There is the job

We enjoyed Turkey. Charmed by the food, charmed by the language, and sometimes by a combination of the two: charmed by Turkish English. This was one of the choices at breakfast one morning:

But if you were really picky about your food, you could choose eggs that had been soiled for 5 minutes.

Elsewhere, one merchant who has apparently not heard the old proverb put all his eggs in one basket:

I'll leave the drinks to another time.


The information and warning signs were important, of course. At the hotel, information in the room included:

Ideal for politicians

Perhaps you prefer to read this one in German or Russian. Please decide yourself.









And as for warnings:

A word to the wise

But I failed to get a picture of the first instance I came across. I wasn't yet in tune with the local language. At the door of  a restroom, there was the typical yellow warning sign  I recognized the word-for-word translation of the Turkish wording:

"There is the cleaning.
Do not enter"


Which leads me to explain why I didn't add anything to the blog this week. With both assistants in the consulate now gone, and our once-in-every-five-years inspection by Washington coming up Monday, I've been spending all day, every day there. For now I'll just hang out the sign on this post:

"There is the job.
I could not blog."


I don't want to leave you without something useful, however. Today's contribution: my favorite word in Turkish (so far):   "Müdürlüğü"  There's something musical about the way it rolls off the tongue, don't you agree?...  Müdürlüğü
Well, it's supposed to roll, but there's always the problem of a linguistic derailment somewhere down the home stretch. Hmmm..if only my English Turkish was at least as good as their Turkish English.

 Apparently, the Turks like the word, too. It appears twice on this sign at St. Paul's Well in Tarsus. It means something on the order of "directorate" or "department".