The Null Device

I am currently spending some time in Barcelona, once again on occasion of the Primavera festival.

Whilst in the narrow, winding streets of the old town, I noticed a marmot-shaped door knocker on one door. This immediately brought to mind the French idiomatic expression croquer le marmot (to stand hesitantly at a door with one's hand over the door knocker, without following through), marmot-shaped door knockers presumably being customary in those days. This expression was, of course, memorably gifted to the English language as “to craunch the marmoset” by Pedro Carolino, the non-English-speaking Portuguese author of English As She Is Spoke, an unintentionally surreal (and, needless to say, entirely unusable) Portuguese-English phrasebook.

A contemporary equivalent of craunching the marmoset would presumably involve hovering over the SEND button in one's email client or something similar.

¶ barcelona language pedro carolino travel 0

More information on a classic of psychoceramic literature, Pedro Carolino's English As She Is Spoke:

For embarking one's self:

Don't you fear the privateers!
I jest of them; my vessel is armed in man of war, I have a vigilant and courageous equipage, and the ammunitions don't want me its.
Never have you not done wreck?
That is arrived me twice.

Drinkings:
Some orgeat, some sirup, some paltry wine

Eatings:
Some black pudding, some sugar-plum, some wigs, a chitterling sausages, a dainty-dishes, vegetables boiled to a pap

¶ amusing english as she is spoke language pedro carolino unintentionally hilarious 0