We don’t speak much, V & I. I mean that, obviously we do speak, but we don’t really TALK that often. As with most relationships over time, there seems no time to just sit down and talk to each other.
I know I’m getting old and I know that it must be the same for many of us ‘oldies’ but I can’t help getting annoyed about the bad spelling and incorrect use of words that I find.
Apparently, Americans (as in the people from the USA) use alot instead of a lot, quite alot. I’m not sure about afew or abit but I guess it’s much the same.
However, when I see English people using it, it really bugs me. The prevalence of the joining of ‘a’ to other short words is rife on the internet. Type one of them into Google and see! But why? These days we have spell checker. And, so far, as I type this into my word processing package, afew and abit are underscored in red to show that they are not words, whereas the package automatically changes alot to ‘a lot’ and I am having to go back and remove the space, leaving the ‘new word’ underscored in red.
I wonder if, in years to come, a lot will become alot?
Another one that does get to me is the incorrect use of your. This applies when they mean you’re. I realise that this has something to do with the increased use of texting. After all, when using predictive text, typing in your instead of you’re is so much quicker and, I have to admit, I’ve done it myself occasionally. But, when it comes to writing, why do it? It doesn’t take much effort to get it right.
However, the concern from my point of view is that it’s not that people are being careless or trying to be quicker, it’s that they honestly don’t know the difference. I used to see it at work in the UK. It seems that anyone under about the age of 30 didn’t practice spelling or grammar when they were at school.
And, perhaps that’s it. And for people who didn’t have much schooling, I can, kind of, understand. But for those people with degrees or, even, ‘A’ Levels (or whatever they’re calling them now), the propensity for using any of the above examples is simply showing what a poor education you’ve really had.
And that’s another one. ‘They’re’. Often, ‘there’ or ‘their’ is used instead. And from people who present themselves as ‘well educated’. It’s a joke.
Language is a beautiful thing, much more than just a method of communication. And I am not putting myself up as the perfect example of using English correctly (often starting sentences with and ‘and’ or ‘but’ which I realise may be just as annoying to other people), but these examples I’ve given are basic and make the reading of a piece, post or blog and, especially, a CV so much more difficult as my eyes are drawn to these fundamental errors and my opinion of the people reduces accordingly.
However, if you wish to annoy me alot just sprinkle afew of these into you’re blog and, maybe, afterall Ill get used to it in abit and just pose the question ‘am i bovvered?’, to witch the ansa maybe no, knot rilly.
I am jealous. I mean really jealous. Take Corpodibacco’s post (Unfortunately, the blog no longer exists) as an example. Here’s a guy who isn’t mother-tongue English, writing stuff that I really like to read. OK so his English isn’t perfect (sorry C) but it’s pretty good and nothing a good editor couldn’t fix if it were to go into print. But his description, the imagery is all there. I, on the other hand, seem to scribble rubbish. Just the trivial facts, nothing of any real meaning.
It is true that, mostly, people are nice. And when people are nice, it lifts you and gives you warm and good feelings inside.
“….it was the multicultural aspects of the developed [countries] that fostered this mutual distancing [state from state]. By creating a culture in which the international media and entertainment industry had more influence than the national political class of any state, the states of the twenty-first century had also created a powerful weapon that destabilised other societies and, even in their own societies, brought forth violent reactions that sought to restore the cultural values that were apparently being cast away. International communications at first made famines in faraway countries moving and tragic; eventually, these events seemed tiresome and inevitable. International communications initially made the prosperity and liberty of the developed states alluring; eventually these qualities came to seem vulgar and addictive. The national political class was powerless to either lead a state’s people toward compassion or insulate a state from cultural invasion. The fragmentation that then occurred in these developed states was only an inner reflection of the alienation their peoples felt toward the outer, foreign world; the contact with other cultures had reinforced the intractability of cultural differences and the felt need to avoid the frustration and danger of such encounters. ”
This book is great but just so heavy. It’s taken me a year to read and, if I’m honest, I couldn’t really tell you the salient points. Sometimes I had to re-read pages over two or three times as I found I was reading it without actually taking anything in! It’s not a light read. However, it is interesting. As a speaker, the guy is fantastic and his lectures must be some of the most interesting.
Don’t you just hate it when you have busy-bodies as friends. You know the sort. They come into your house and surreptitiously wipe their finger over a table to see if the house has been dusted properly. Or, maybe, as they sit down to dinner they pick up the glass and peer through it towards the light, looking for fingerprints or greasy smears.
Worse, they go into your bathroom, supposedly to use it but really to check that it has been hygienically cleaned.
Or maybe they ‘help’ to wash up, just to check that you do it properly and when they feel you are missing an important part of the process, they tell you all about how ‘they’ do it and why and why you should do it like that too!
Don’t you just hate those sort of people?
Which made me all the more amused by this story.
Yes, I know it’s a few days old, but I’ve been so busy that I just haven’t had time to post much, sorry.
However, my take on this was as follows:
Guy, who has told his friends that his wife and stepson are away visiting the stepson’s father, invites said friends to dinner. The women, of a certain age at the gathering, offer to help clearing away the dishes. Guy, who has had a few too many to drink, thanks them. As they are clearing away, one of the women (we’ll call her ‘the nosey old trout’ or NOT), feeling sorry for him and, probably, having already checked that the general state of the place is OK by doing as I suggested above, decides that she will put away some of the uneaten food in the freezer (and will also check that he has enough to eat whilst his wife is away).
NOT goes to the freezer and starts rummaging around to see what else he has there and, underneath a pile of food finds the bodies of the wife and son. She runs back to the kitchen to consult with one of the other ladies and they phone the police.
Then, they return to the dining room and carry on as if nothing had happened, waiting for the police to arrive!
Of course, it begs the question as to why he was keeping the bodies in the freezer, why he took the risk of inviting friends round when he had the bodies in the house, etc? Judith, an expat Belgian, living in Milan, says that a lot of Belgians are quite nosey and that Guy was quite mad to invite his friends round in the first place.
There! Who ever said that Belgium was boring?
I am speechless! Gobsmacked! Incredibly angry and not angry all at the same time depending on what bit I focus on.
So much so, that I just can’t talk about it. Maybe later when it’s all sorted (if it all gets sorted).
The subject being V, cars, money, not thinking ahead or being responsible, etc.
Of course, V says it’s for me – but really it’s for him as well. V shouldn’t be allowed to be spoken to by salespeople. I should have been there.
In the UK, if someone suggests a trip out, where you were going to travel for two hours to get there and two to get back, you would tend to make a day of it. So, for instance, when we lived in Herefordshire and you decided to go to, let’s say Aberystwyth, you would set of at, say, 10 a.m., reach Aberystwyth, have lunch, enjoy the afternoon having a walk around and set off home at 6 or 7 p.m.
OK there’s this site I look at from time to time. It has funny short videos. But this latest one which is about 10 minutes long, is very good and very funny. A little like Groundhog Day but well made in my opinion. Enjoy.
I tried to embed it but it didn’t work so here is the link.
For the main Funny or Die site, go here.
I know I’m not the first and I know I’m not the last, but it doesn’t help really. The story goes thus:
About 4 weeks ago or more, Alice (the ADSL arm of Telecom Italia) rang me up and I spoke to a very nice lady, in English, of course, who informed me that I could upgrade my ADSL from 4 MB to 20 MB for no extra money and I would have to do nothing. ‘What, nothing?’ No, not even change my modem! I would notice no difference except, if my modem could handle it, a faster speed. OK, I said (I know, my first stupid mistake).
Then, about 2 weeks ago, Wind (otherwise known as Infostrada) said that they were doing this special deal whereby a call to the UK would cost 20 cents. What, per minute?, I asked. No, for the whole call! AND they would give me a cheaper ADSL line (only 4 MB – but my modem can only handle that and it’s quick enough). But, I said, last time I tried to change, I was told that I would be without ADSL for 1 week. No, the nice man, who spoke English very well, said, you will only be without ADSL for a maximum of 1 hour. But what about the password, etc. I said. Don’t worry, he said, we will email you the password and connection settings. Wow, I said, OK then, sign me up! (My second stupid mistake).
So, last night, after going to a Gospel concert (which was really crap – I don’t think white people have the correct voices for Gospel and V agrees) and a beer and so forth, we returned home to find – no ADSL!
A message on the screen says that the new set up is available via my Alice mail account. Except it has been over two years since I accessed that account – and I only have it because they made me have one when I first set up ADSL. So I have absolutely no idea how to get the information to access ADSL. I may be without internet access for the whole weekend or, God forbid, longer. It’s like being in a desert without water. What will I do? How will I manage to live? And is this problem because of the upgrade I signed up for or the change to Infostrada? How the hell do I know?
Oh, and now nobody in the Technical area speaks English – surprise, surprise. I must speak Italian, apparently. Yet, of course, when they try to sell me something they always speak English. How very convenient. So I ask a colleague here to help as he is our network man. At which point he tells me that he is with Infostrada – well, sort of. He has been without ADSL and telephone line since 7th May!!!!
He will help me this afternoon. I do hope we can sort it. If we do, then I will cancel everything else and NEVER, EVER CHANGE AGAIN!
On the bright side, I’m already thinking that, instead of being stuck in front of the computer I may read some books, write some letters, go for walks, prepare some food, clean the house and many, many other things. Actually it will be more like being on holiday!
In the meantime, I found this somewhere on the internet the other day and thought it was useful to remember this. (I’m sorry, I don’t know where from or who posted it).
“Well there is a difference [talking about Bush and the leaders of the Iraq resistance, I think, but could apply to many, many situations]. The one is like a pirate, the other an emperor. From St Augustine’s City of God, said the pirate “Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.”
It’s a thought, isn’t it?
Update: Now, as I’m able to put the picture up and add this update, you can tell that I’m back online with ADSL – Hurrah! However, it still annoys me that Alice can happily sell me stuff in English but can’t support me unless I have someone who speaks Italian with me. Bah!