My Love Affair With Ducks...

[Mimi13]

I know pig Latin!!!

Ooh, ooh, ooh! So do I. I DO know another language! I’m so excited!

 

[Mimi13]

I am thinking it is hard to come here and learn proper English after years of speaking Britain English with all its errors...

One thing about the internet and all the choices we have for movies and TV shows is learning the slang of other English speaking countries.

However, because of my hearing loss, I find I need the closed captioning on to pick up the words on most British shows and movies. The accent makes understanding the words hard for me.

Proper English! Oh Ralphie you kill me!

But I am the same way about not being able to understand some things on TV. Sometimes my DH and I will turn and look at each other wondering if the other one caught what was just said. We’re pitiful I’ll tell ya!

 

[Mimi13]

English is my first language - we've been in Italy for two years and my Italian is still very bad but they have stopped wincing when we try to speak it which is progress.

Oh good lord, I can only imagine what the ‘Eye-talians’ would think if I opened my old southern mouth. I’m sure they’d bust out laughing!

 

[Mimi13]

Congrat's! - If you put these eggs into an incubator, you will have sweet little ducklings again in just 28 days.

Are you kidding me?!? No way! Not yet anyway! I’m certain I would wind up with 3 or 4 more drakes. Yep, those are my odds when it comes to hatching baby birds!

 

[Mimi13]

I have come to realise / ze that my spelling is not all it should be now I am here

I hope the captioning in the US is better than it is in the UK - I've seen some comedy gold courtesy of the BBC's rather crap attempts to caption.....

As for the telly thing - is it just me or are Brits a lot more creative with their swearing than our American cousins ? Not the best thing to be good at obvs !

Well I have heard the expression, “swearing like a Brit!”

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

Are you kidding me?!? No way! Not yet anyway! I’m certain I would wind up with 3 or 4 more drakes. Yep, those are my odds when it comes to hatching baby birds!

You and me both ! 11 hatchlings made it this year - 8 are drakes !

 

[Mimi13]

You don't loose weight, just because you go vegan!
Forget everything about diets, "medications", weight watchers, slug-fast and all these suckers! They only want your money!
The only way to loose weight is to eat less calories than you burn every day. [period!]
I stopped to drink sodas to reduce my sugar input and lost over 20 Kilograms (46lbs) since 2015. Instead i drink sparkling water, mixed with a bit of juice (mostly apple). And since 2018 i have a lot of work to do outside, which increases my calorie burn rate,
One medical thing: Have your thyroid gland checked out. If you have Hypothyroidism - an underactive Thyroid gland - you will gain weight by just smelling at the yummy food.

Oh gracious. Everything you said is exactly right. I gave up “clean eating,” which isn’t really that hard, I just seem not to care anymore. And I love the taste of sweet southern tea!

 

[Mimi13]

Here in the U.S. it is not only about the "sugar", it is about the kind of sugar that is added to the industrial food. - In the 60's, the government placed an embargo on Cuba to fight the evil communists, including a ban on cuban cane sugar. Corn-Syrup was introduced as a substitute for cane sugar at that time and the farmers in the mid west were granted huge subsidiaries for growing corn. Now between Corn-Syrup and Cane Sugar there is not much of a difference, both are about a 50:50 mixture of Glucose and Fructose,
Fast forward to the mid 80's and some genius discovered that Corn Starch can also be converted into a syrup that contains more Fructose than Glucose 80:20 and is therefore tasting much sweeter than cane sugar, so the "Fructose Corn Syrup" was developed.
Then during the 90's the industry developed the "High Fructose Corn Syrup" (HFCS) which contains almost no Glucose anymore.
Now there is a fundamental difference between how these two sugars are processed in your body: Glucose is broken down by the enzyme insulin, whereas Fructose is processed in the liver and doesn't need any insulin.
Guess what happens to a Humon, when you replace all the cane sugar in the food with HFCS, starving that individual of Glucose? - The pancreas will stop producing insulin, as it is no longer needed to digest Glucose! - And the Liver will start to grow, due to the higher workload of digesting all that Fructose.
The result is a disease called »Diabetes Type II« - of which millions here in this country suffer!
If you look at the ingredients of most foods here, you will either find "High Fructose Corn Syrup" or "HFCS" in the list.
Of course everybody believing in this "conspiracy theory" is also wearing a hat, made out of Aluminium foil and had been kidnapped by aliens at least twice…
But since we have started to avoid HCFS as much as we can, our health has increased significantly, visible in our blood-work. I am about to get off some medications soon.
I don't say HCFS or Fructose is some kind of poison, but if the balance between Glucose and Fructose in your food is tipped to one side, it is just bad.
And i still drink a soda from time to time, when i'm eating out. It is all about the quantity.
Oh, and guess what: The food industry got wind of the subsidiaries that the farmers receive from the government, so they have forced the farmers to hand over the corn for the production price, meaning that the subsidiaries are now the only profit for the corn-farmers.
Sorry @Mimi13 for stealing your thread!

You didn’t steal my thread. This thread is about learning too, and I just learned a lot. Thanks a bunch!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I remember reading something on HFCS but it didnt have this much easier to understand explanation !

HFCS was just picking up speed in the UK when we left - I have to say the food here in italy is waaay better than the UK. In fact, there is not a lot of ready made meals at all compared with the UK (apart from Pizza obvs !). In the main, they cook from scratch which of course means you are in control of what goes in. Even the sugar aisle in an Italian supermarket is about the quarter of the size of one in the UK.

Finally - congrats on getting off those meds !!

The European Union has approved the use of HFCS some years ago, but i doubt it will gain that much traction because sugar is way cheaper in the EU. Think about sugar beets.
Yes, fresh Italian food is really good! - In 2001 i had the joy to be on a project in Rome for three months. Fresh baked pizza by the piece, so hot that you burn your tongue! Have you tried fried zucchini-flowers?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Pleeeeeease try and get a pic or a vid !

I will do my best, but those thugs know when there's a camera and won't produce evidence of their wrong doing. I guess fear of the pressure cooker…