The Old Folks Home

[Alaskan]

Quote:
Actually, I have had that problem my entire life, my eldest son inherited it from me.

I hear the first part of a word, and forget what the rest of the word was. So, Venice and Vienna (and I have been to both, I do realize they are different, and can find them both on a map), and Switzerland and Sweden, and Australia and Austria. The beginnings of the words are WAY too similar! I finally go to the point that before I say anything about anything that has a "twin name" I take a long pause and carefully review what I heard, or am about to say.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Its a terrible waste to spend the cost of a university education on doing algebra and English 101

We used to start with College Algebra. English 101 where I went to school involved reading Chaucer.... and Beowulf. It was the first term of a three term sequence in English literature.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Knowledge of English grammar was going to be my other point.

Well, don't get me started.

Probably not my strong suit. But I used to be a very good C programmer.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

No she meant English and thought Australians spoke German

Guiana/Ghana; Australia/Austria.

Maybe they are both easy mistakes?

We are *so* impressed with our own genius.

 

[Alaskan]

Quote:
They totally sound too much alike to me!

But then, I think I have auditory processing problems.

 

[ozexpat]

What part of the country were you in? That is surreal.

What makes it funnier is that I worked in a firm where we had a number of English, Scots, Australian, and South African engineers. At one meeting I used a word that is pronounced very differently in commonwealth nations than in the US. My boss, an Englishman looked at me, as did the others at the table, and suggested that we were "one culture separated by our common language."

I used to long for an American English - Commonwealth English dictionary since so many things have different names or radically different pronunciations or spellings. Lorry, terrace house, ZEB-ra which is spelled Zebra and in the US is a ZEE-bra, also spelled Zebra..

You speak English; we speak American English, a dialect heavily influence by the fact that the single largest European immigrant to the US was the Germans, who seem to have had a significant impact on how we pronounce words.

I was in California. It was in the 1980s.

Friends who said they were from "Britain" who were being interviewed at the same time were asked where they learnt their English.

Dialects and accents are interesting. I thought the Irish had a big part in development of the generic american accent.

The Australian accent comes from the lower class English accents like the cockney and a bit of Irish. These two groups were most of the convicts that were the first white invaders of Australia

 

[The Yakima Kid]

They totally sound too much alike to me!

But then, I think I have auditory processing problems.

Don't worry about it. We're just pretending to be intellectuals.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I am not America bashing. I chose to be an American after all. I am just disappointed in what should be a much greater country than it is

I am. I'm very disappointed. It's an indictment on the education system AND the individual's desire to be aware of their world.
That said, Europeans are much closer to people that speak other languages and national boundaries than North Americans and Australians. With that in mind, I would expect Europeans to, more often than not, be multi-lingual.

Maybe she just meant that you understood much of our slang.


Sort of how it is impressive that @vehve not just speaks English, but is pretty good at American phrases etc.

I met some young girls on a train from Bruneck to Milan. I asked if any of them spoke English. (I didn't speak Italian) One of them spoke up and in a New England accent said, "Yes, perfectly". I was relieved having trouble communicating with the conductor. After working out the problems we engaged in a discussion. She had spent a year as an exchange student in Boston. Since returning, she had been clamoring to tell her friends about all the new things she learned that school hadn't prepared her for. Utmost in her mind was American slang. She was thrilled that she had a real American in her and her friends' midst in the middle of Italy. She said, tell them some slang words. I had been travelling a couple months in Europe and English, let alone American slang had been the farthest thing from my mind for a long time. Like a moron, I couldn't think of one thing. I felt totally worthless.

 

[Alaskan]

Quote:

Didn't we just have the discussion, where the smarter you are, the dumber you are?

That is me, well educated, well traveled, and until I was about 35, I still swapped out Australia for Austria, Sweden for Switzerland, and Vienna for Venice.

 

[subhanalah]

I agree 100% My grandfather had to go back to his home town and change his birth certificate and his mothers name to be able to join the Army and then the Police force. 

Wow. It's amazing how Zenophobic and racially prejudiced the people who formed this country were.

it's a good thing we don't interpret their words the same way they did.
"All men are created equal" the caveat: the definition of "man" is only Anglo men. People of any other color are...not..? And women...don't even get me started!
The country was built on the backs of poor immigrants as well as enslaved natives and "imports." Even the Irish were De facto slave labor at one point.

Oz I just recently learned that there was an internment camp in Utah while I was listening to an interview with George Takei.  He and his family were interred in one of the camps in Arkansas.  His description of the day they were made to leave their home was eye opening.  For a country to turn their back on U.S. citizens is still hard to understand.  I am planning a photography trip down to the camp site.  There is not much left at the site and they are working on a small museum but I would like to capture the "feel" of the place if I can.  The site opened on September 11, 1942 and closed October 31, 1945.  Hard to believe they kept those people away from their homes for over three years.

They are still doing it to this day. Ask the FBI what they questioned me and my husband about a little over a year ago. The words "intimidation" and "religious persecution" come to mind.
mind you, my husband and I come from families that are a mixture of native as well as some of the original settlers here.
I come from several generations of military service as well.

My dad's answer when I called him upset by the FBI knocking on my door, unannounced: "you know what you have to do if you want them to leave you alone" So, I have to denounce God? Wow...just wow.
Needless to say, I won't denounce God or my devotion and service to Him. That possibility was never even a possibility.

Hopefully that 4" is enough.

Hmm, the Jehovah's Witnesses haven't been here in  years.  There was one older lady (actually a very interesting person)  who was bound and determined to show me 'The Way'.  Guess I was too tough a NUT to crack.

"There is no compulsion in religion..." [Q2:256]
that's why it doesn't work!