Twelve years ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 17 February 2006 14:42:54

I was confused by an ambilogoglot.

Okay, I made that up, but the word ought to exist.

I spent a large chunk of my youth searching out old vinyl. Second-hand record shops were manna from heaven to me, and finding obscure 60s and 70s stuff at bargain prices was what made my life worthwhile. (Getting a copy of Sgt Pepper with all the inserts for just 80p was probably one of the highlights of my life at the time). So, whenever I was in a new town, if I saw a shop with the word "records" on its sign, then I would be in there like a shot without a moment's thought. It became second nature - my shopping list was engraved in my brain and, since I didn't have any kids, I could actually remember which records I owned and which I didn't.

So it was that when I first visited Montserrat (the one in Catalunya, not the volcanic one), I found myself instinctively heading into a shop and then being utterly puzzled. The place was just full of tourist tat - souvenirs and stuff. I'd gone in without thinking about it, and I left with a feeling of disappointment that also only barely reached conscious level.

It was only several years later that it dawned on me what had happened. Although I knew enough Catalan to know fine well that "recordar" is to remember, and hence that "records" meant souvenirs, some part of my brain had just registered the word "records" and instinctively gone in search of vinyl. Hence the word ambilogoglot - a foreign word which is exactly the same as an English one but with a different meaning. (Okay, in this case the meaning is not so different: both Catalan and English records are ways of remembering things, but that's beside the point).