic house? Big Cabin.

How are you? Okay.

What are donuts good for? Duncan.

How do you describe a building that is being totally consumed by fire? Burns Flat

What do you wrap food in? Foyil.

Or

Abyssinia (I'll be seein' ya)

Miss Communication, wasn't she the one with the big 'er 'er Eyeballs at the show?