On a trip to Morocco, I was standing in front of a shop which happened to be closed. There was sign on the door, but the sign was in Arabic, and I can’t read Arabic and I don’t know Arabic. However, because of the position of the sign and the ways the words were arranged it was likely to be the sign for the opening hours, so I thought, Arabic numbers being used, I could figure out what the opening hours were. However, I couldn’t make head or tail of the sign which, to me, looked like this: ~~~~8~~~5~~~~~~~~2~~~10~~~~~~~~~~~~~. This was puzzling, it all seemed to be out of place. Finally, the penny dropped: I had read the sign from left to right, but Arabic is, of course, written from right to left, and all of a sudden, everything began to fall into place: The opening hours were 10.00 to 2.00 in the mornings and 5.00 to 8.00 in the afternoons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a trip to Morocco, I was standing in front of a shop which happened to be closed. There was sign on the door, but the sign was in Arabic, and I can’t read Arabic and I don’t know Arabic. … Continue reading