Monday 4 January 2010

Sitting in the stand

I noticed today a bilingual sign on Cardiff city FC's new stadium, reading "eisteddle Canton stand" (word order on welsh and English is usefully opposite so the sign can be read in welsh as "eisteddle canton" or in English as "canton stand"). What's interesting is that "eisteddle" means "sitting place", the opposite to "stand". As someone pointed out, though, "stand" comes from "grandstand", refering to the building rather than the action. Still, it's interesting that coexisting languages can evolve to label the same thing with labels that oppose each other in other contexts.

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