English Language & LINGUISTI Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer
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Home > Linguistics > Fun linguistics > Linguistic puzzles
 

 

FUN LINGUISTICS©
       
     

English viss a Tscherman accent
       
      There are typical problems that Germans have when pronouncing English - for example, using /v/ instead of /w/ in the word wine because the phoneme /w/ is not part of the sound inventory of German. This may lead to misunderstandings in cases where the mispronounced form is an English word as well - in the above-mentioned example, that would be vine.
      In such cases where the pronunciation is distorted in an ambiguous manner, we may find unusual English compounds such as vine cellar. This could be defined as 'an underground room where grape-producing plants are stored'.
      Now try to guess the following words from the definitions provided. Klick on the question marks to check your answers.
      What is...
     
a snake that removes rain from the windscreen of a car ?
     
a large piece of unhealthy food ?
     
a group of experts on damaged ships ?
     
a sea mammal that enthusiastically teaches people about Christianity ?
     
a writing instrument that is used in the kitchen ?
       
      PS: I was inspired to write this puzzle after reading jokes on www.wepsite.de.