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Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts

Monday, December 5, 2016

LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS)



1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

15. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

16. A calendar's days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

23. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

30. The roundest knight at king Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

31. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

32. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

33. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

34. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

35. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

36. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
37. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

38. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

39. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

40. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'

41. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

42. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

43. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

44. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

45. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

English is tough stuff - English pronunciation test

English pronunciation test

While most of you non-native speakers of English speak English quite well, there is always room for improvement (of course, the same could be said for every person for any subject, but that is another matter). To that end, I'd like to offer you a poem. Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone: Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.


English is tough stuff

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

(Apparently excerpted from The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité.)

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Chinese Engrish ..... ROTFL






















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Monday, October 1, 2012

YOU THINK ENGLISH IS EASY ?

YOU THINK ENGLISH IS EASY ?


1. A bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full, it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present his present.
8. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
9. I did not object to the object.
10. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
11. There was a row amongst the oarsman about how to row.
12. They were too close to the door to close it.
13. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
14. A seamstress and a sewer fell into the sewer.
15. To help with the planting a farmer taught his sow to sow.
16. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
17. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
18. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
19. How can I intimate this to my intimate friend ?

Let's face it. English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. 

English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Mincemeat is sweet and doesn't contain any meat at all.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are  square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham ?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth ? 

If on your foot your wear a boot, then on your feet you should wear beet. 

One goose, 2 geese. So, one mouse, 2 meese ? One mouse, 2 mice so one house, 2 hice ? 
One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend ?

 You can be disgruntled but not gruntled ? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it ?

If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught ? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat ? If I drink and get drunk, can I think what I thunk ?

Sometimes I think all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital ? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship ?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, whilst a wise man and a wise guy are opposites ? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out they are visible but when the lights are out they are invisible.

---------------

There is a two letter word that perhaps has more meaning than any other two letter word, and that is "UP". It is easy to  understand UP, meaning towards the sky or the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning why do we wake UP ?

At a meeting, why does the topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it  UP to the secretary to write UP the report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning … people stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP.

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost ¼ of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways in which UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for a while, things dry UP.

One could go on and one but I will wrap this UP for now my time is UP, so it's time to shut UP.

PS. Why doesn't "Buick "rhyme with "quick" ?


Thursday, July 26, 2012

The language translator... - Joke



A New York judge is ready to go through the day's business and he is very rushed.

The first case up involves an elderly Jewish gentleman with a long beard, payos, the works.

The judge, without asking a question, says to the clerk:
"Quick...get me a translator."

Translator shows up and the judge says: "Ask him what his name is, how old is he and where does he come from?"

The translator says: "Die judge vilt vissen, vos is dein namen, vie alt bist du, and fun vie kumst du?"

The old man smiles, looks at the judge and says in perfect English with a British accent: "Your Honour. My name is Sir Chaim Ginsbug. I shall be 82 next Thursday and I've come from England where I hold the chair of Hebrew Philosophy at Oxford University."

The translator turns to the judge and says: "Ehr zukt, ehr is Sir Chaim Ginsburg, ehr is tzwei und achtzig yur alt, und ehr is, mit sach Yiddish philisoph, areingekummen fun Oxford."

Monday, June 4, 2012

Tongue TWISTERs...

1. If you understand, say "understand" . If you don't understand, say "don't understand". But if you understand and say "don't understand". How do I understand that you understand? Understand!

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2. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish the wish you wish to wish.

 

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3. Sounding by sound is a sound method of sounding sounds.
 
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4. A sailor went to sea to see, what he could see. And all he   could  see was sea, sea, sea.
http://i27.tinypic.com/vdojz6.jpg

5. Purple Paper People, Purple Paper People, Purple Paper People

 

6. If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?
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7. I thought a thought.But the thought I thought wasn't the thought   I thought I thought. If the thought I thought I thought had been  the thought I thought, I wouldn't have thought so much.

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8. Once a fellow met a fellow In a field of beans. Said a fellow to a fellow, "If a fellow asks a fellow, Can a fellow tell a fellow What a fellow means?"

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9. Mr Inside went over to see Mr Outside. Mr Inside stood outside and called to MrOutside inside. Mr Outside answered Mr Inside from inside and Told Mr Inside to come inside. Mr Inside said "NO", and told Mr Outside to come outside. MrOutside and Mr Inside argued from inside and outside about going outside or coming inside. Finally, Mr Outside coaxed Mr Inside to come inside, then both Mr Outside and Mr Inside went outside to the riverside.
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10. SHE SELLS SEA SHELLS ON THE SEA SHORE , BUT THE SEA SHELLS THAT SHE SELLS, ON THE SEA SHORE ARE NOT THE REAL ONES
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11. The owner of the inside inn was inside his inside inn with his inside outside his inside inn.
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12. If one doctor doctors another doctor does the doctor who doctors the doctor doctor the doctor the way the doctor he is doctoring doctors? Or does the doctor doctor the way the doctor who doctors doctors?  


"When a doctor falls ill another doctor doctor's the doctor. Does the doctor doctoring the doctor doctor the doctor in his own way or does the doctor doctoring the doctor doctors the doctor in the doctor's way"

 

13. We surely shall see the sun shine shortly. Whether the weather be fine, Or whether the weather be not, Whether the weather be cold Or whether the weather be hot, We'll weather the weather Whatever the weather, Whether we like it or not. watch? Whether the weather is hot. Whether the weather is cold. Whether the weather is either or not. It is  whether we like it or not.

 

14. Nine nice night nurses nursing nicely. 



15. A flea and a fly in a flue Said the fly "Oh what should we do" Said the flea" Let us fly Said the fly"Let us flee" So they flew through a flaw in the flue

 

16. If you tell Tom to tell a tongue-twister his tongue will be twisted as tongue-twister twists tongues.


 

17. Mr. See owned a saw.And Mr. Soar owned a seesaw. Now See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw Before Soar saw See,  Which made Soar sore.Had Soar seen See's saw Before See sawed Soar's seesaw, See's saw would not have sawed Soar's seesaw. So See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw.But it was sad to see Soar so sore Just because See's saw sawed  Soar's seesaw.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Donkey Language

A wise man, a renowned teacher, once publicly vowed that he would eradicate illiteracy and he would teach everyone to read.

Some mischievous boys brought a donkey to the teacher and asked him if he could teach the donkey to read.

The wise teacher stunned the students by taking up the challenge and said, “Give me the donkey for a month and I will teach it to read.”

The teacher went home and began to train his donkey to read. 

At first he put the donkey into the stable and gave him no food for some days. 

Then he found a thick book and put some food between the pages. 

In the beginning the teacher turned the pages and gave the donkey the food between the pages.

After a while the donkey learnt to turn the pages with his tongue to find and eat the food by itself. 

Each time when the donkey finished the book and found no more food between the pages it would bray: “Eee aah... Eee aah...Eee aah...”

Then the teacher would reward the donkey with some food.

Three days before the one month period was over the teacher stopped feeding the donkey.

For three full days he did not feed the donkey.

The poor starved and famished donkey, after fasting for three days without a morsel of food, was voraciously hungry.

On the fateful day when the whole school assembled to see the miracle of the donkey reading. 

The wise teacher brought the ravenously hungry donkey onto the stage. 

He asked for a big book and put it in front of the donkey.

The hungry donkey turned the first page of the book with its tongue and when it could not find any food the donkey brayed: “Eee aah... Eee aah...” 

Then the donkey turned one more page, and again not finding any food, it cried: “Eee aah... Eee aah...”

The famished donkey kept turning the pages of the book one by one with its tongue and when it could not find any food between the pages its braying grew louder and louder and soon the hapless donkey was turning the pages and shrieking in a loud voice: “Eee aah... Eee aah...” till it reached a crescendo.

Proud of his achievement the wise teacher gave a said to the gathering: “You all have seen that the donkey has turned the pages of the book and he read it.”

One of the naughty students asked: “But we could not understand anything.”

The wise teacher replied: “Of course you could not understand what the donkey read because it was donkey language. In order to understand it you have to learn donkey language. Come to me for tuition in the evening. I will teach you donkey language.”


Moral of the Story


If you want to communicate with a "donkey", you have to learn "donkey language". 


By VIKRAM KARVE

Monday, December 13, 2010

ABBREVIATIONS



MOPED is the short term for 'Motorized Pedaling'.

POP MUSIC is 'Popular Music' shortened.

BUS is the short term for 'Omnibus' that means everybody.

FORTNIGHT comes from 'Fourteen Nights' (Two Weeks).

DRAWING ROOM was actually a 'withdrawing room' where people withdrew
after Dinner. Later the prefix 'with' was dropped.

NEWS refers to information from Four directions N, E, W and S.

AG-MARK, which some products bear, stems from 'Agricultural Marketing'.

JOURNAL is a diary that tells about 'Journey for a day' during each
Day's business.

QUEUE comes from 'Queen's Quest'..
Long back a long row of people waiting to see the Queen. Someone made
the comment Queen's Quest.

TIPS come from 'To Insure Prompt Service'.
In olden days to get Prompt service from servants in an inn, travelers
used to drop coins in a Box on which was written 'To Insure Prompt
Service'. This gave rise to the custom of Tips.

JEEP is a vehicle with unique Gear system. It was invented during
World War II (1939-1945). It was named 'General Purpose Vehicle (GP)'.
GP was changed into JEEP later.




Monday, November 29, 2010

Brilliant poem on pronunciation


                                    
Brilliant poem on pronunciation

HERE'S A POEM THAT THE WELL KNOWN MEDIA PERSON PRANNOY ROY SENT TO ALL HIS TEAM OF NDTV 24x7, WITH THE FOLLOWING WORDS:  
If you can correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. 

SO I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ THIS LONG POEM ALOUD, SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY, WHEN YOU HAVE TIME. DO IT AS A FUN EXERCISE, AND NOTE DOWN THE 2 OR 3 NEW WORDS,TO CHECK THEIR PRONUNCIATION LATER.
 
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.



Saturday, February 20, 2010

World's Worst Translations















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