Word of the Day

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Birthday song

I just saw on TV that a certain Brazilian show is celebrating its tenth anniversary, to which they played Happy Birthday to You. I thought how someone's language can influence one's behavior. Portuguese speakers, who have only one word for anniversary and birthday, aniversário, may not see a problem playing and/or singing that song to an anniversary, but speakers of languages that differentiate between anniversaries and birthdays, like English, might find that odd.

No comments: