# Thai: LOMEO



## moldo

Please, could anybody help me with the following problem.

On a tv-show there was a guy in Bangkok, Thailand, with an orange T-shirt.
On the back was the text and logo of "Route 66", which presumably is the name of a club in Bangkok.
On the front of the T-shirt is the word: LOMEO..

Does anyone know what this means? Is it a word in some language? Is it a name? Is there anybody who knows the answer?

Thanks in advance.


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## Qcumber

moldo said:


> On the front of the T-shirt is the word: LOMEO.


Romeo.


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## moldo

Thanks Q.

But is this serious? LOMEO = Romeo

Do the Thai always write L in stead of R?


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## Qcumber

moldo said:


> But is this serious? LOMEO = Romeo
> Do the Thai always write L in stead of R?


It's only a suggestion. 

Many Thais replace /r/ by /l/. This is often mentioned at the beginning of dictionaries. For instance, in his _Dictionnaire français-thai_ (1994), Charles DEGNAU warns his readers about this phenomenon.

Your guy bore his nickname on his shirt, and obviously replaced the /r/ by /l/ for fun to give a Thai look to it or perhaps to imitate the Chinese pronunciation. (Did he look Sino-Siamese?)

Besides, in her _Thai vocabulary_, Mary HAAS (1955) has no term that looks like _lomeo_. Hence my conclusion.


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## moldo

Thanks again.

Very interesting.


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## Qcumber

moldo said:


> Thanks again. Very interesting.


De nada. I am surprised no native speaker of Thai has intervened so far.
Looking at the pic you've joined, I suddenly realized there is another good reason why this is not a Thai term or name: it's in Latin characters. from what I remember, Thais never write their language in Latin characters.


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## Pivra

No, we do not replace R with L although some might replaced it with an L verbally but when written we dont do that. It is not Thai either.


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## Qcumber

Pivra said:


> No, we do not replace R with L although some might replaced it with an L verbally but when written we dont do that. It is not Thai either.


Hi, Pivra. What do you mean by "when written"? In what alphabet? The Siamese / Thai alphabet or the Latin alphabet?


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## Pivra

Both alphabets. We do not get R and L mixed up when we write although some people may say get them mixed up when they speak. Lomeo, doesnt mean anything in Thai, and I think it's just kinda like a.... "lets write something english-ish on the T shirt to make it look cool" stuff.


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## Qcumber

Pivra said:


> Both alphabets. We do not get R and L mixed up when we write although some people may say get them mixed up when they speak. Lomeo, doesnt mean anything in Thai, and I think it's just kinda like a.... "lets write something english-ish on the T shirt to make it look cool" stuff.


Romeo doesn't mean anything in English either. It's the name of the archetypal teenage male lover (cf. e.g. Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_).
I still think Lomeo on the man's T-shirt is meant to be Romeo; all the more so as it means nothing in Thai.


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## boardslide315

Even if it is supposed to be Romeo, priva's idea still works--I mean, why would anyone wear a shirt that says Romeo? To me it's just like those westerners that get random lines of ink injected in their skin and call it Chinese.


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## Qcumber

boardslide315 said:


> Even if it is supposed to be Romeo, Pivra's idea still works--I mean, why would anyone wear a shirt that says Romeo? To me it's just like those Westerners that get random lines of ink injected in their skin and call it Chinese.


Admit the coincidence between LOMEO and ROMEO is striking. 
As regards the Chinese logograms like dragon, friend, karateka, etc. tattooed on some people, they are quite recognizable although not always properly drawn.
Besides it's not true, as Pivra asserts, that Thais never confuse L and R in the Latin alphabet. I observed this confusion myself a couple of times. There is no reason to be ashamed about it.


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## Pivra

Qcumber said:


> Admit the coincidence between LOMEO and ROMEO is striking.
> As regards the Chinese logograms like dragon, friend, karateka, etc. tattooed on some people, they are quite recognizable although not always properly drawn.
> Besides it's not true, as Pivra asserts, that Thais never confuse L and R in the Latin alphabet. I observed this confusion myself a couple of times. There is no reason to be ashamed about it.


 

But we dont, even if some Thais do confuse R and L .. but when we read it slowly.. we RRRRoll our R, and I am 200.1 percents sure that it cannot be Romeo. Shakespeare isnt even that famous in Thailand, believe me, its just a .."farang fashion" shirt...... by the way... by ... "Thais never confuse L and R in the Latin alphabet" I mean written.


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## boardslide315

Pivra said:


> "Thais never confuse L and R in the Latin alphabet" I mean written.


Just curious, but how often do Thai's even use the Latin alphabet?


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## Pivra

boardslide315 said:


> Just curious, but how often do Thai's even use the Latin alphabet?


 
 Not very, unless our keyboard or MSN just suddenly cant type thai then we have to type it phonetically using roman alphabet.


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## Flaminius

Could the T-shirt has been really made in Thailand?  Confusion between L and R sounds more familiar with the Japanese.  I also note they may confuse L and R in China as well since Chinese has very few instances of R.


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## Qcumber

Flaminius said:


> Could the T-shirt has been really made in Thailand? Confusion between L and R sounds more familiar with the Japanese. I also note they may confuse L and R in China as well since Chinese has very few instances of R.


Of course, there is always one of these possibilities.


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## moldo

Flaminius said:


> Could the T-shirt has been really made in Thailand? Confusion between L and R sounds more familiar with the Japanese. I also note they may confuse L and R in China as well since Chinese has very few instances of R.


 
I had no idea this would get this many reactions. In the mean time, googling on the word *lomeo*, I found the following poem on the internet, which is apparently from a Japanese site. (Besides, I found many jokes about Chinese talking Spanish: "Alfa" "Lomeo?" but that is off-topic)

Is this not the evidence we are looking for? Lomeo = Romeo

http://www.sk-01.com/oldies/papa.html


> Papa (For Me You Build Balcony)　（愛のバルコニー）　------　Kay Armen
> 
> xxxx
> 
> Papa, you do the best for me
> For me you build balcony
> Maybe a lover I will get
> Like Lomeo and Juliet
> 
> xxxx


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## Qcumber

Thank you, Moldo. By the way, if I remember well, I think there was a bar called Romeo in Bangkok in the 1980s, and many Thais or Sino-Thais called it Lomeo. Obviously the guy's T-shirt is humouristic.


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## fizzy_soda

Qcumber said:


> Romeo doesn't mean anything in English either. It's the name of the archetypal teenage male lover (cf. e.g. Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_).
> I still think Lomeo on the man's T-shirt is meant to be Romeo; all the more so as it means nothing in Thai.


 
I think you are looking too deeply into it. I highly doubt it was meant to be humoristic because nobody would understand what the shirt was saying anyway. Trust me: there are plenty of shirts in Thailand that have things written on it to look _cool_. "Wow, you have a shirt written in what appears to be English? Awesome!"

The idea of playing on the _r and l_ confusion is funny, but I think that is something that as English speakers we would only truly understand.

I´m part Thai by the way, ha ha, just so you know I´m not pulling stuff out of my bum. Besides, we can´t entirely see whats on the shirt. (There is more to it than just LOMEO. What if something was on the back? None of my Thai relatives are going around pointing out their English pronunciation errors, so I don´t think somebody would wear a shirt about it. 

Are the Japanese walking around with shirts that have ENGRISH written on it )


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## Qcumber

fizzy_soda said:


> Are the Japanese walking around with shirts that have ENGRISH written on it )


ENGRISH, no, I don't think so, although this is not impossible, but they do wear very odd things in Latin characters. One I remember is PRAY for PLAY followed by the name of a game.


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## Tere26

This is a pretty interesting conversation. But, yeah, I agree with Pivra.  I think that the _LOMEO_ word has no specific meaning.  And it _definitely_ does not refer to Shakespeare as a huge part of the Thai population may not even know the story itself.  Though English is used quite widely over here, specifically in BKK, most Thai people do not have an in-depth knowledge of the language. They just know the basics to get by in necessary situations.

It is kind of sad, but anything written in a foreign language is seen as being cool or fashionable to some people.  They will just buy those products without knowing or caring what the words may meant.  It's just fashion. Period. Once, I saw a guy wearing a "I love my Husband " t-shirt. Yeah, it was a hilarious sight!   

cheers,


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