Post-Valley of the Beautiful Women

[Dennis R. Preston]

1) No, Hungarian is indeed not Slavic (it's Finno-Ugric), although, as you
would expect, hanging around Slavic languages for such a long time has
infected it pretty badly.

2) Yes, it is indeed Budapesht (s = sh) and (sz = s).

3) I love the stories of travelers who "understand" other languages. My
favorite was told us (with a straight face) by a tour guide we had in the
Yucatan once. He said he guided a group of Japanese to a ruin site, and the
tourists immediately went up to the Mayan women there, and they began to
talk with complete undertanding. (He did, however, fail to mention what the
tourists had been drinking. Had to be pretty powerful for Japanese speakers
to understand Mayan, although I went to sleep once after being coaxed into
imbibing too much by evil companions and dreamed in great detail that I was
fluent speaker of Chinese. After I sober- I mean, woke up, I didn't
remember much more than "Ni hau."

dInIs



>    Greetings from post-Valley of the Beautiful Women.  The Valley is know
>for its red wines--particularly Bull's Blood--but I found the whites to be
>better.  Madge Simpson looks good right about now.
>    I have no idea if Hungarian is or is not a Slavic language.  The first
>thing you're told is that it's Budapesht, not Budapest.  Then you're told
>that Hungarian is not a Slavic language.  There's my tour guide, the
>driver, plus one Hungarian speaking tourist (she's been away 30 years).
>She told me that there are Hungarians in Nepal, and that she could
>understand the Nepalese alphabet.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>PINK DOLLARS
>
>   The FINANCIAL TIMES, September 23-24, 2000, pg. 28, has a column about
>gay Australia, "Sydney in the pink."  Col. 2:
>
>   Gyms, shops, bars and cafes buzzed as coveted "pink dollars", an
>estimated A$100m (Ł39m) were spent on workouts, souvenirs and parade
>outfits...
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>MATTANZA
>
>   There's a review of MATTANZA: LOVE AND DEATH IN THE SEA OF SICILY by
>Theresa Maggio in the FINANCIAL TIMES, September 23-34, 2000, Weekend, pg.
>5.
>   Mattanza is the annual slaughter of the bluefin tuna off the Sicilian
>island of Favignana.
>   OED?
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>FASHION TIMES
>
>   From the FASHION TIMES section of the same FINANCIAL TIMES:
>
>BOURGEOIS CHIC, pg. 30, col. 2.  From British VOGUE, and mentioned here
>before.
>
>SLEEK CHIC, pg. 45 headline.
>
>"D" BAG, pg. 36, col. 2.  "...honey-coloured leather tote or 'D' bag..."
>What could "D" mean?  Surely not the term we all used in grade school?
>
>BUM BAG, pg. 53, col. 3.  Americans call it "fanny pack."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>MISC.
>
>   Not only is this place too dark to type my Hungarian food list, but
>there's belly dancing going on right now!
>
>BUBBLES--Used instead of "water with gas."  As in, "water with bubbles."
>Am I getting Michael Jackson's monkey, Bubbles?
>
>THE SECRET OF EGER--this dish is "pork chops with mushrooms, in red wine,
>with 'longos.'"
>
>  You know, she really does look better than Madge Simpson...


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736