Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Christchurch: Square Two, in reply to Russell Brown,
Can I just take this opportunity to apologise on behalf of Auckland with respect to the Auckland idiots queueing up to declare what's "realistic" in today's "Have you given up on Christchurch?" on the Herald website? Grrrr.
It's telling that even Kiwiblog commentators have only sympathy to give. Granny, you need to lift your game.
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Only Satan puts eggs in his hash cookies.
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Hard News: Christchurch: Square Two, in reply to Emma Hart,
Also, if anyone has seen the key lately?
It's probably slipped into a crack?
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Muse: Some Link Crack To Tide You Over..., in reply to Rich Lock,
How to make a cookie recipe sound like a Nazi rally.
ROFLMAO. "Und Keine Eier!"*, with a similar intonation to Hitler pronouncing a final solution.
*translation "And no eggs".
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I use changed language myself eg. 'data is'
LOL, which is one of those ones no-one gets unless they also studied Latin. I missed the laugh in one corporate meeting where a much-disliked boss said "Well, there's only one item on the agenda" (there were supposed to be many but he was ignoring them), when I said "Well then it's really an agen-dum". No-one got it.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
That's not opinion, that's science. And science is one cold hearted bitch with a 14 inch strap on!
Vince Masuka, Dexter
Heh, loved the follow up to that: "He's Back!!" (Vince had been trying to avoid his Ranapian (h/t Sacha) turn of phrase, and then just gave up and owned it).
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Russell Brown,
Should I start a new thread for this latest phase of the discussion? What do y'all think?
Well, it's more than "Three months after" now, just. "Square Two" sounds like the perfect title, so long as it's carefully attributed to Karl.
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Muse: Some Link Crack To Tide You Over..., in reply to bmk,
In fact I learnt more about grammar taking German than I did in English which seems silly
That's quite normal, foreign languages students usually have the best grasp of grammar - it's one of the reasons that language study should continue to be pushed in schools - you learn a lot about your own language in the process, by the contrast, something that it's very difficult to achieve in English classes. It broadens the mind, making you aware of the built in oddities that seem so natural that they must be true.
Which is probably why I always seem to hear "I seen it" "I done it" "He did good" etc.
I hear them, but they don't bother me. I don't own the language, it's allowed to change. English, at least, which was always a creole anyway. If it takes on structures and forms from other languages, or just evolves to simpler structures, or phrases loved simply for the sound they make, or yeah, even because they annoy the older people, that's ... well it's inevitable.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Russell Brown,
A colleague from abroad said that it was amazing how few casualties there were, that NZ had hardly suffered at all. I had to disabuse him of the notion, by pointing out that the virtual destruction of our second largest city was a massive blow to the nation, and we weren't likely to get over it any time soon. I experienced immediately something the Chch people have probably also suffered - the subject is never brought up again. People don't want to hear about hardship, particularly when they can't help. I think this happens to terminally ill people too, the withdrawal of contact. People no longer seek their company, or if they do, the subject of the illness must not come up because it turns a happy social occasion into a downer. Which is awful, of course, one of the worst parts about it, the social disconnection it causes. A line from Philadelpia comes to mind "The social death that precedes the physical death".
My sister was offered to do a show down there, and was telling me that it was embittering, because it's not like Christchurch people have time for shows. I had to tell her that if there was anywhere more desperately in need of some cultured entertainment, it was Christchurch, that the disappearance of intellectual life when faced with hardship had to be strenuously resisted. I hope it goes ahead, that modern dance can be seen, even if you have to do it in tent.
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Muse: Some Link Crack To Tide You Over..., in reply to bmk,
What I found hard was the complex verb, tense structures. I have vague memories of things called dative, accusative etc without having a clue what they mean anymore.
They're so similar to English, and yet more regular, that I found it easy. The really hard part is gendered nouns.
What I love most is the bizarrely guttural sound of the language. Say "Darf ich bitte noch ein Stück Käse haben" out loud, and it sounds like a vile curse, rather than "May I please have another piece of cheese?".
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