Why are the Germans so fond of the word 'typo'?

[Our Tort System]

[Jamie (K)]

Usually the ESL students ask, "What means _____?" No matter how many times you correct them for how many years, they'll still say, "What means _____?"

I'm one of the few ESL profs who want them to use a bilingual dictionary. Some instructors insist that they use English-to-English dictionaries, but studies have proven that they do better with bilingual dictionaries until they reach a very advanced level.

I'm actually glad when the students ask me the meaning of a word, because sometimes their dictionaries give the wrong impression. For example, people who look "embarrassed" up in an Arabic-English dictionary are liable to think that the word means the same thing as "shy". Or else the dictionaries miss some kind of nuance that's needed to distinguish the new word from another they know, and for them to understand it may require a much longer explanation.

And some of the cheaper electronic dictionaries from Eastern Europe often give them English words that are 1930s slang or have been obsolete from the 1800s. Or they may, on occasion, give them bizarro words that don't and have never existed in English.

[Cgk]

[Torsten]

[Jamie (K)]

No, we're not Europe, so we don't form agencies to control every little thing people do, and we don't write up constitutions that dictate the correct size of tomatoes.

However, many Germans, especially German business writers, have adopted "solution" or "Lösung" and use it to replace all kinds of ordinary words that would be more accurate, such as "product", "service", and they often use the word to refer to things that don't solve anything. Sometimes it's not even clear what they mean by "solution", and when it reaches the point where a word is used to mean virtually nothing, then it's clear you're using it too much.

[Torsten]

Jamie, how many Intelligence and Security Agencies are there in the US? I'm sure you wouldn't know the exact number but you might try giving us a ballpark figure.

TOEIC listening, talks: Information about a five-car collision at an intersection

[Jamie (K)]

But they don't govern whether we use a word too much, as the French Academy does, and an average citizen like me only comes into contact with those agencies when entering an airport. Oh, yes, and if you happen to order the ingredients to make chemical warfare agents, you might get a visit.

[Torsten]

We don't an agency in Germany that dictates which words we can use how often. That is only the case in George Orwell's novel '1984'.

TOEIC listening, talks: Introducing cost saving measures

[Jamie (K)]

I know the idea is surrealistic, but the fact that you asked if the US has one is also surrealistic.