On 11/25/2015 6:46 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:33 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Sounded like Derby Dad doesn't like moaners
invading Usenet cluelessly, and that he hates
me.


What you say, again? DD doesn't invade what?


Ey saiah at terby Daa unt lll oh oners ding
Usennn leslie n that ee ate free.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/25/2015 6:47 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:37 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
If you women would call me by name, wait
several seconds and make eye contact. Talk
directly towards me, and speak slowly.....

we'd have peace in our time.


Chris {long pause waiting for him to look this way}

..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
Did you say some thing, dear?

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/25/2015 9:28 PM, rbowman wrote:
I sometimes have to deal with a company whose middle name is diversity.
I try to keep it to email exchanges which works very well but some of
the tech people, who apparently are taking an English as a Third
Language course in their spare time, really like phone calls.

They're sharp and they sure as hell speak whatever their native language
is far better than I, but it's painful.

I've noticed I'm getting fewer calls from India, lately.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/25/2015 10:01 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 8:23 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 11/25/2015 10:38 AM, Muggles wrote:
My hearing loss happened when I was a teenager, but I didn't know I'd
lost any hearing at all.

Teach you do spend all your time at death metal concerts...

hahaha The funny thing about that was I've never been to any concerts
like that.


One time I went to a friend's wedding reception. The
music was so loud, it was painful even with my hearing
aids turned off. I hollered and sign language at the
music people to turn down that damn noise. They looked
at me like I was insane. I spent most of that event in
the foyer, behind a layer of glass doors. Even then,
it was a lot too much. Eventually, I left the premises.

I've also not been to any loud concerts.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/25/2015 10:05 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 8:28 PM, rbowman wrote:

They're sharp and they sure as hell speak whatever their native language
is far better than I, but it's painful.

I've been around many people from other countries, and one church we
went to for a while, all the people were from Nigeria. Some spoke
fairly clear English, but most of them had thick accents which were VERY
hard for me to understand.


I also have trouble with Nigeria. Wonder what other "English"
accents are dificult?

My own preference is Australian. some thing about that,
I can listen all day, and just smile the whole time.
Garoo, mayte?

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

Per Stormin Mormon:
One time I went to a friend's wedding reception. The
music was so loud, it was painful even with my hearing
aids turned off. I hollered and sign language at the
music people to turn down that damn noise. They looked
at me like I was insane. I spent most of that event in
the foyer, behind a layer of glass doors. Even then,
it was a lot too much. Eventually, I left the premises.

I've also not been to any loud concerts.

I incurred my hearing loss by clearing about an acre of our new house's
land with a chain saw - over a period of about 2 weeks with no hearing
protection. On a graph, it looks like a slice out of the frequencies I
can hear.

Even so I'm half-deaf, I had a similar wedding experience to yours last
week. Disk jockey was over-driving the sound system to the point where
his comments were pretty much unintelligible - and not just to me.

But for me, there was also the sheer volume issue - this guy was
exceeding my pain threshold and everything I have read says that once
sound hurts, it is damaging the nerves in the cochlea.

We don't even go to movies anymore - seems like they all turn the volume
up to "10".

Seems like the wedding experience came down to three qualities:

- Volume

- Choice of music

- Quality of sound.

First two, I can't really say anything about - young people vs old
people and all that - but quality makes a huge diff to me. I can take
quite a bit of volume if it's clean, but much less if it's
dirty/distorted.

I think we now have a whole generation of hearing-impaired adults coming
up - and maybe that explains why not enough people complain about the
movie theater situation to make them change and nobody at the wedding
seemed to be bothered by either the quality or volume of the sound.

When I can hear the music coming out of the earbuds on somebody 10 feet
away from me I suspect two things: the guy has already damaged his
hearing and the guy's hearing is being further damaged by the minute.
--
Pete Cresswell

Per rbowman:
I sometimes have to deal with a company whose middle name is diversity.

At the major-league mutual fund where I used to work it seemed like the
workforce was divided about evenly between English-speakers,
Hindi/Urdu-speakers, and Mandarin-speakers.

I always preferred to have people in the second two groups near my desk.

If two people are going on-and-on in English, it messes up my
concentration.... some little part of my mind can't stop parsing every
word they say.

OTOH, if they are going on-and-on in Hindi, Urdu, or Mandarin; it's just
background noise to me and does not interfere with my concentration.

Score 1 point for diversity....
--
Pete Cresswell

Per Muggles:
Some spoke
fairly clear English, but most of them had thick accents which were VERY
hard for me to understand.

The most difficult for me are from certain areas in India.

Areas or social classes.... I'm not sure which...

AFIK, English is the official language of India and people from India
know in their hearts that they speak perfect English....

Some speak really classy English - I wish *I* could talk that well....
but others can be difficult to understand..... but they get impatient
with me when I ask them to repeat because, after all, they are native
English speakers and why can't I understand perfectly-clear English ?
--
Pete Cresswell

Per Stormin Mormon:
I've noticed I'm getting fewer calls from India, lately.

Or they are working harder on perfecting their accents..... -)
--
Pete Cresswell

On 11/26/2015 6:32 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 6:44 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:31 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Look, silly. I sent you an email. That means I want
the reply by email, got it now?


I like email. When that doesn't work and I can't get people to
enunciate and talk clearly, I tell them "I can hear you talking but
can't understand what you're saying!"


That's got to be frustrating to both of you.
It took all my powers of gentle and mild and
kind to make it through that phone call without
blasting the clueless phone girl. Likely as
frustrating for you, too.

Some people don't make much sense on email,
also. When I got the girl's email, I had to
read it through several times and guess what
she really meant.

Almost made me wish I could git yur gun.


Lots of people speak fast, slur their words together, don't bother
enunciating the first or last sounds of words, plus, have some sort of
accent to go with it. If the person is looking at me, I can sometimes
read their lips and put it together with what I actually can hear coming
out of their mouths and understand them. Other times I'm just lucky I
catch part of a sentence.

Luckily, I manage to understand more people on average, than ones I
can't understand!

--
Maggie

On 11/26/2015 6:34 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 6:46 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:33 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Sounded like Derby Dad doesn't like moaners
invading Usenet cluelessly, and that he hates
me.


What you say, again? DD doesn't invade what?


Ey saiah at terby Daa unt lll oh oners ding
Usennn leslie n that ee ate free.


umm ...

--
Maggie

On 11/26/2015 6:35 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 6:47 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:37 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
If you women would call me by name, wait
several seconds and make eye contact. Talk
directly towards me, and speak slowly.....

we'd have peace in our time.


Chris {long pause waiting for him to look this way}

.
.
.
Did you say some thing, dear?


yes. Just wanted to know if you were paying attention. That's all.

--
Maggie

On 11/26/2015 6:39 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 10:01 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 8:23 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 11/25/2015 10:38 AM, Muggles wrote:
My hearing loss happened when I was a teenager, but I didn't know I'd
lost any hearing at all.

Teach you do spend all your time at death metal concerts...

hahaha The funny thing about that was I've never been to any concerts
like that.



One time I went to a friend's wedding reception. The
music was so loud, it was painful even with my hearing
aids turned off. I hollered and sign language at the

I feel your pain and aggravation.

music people to turn down that damn noise. They looked
at me like I was insane. I spent most of that event in
the foyer, behind a layer of glass doors. Even then,
it was a lot too much. Eventually, I left the premises.

Some years ago my office was located next door to a large room that was
rented out to various groups for special events. They set up a large
sound system and put gigantic speakers up against the wall that my
office shared with them. One day I was working away in my nice quiet
office when they turned the sound system on and proceeded to knock the
clock I had on the wall onto the floor. I had to cover my ears and
'bout jumped out of my chair when the clock hit the floor. They'd
turned up the sound system before, but not like that, and this was the
last straw. I left my office, walked out of the building, out the door,
around to their event entrance, covered my ears and approached the
people "testing" the speakers. When they saw me they turned it down
enough so they could hear me say, "Have you LOST your minds??? Do you
realize you can damage my hearing? My office is on the other side of
that -------- wall where those monster speakers are sitting, and those
speakers just knocked my clock off my wall!! PLS turn it down!"

They looked at me as if "I" was the problem and said to me, "Can't you
go work somewhere else?"

My response, "My OFFICE is there ----------! What is wrong with you??"

They managed to turn it down and a few weeks later they had a
representative go through our part of the building and listen to just
how loud their music really was. {{dimwits}} sheeeeeeesh

I've also not been to any loud concerts.


ditto.

--
Maggie

On 11/26/2015 6:41 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 10:05 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 8:28 PM, rbowman wrote:

They're sharp and they sure as hell speak whatever their native language
is far better than I, but it's painful.

I've been around many people from other countries, and one church we
went to for a while, all the people were from Nigeria. Some spoke
fairly clear English, but most of them had thick accents which were VERY
hard for me to understand.


I also have trouble with Nigeria. Wonder what other "English"
accents are dificult?

My own preference is Australian. some thing about that,
I can listen all day, and just smile the whole time.
Garoo, mayte?


That's a favorite accent of mine, too.

--
Maggie

On 11/26/2015 11:37 AM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/26/2015 6:35 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 6:47 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:37 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
If you women would call me by name, wait
several seconds and make eye contact. Talk
directly towards me, and speak slowly.....

we'd have peace in our time.


Chris {long pause waiting for him to look this way}

.
.
.
Did you say some thing, dear?


yes. Just wanted to know if you were paying attention. That's all.

What did you say?


--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/26/2015 05:32 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Some people don't make much sense on email,
also. When I got the girl's email, I had to
read it through several times and guess what
she really meant.

We had a VP that was so notorious people collected his better efforts.
Whatever he was thinking about got reduced to one ungrammatical sentence
that hit some of the high points. In person he was sharp but when he sat
in front of a keyboard he dropped about 40 IQ points.

On Thu, 26 Nov 2015 12:03:45 -0700, rbowman
wrote:

On 11/26/2015 05:32 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Some people don't make much sense on email,
also. When I got the girl's email, I had to
read it through several times and guess what
she really meant.

We had a VP that was so notorious people collected his better efforts.
Whatever he was thinking about got reduced to one ungrammatical sentence
that hit some of the high points. In person he was sharp but when he sat
in front of a keyboard he dropped about 40 IQ points.

We had a guy at work, served a day in an acting capacity of authority.
Wrote a Memo to all staff about a procedure and called it an Edict, is
would now be policy. What a hoot.

Everybody joked about "edicts" for weeks. I called him an educated
idiot

On 11/26/2015 07:38 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Stormin Mormon:
I've noticed I'm getting fewer calls from India, lately.

Or they are working harder on perfecting their accents..... -)

Most Indians that you run into do well with English and I've gotten used
to the accent over the years. It beats working class Yorkshire, which
I'm not sure is even modern English.

The joke is if an American is having trouble making himself understood
he speaks louder. I think the default for some ESL people is to speak
faster. If you're not sure about some of the twisted English
constructions, just skip over them really fast.

That sort of works in German; d' lets you slide over exactly what gender
a water cooler is.

On 11/26/2015 07:29 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
We don't even go to movies anymore - seems like they all turn the volume
up to "10".

11 for the coming attractions... The loudest concert I've went to
recently was the Dropkick Murphys and while it was loud I enjoyed it. I
seldom go to movies at the mainstream theater but it seems they spent a
lot of money on the sound system and want to get their money's worth.

On 11/26/2015 05:41 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
I also have trouble with Nigeria. Wonder what other "English"
accents are dificult?

Try 'Trainspotting', 'Sexy Beast', or 'The Navigators'. Some of the
actors in the first two like Ewan MacGregor, Ben Kingsley, or Ray
Winstone can speak standard English but went native for their roles. Ken
Loach mainly used native Yorkies in Navigator and for them there's no hope.

On 11/26/2015 09:50 AM, Muggles wrote:
That's a favorite accent of mine, too

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?...C6B6799C836896

I've never seen the original afaik, but Max Max was supposedly dubbed
for the US audience since the distributor didn't think people could
understand it. The review is also comical. I wonder how many times
Buckley ate his words as sequel after sequel was pumped out?

I think that may be overstated. 'Stone' was a 1974 biker movie that
preceded Mad Max with several actors being in both. I had no trouble
with the dialog in that one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_%281974_film%29

On 11/26/2015 07:33 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
OTOH, if they are going on-and-on in Hindi, Urdu, or Mandarin; it's just
background noise to me and does not interfere with my concentration.

As long as they stay with one language. I've seen Bollywood movies like
'Monsoon Wedding' where the dialog can switch from English to Hindi to
English or vice versa in one sentence. I don't think that's uncommon for
upper middle class Indians.

On 11/26/2015 07:37 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
The most difficult for me are from certain areas in India.

Areas or social classes.... I'm not sure which...

AFIK, English is the official language of India and people from India
know in their hearts that they speak perfect English....

The idea after independence was to make Hindi the official language and
phase out English in 20 years. However less than half the country speaks
a language related to Hindi so they're officially bilingual.

I don't know if it's completely accurate but I'm reading a book about
the Scandinavian countries where the author state if you go to a
convention or meeting with Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and
Icelanders the Finns and Icelanders group together and converse in
English while the other three muddle along in their mostly mutually
intelligible languages.

On 11/26/2015 09:35 AM, Muggles wrote:
Lots of people speak fast, slur their words together, don't bother
enunciating the first or last sounds of words, plus, have some sort of
accent to go with it.

In high school there was a girl who spoke very rapidly and could be hard
to understand. A teacher said it was because her brain worked so much
faster her mouth had trouble keeping up, My personal opinion was her
brain and mouth weren't connected at all.

On 11/26/2015 11:20 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/26/2015 11:37 AM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/26/2015 6:35 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/25/2015 6:47 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/25/2015 4:37 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
If you women would call me by name, wait
several seconds and make eye contact. Talk
directly towards me, and speak slowly.....

we'd have peace in our time.


Chris {long pause waiting for him to look this way}

.
.
.
Did you say some thing, dear?


yes. Just wanted to know if you were paying attention. That's all.

What did you say?



{signs} Can you read my lips? {/signs}

--
Maggie

Per rbowman:
...the Scandinavian countries where the author state if you go to a
convention or meeting with Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and
Icelanders the Finns and Icelanders group together and converse in
English...

I just finished semi-binge-watching a Danish TV series called
"Lilyhammer" about a NYC mob underboss that enters witness protection to
save his life and chooses Lilyhammer, Norway as his new home.

Sort of a semi-dark comedy. Guy who plays the underboss was in The
Sopranos too (Steven VanZandt)... not really an actor, more of a music
composer/producer/performer - but, IMHO, quite entertaining in both of
his movie roles.

One thing that caught my attention was the mixture of English and
Norwegian - which your observation seems to explain.
--
Pete Cresswell

Per rbowman:
It beats working class Yorkshire, which
I'm not sure is even modern English.

When I was at a family reunion in Wells, Somerset, UK, I found myself in
the village standing next to two local character types talking in what I
guess was a local dialect.

To cut to the chase, I could not even begin to understand what they were
saying.... And I was *trying*.... and these were my people, so-to-speak.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 11/26/2015 8:29 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Stormin Mormon:
One time I went to a friend's wedding reception. The
music was so loud, it was painful even with my hearing
aids turned off. I hollered and sign language at the
music people to turn down that damn noise. They looked
at me like I was insane. I spent most of that event in
the foyer, behind a layer of glass doors. Even then,
it was a lot too much. Eventually, I left the premises.

I've also not been to any loud concerts.

I incurred my hearing loss by clearing about an acre of our new house's
land with a chain saw - over a period of about 2 weeks with no hearing
protection. On a graph, it looks like a slice out of the frequencies I
can hear.

I lost a portion of my hearing when I was 17, and I had a severe ear
infection in both ears caused by allergies to second hand cigarette
smoke. My parents were chain smokers and I was sick a lot like that.
This particular infection happened over a weekend and I couldn't get to
a Dr in time before both ear canals swelled shut. The Dr. had to see me
every day for a week to rinse out the infection and clean them out with
q-tips, which was so painful I'd cry like a baby just when he'd touch my
ears, let alone go to cleaning them. By the 5th day, he finally could
see my ear drums and the pain was bearable by that time. After the
scabs fell off from the ear drums he told me there was some scarring,
but didn't say anything about hearing loss.

Even so I'm half-deaf, I had a similar wedding experience to yours last
week. Disk jockey was over-driving the sound system to the point where
his comments were pretty much unintelligible - and not just to me.


--
Maggie

On 11/26/2015 8:37 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Muggles:
Some spoke
fairly clear English, but most of them had thick accents which were VERY
hard for me to understand.

The most difficult for me are from certain areas in India.

Areas or social classes.... I'm not sure which...

AFIK, English is the official language of India and people from India
know in their hearts that they speak perfect English....

Some speak really classy English - I wish *I* could talk that well....
but others can be difficult to understand..... but they get impatient
with me when I ask them to repeat because, after all, they are native
English speakers and why can't I understand perfectly-clear English ?


Can you read lips any?

--
Maggie

Per rbowman:
As long as they stay with one language. I've seen Bollywood movies like
'Monsoon Wedding' where the dialog can switch from English to Hindi to
English or vice versa in one sentence. I don't think that's uncommon for
upper middle class Indians.

During a miss-ent youth in Hawaii, I knew some kids from Algeria who had
lived in an apartment building where seven languages were spoken.

This kids would stand around mixing I-don't-even-know-what languages in
jokes so that a word in one language sounded like a word in another
language.... it all went over my head, but they would laugh their butts
off at some of the things they came up with.
--
Pete Cresswell

Per Muggles:
The Dr. had to see me
every day for a week to rinse out the infection and clean them out with
q-tips, which was so painful I'd cry like a baby just when he'd touch my
ears, let alone go to cleaning them. By the 5th day, he finally could
see my ear drums and the pain was bearable by that time. After the
scabs fell off from the ear drums he told me there was some scarring,
but didn't say anything about hearing loss.

I has a similar experience in the military - except for typical
incompetent military medical attention.

It was only one ear. When it was all over and the eardrum finally
ruptured inwards (MAJOR sense of relief...), it wrapped around the
little bones in the ear.

Got back to the doc that had not treated me properly, he snapped his
fingers a few times, said "Can you hear that".... "Nope, not a
thing...", then he took a look in there and this "Oh **** !" expression
crossed his face... and I think he knew he could be in trouble over this
one..... sent me to a specialist who took a little suction tube and
un-stuck the eardrum from the bones and tacked it back in place.

But I do not think I lost any hearing from that one.... because it would
have shown up on tests as different results for each ear.

A side "benefit" of the chain saw experience was constant very high
pitched tones in both ears......


All-in-all, I'll take the deafness because before that I was constantly
tormented by sounds that were above the pitch that most people can hear.
Had to quit a perfectly good management trainee job at the local bank
because I could hear the ultrasonic emitters for the security system and
they practically blew my brains out....

OTOH, this lady who sat right under one of them - and claimed she could
not hear anything - had these huge bags under he eyes and dark circles
around her eyes - so I have to wonder if there is an effect even though
a person cannot hear the sound.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 11/26/2015 3:38 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per rbowman:
It beats working class Yorkshire, which
I'm not sure is even modern English.

When I was at a family reunion in Wells, Somerset, UK, I found myself in
the village standing next to two local character types talking in what I
guess was a local dialect.

To cut to the chase, I could not even begin to understand what they were
saying.... And I was *trying*.... and these were my people, so-to-speak.


Can't resist. We have a lot in the US. Some call them black people.

On 11/26/2015 3:41 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per rbowman:
As long as they stay with one language. I've seen Bollywood movies like
'Monsoon Wedding' where the dialog can switch from English to Hindi to
English or vice versa in one sentence. I don't think that's uncommon for
upper middle class Indians.

During a miss-ent youth in Hawaii, I knew some kids from Algeria who had
lived in an apartment building where seven languages were spoken.

This kids would stand around mixing I-don't-even-know-what languages in
jokes so that a word in one language sounded like a word in another
language.... it all went over my head, but they would laugh their butts
off at some of the things they came up with.


Thread prompted me to see how to say "**** you" in Hindi.

Looks like the same and suffices with calls from the "Microsoft computer
guys" telling me there is a problem with my computer.

I can detect most accents and one guy actually called me back and asked,
"Why you call me ****ing Indian?"

On 2015-11-26 4:24 PM, Frank wrote:
On 11/26/2015 3:41 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per rbowman:
As long as they stay with one language. I've seen Bollywood movies like
'Monsoon Wedding' where the dialog can switch from English to Hindi to
English or vice versa in one sentence. I don't think that's uncommon for
upper middle class Indians.

During a miss-ent youth in Hawaii, I knew some kids from Algeria who had
lived in an apartment building where seven languages were spoken.

This kids would stand around mixing I-don't-even-know-what languages in
jokes so that a word in one language sounded like a word in another
language.... it all went over my head, but they would laugh their butts
off at some of the things they came up with.


Thread prompted me to see how to say "**** you" in Hindi.

Looks like the same and suffices with calls from the "Microsoft computer
guys" telling me there is a problem with my computer.

I can detect most accents and one guy actually called me back and asked,
"Why you call me ****ing Indian?"

I do the same thing with the "Air Duct Cleaning" assholes here, the M$
imposters, a simple, ok what is my public IP address, usually shuts them up.

--
Froz...

Quando omni flunkus, moritati

On 11/26/2015 11:48 AM, Muggles wrote:

They looked at me as if "I" was the problem and said to me, "Can't you
go work somewhere else?"

My response, "My OFFICE is there ----------! What is wrong with you??"

They managed to turn it down and a few weeks later they had a
representative go through our part of the building and listen to just
how loud their music really was. {{dimwits}} sheeeeeeesh


"can't you work some where else". Moments like that,
large caliber handguns increase in appeal.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/26/2015 3:31 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 11/26/2015 11:20 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Chris {long pause waiting for him to look this way}

.
.
.
Did you say some thing, dear?


yes. Just wanted to know if you were paying attention. That's all.

What did you say?



{signs} Can you read my lips? {/signs}


{signs} You want me to take out the what? Trans?
Like trans fats? Mash? Mash what? Oh! Trash!
{end sign}

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 11/26/2015 01:38 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
When I was at a family reunion in Wells, Somerset, UK, I found myself in
the village standing next to two local character types talking in what I
guess was a local dialect.

To cut to the chase, I could not even begin to understand what they were
saying.... And I was*trying*.... and these were my people, so-to-speak.
--

Wookiee, had to be Wookiee... They live in the Mendip Hills Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty. Google maps might not be doing it justice
but I'm missing the outstanding part.

On 11/26/2015 01:41 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
During a miss-ent youth in Hawaii, I knew some kids from Algeria who had
lived in an apartment building where seven languages were spoken.

This kids would stand around mixing I-don't-even-know-what languages in
jokes so that a word in one language sounded like a word in another
language.... it all went over my head, but they would laugh their butts
off at some of the things they came up with.

James Joyce managed to get an incomprehensible novel or two out of that.
Maybe the kids were onto something.

Phuc Dat Bich turned out to be a hoax but I imagine Kim Phuc has had her
share of problems with people dealing with her name.


http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=34739193

On 11/26/2015 01:34 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
I just finished semi-binge-watching a Danish TV series called
"Lilyhammer" about a NYC mob underboss that enters witness protection to
save his life and chooses Lilyhammer, Norway as his new home.

Sort of a semi-dark comedy. Guy who plays the underboss was in The
Sopranos too (Steven VanZandt)... not really an actor, more of a music
composer/producer/performer - but, IMHO, quite entertaining in both of
his movie roles.

One thing that caught my attention was the mixture of English and
Norwegian - which your observation seems to explain.

I'm waiting for Netflix to cough up the Lilyhammer second and third
seasons. I love how Little Stevie cuts through Norwegian political
correctness. Wolf? No problem, let me get my .38.

Norwegian sounds to me like a mixture of English and German, at least
Bokmal. I don't think I've ever hear Nynorsk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGVDNezzx38

The US series 'The Bridge' was based on the Danish/Swedish 'Bron/Broen'
with the bridge being the Øresund Bridge. There are a few references to
the problems of not quite understanding each other. The cast itself is
mixed and one of the Swedes said she had been on a bus in Copenhagen and
heard a teenage girl say 'skumfidus!' It immediately became her favorite
Danish word -- marshmallow.

Then there's the problem that Danes can't understand Danish:

http://www.thelocal.dk/20150304/not-...erstand-danish

I'm currently watching 'The Killing' that's a remake of 'Forbrydelsen'
set in Seattle rather than Copenhagen.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to American creativity when so many
movies and TV series are either remakes of US or European films.

Per rbowman:

I'm currently watching 'The Killing' that's a remake of 'Forbrydelsen'
set in Seattle rather than Copenhagen.

I gave that one a solid 3 stars.... enjoyed it and will probably watch
it again sometime in the future.
--
Pete Cresswell