Kevin's Watch

Sorus -- yup! Until WWII, pink was for boys and blue was for girls.

Murrin -- (or maybe that should be ja ja ja )

Talked to a lawyer in Indiana today. He more or less tried to talk me out of filing for the partition. But he has no idea how *done* I am. I'm gonna keep looking for a lawyer, I think, and I also may call the circuit court tomorrow and see about filing on my own. Urgh.

Good luck, Ali.

I'm in the can't-take-it-anymore boat myself regarding work. This week has been absurd. My boss got into an argument with the freight delivery guy yesterday, which resulted in the delivery guy refusing to deliver. (I'm taking my toys and going home!) Did that really just happen? That really just happened. So I had double work today, and I'd really like a job working with adults. Or cats. And I'm working all weekend again when I need a break so freaking badly.

Rant over. I won't delete this time, Lorin. Promise.

Thanks, Sorus!

Sorus wrote:I'd really like a job working with adults. Or cats.

Y'know, you might have been joking, but maybe you should look into a job with the local animal shelter.

I wasn't joking, and I have applied many times and never gotten an interview. It's part of the reason I started volunteering there - building reputation, as we say in WoW. A lot of their jobs require veterinary experience (which I don't have or want), though they do occasionally have admin-type jobs that I'm actually qualified for. We'll see.

Good for you. Volunteering is exactly the right way to go about it. Fingers crossed that it works out for you.

lorin wrote:U. had one....."having a bit of crack (fun)"..........

Except he would have really been saying "craic" not "crack."

--A

In the past, I've lived in the US for a number of periods of up to three months at a time and as such, have tended to have no problems with the twisted perversions of Americanisms. I've even managed to get my head mainly round the minefield that is food – I understand what cilantro is (coriander), plus scallions (spring onions) and even arugula (rocket). I'm still mystified as to what a rutabaga might be – is it a swede or something entirely different?

Side note - the one phrase I used on occasion that nobody could ever understand in the US was "a glass of water" (properly pronounced as "a glarse of WAR-tuh"). I invariably had to adopt an American accent in order to convey my meaning successfully – so, "a glace of wudd-URR".

I think I've posted the following before a year or so back, but if so, here goes again, because it's apposite. An English friend of mine once spent a few weeks helping out in an American High School. At the end of one term just for a bit of fun to help pass the time, he set an English class full of 16 year olds a pop quiz to translate English into American. All the old favourites were of course in there – pavement/sidewalk, lift/elevator, bonnet/hood, boot/trunk, ground floor/first floor etc. The class didn't do so badly, except with the last of the 30 or so questions, where they were almost all entirely stumped. The phrase to "translate" was:-

"Gawd! There's a bleeding ladder in my tights!"

Oh, those gory tears in one's stockings...

TheFallen wrote: and even arugula (rocket).

BOTH have mystified me. Either one has something resembling SRD's ice beasts or jet propulsion engines in their grub.

I didn't have major issues with my thick accent in the States, apart from talking about "bunking" with Jenn. I pronounced it too much like "bonking".

Frostheart Grueburn wrote:
I didn't have major issues with my thick accent in the States, apart from talking about "bunking" with Jenn. I pronounced it too much like "bonking".

I'm just saying....

And that reminds me... hosiery.

Okay, here in the UK we have stockings (which are invariably worn attached to a suspender belt). We have hold-ups, which are kind of self-supporting stockings needing no such attachment, since they have a rubberlike top cuff thingy. We also have kneehighs and popsocks – same sort of material as stockings , but only coming up to below the knee. And then we have tights. Tights are like two stockings in a single garment that girls pull on like a pair of pants/trousers.

I never got a satisfactory answer when in the US to the following question... which of the above are "pantyhose"? One of them? All of them? None of them?

TheFallen wrote: the one phrase I used on occasion that nobody could ever understand in the US was "a glass of water" (properly pronounced as "a glarse of WAR-tuh"). I invariably had to adopt an American accent in order to convey my meaning successfully – so, "a glace of wudd-URR".

I haven't really lost my accent either, but I must have changed pronunciation somewhat as I don't get as many "excuse me?" comments or blank looks anymore.

Water isn't a word that I have ever had problems with though, but for some reason I always had problems with people understanding when I said the word "orange".

It's "aarnj" in American, right?

I'm Murrin wrote:It's "aarnj" in American, right?

Depends what part of the country you're in, but in the north east (where I first lived) it's pretty much that. Very unlike my southern English accent.

TheFallen wrote:And that reminds me... hosiery.

Okay, here in the UK we have stockings (which are invariably worn attached to a suspender belt). We have hold-ups, which are kind of self-supporting stockings needing no such attachment, since they have a rubberlike top cuff thingy. We also have kneehighs and popsocks – same sort of material as stockings , but only coming up to below the knee. And then we have tights. Tights are like two stockings in a single garment that girls pull on like a pair of pants/trousers.

I never got a satisfactory answer when in the US to the following question... which of the above are "pantyhose"? One of them? All of them? None of them?

pantyhose (some would call these stockings also but probably older people)


tights (warmer)


stockings


socks


kneehigh (stocking material)

I was going to post a hosiery translation guide, but I see lorin's beat me to it with her pictorial one.

Just to confuse things a little more: In America, for knitters, the stitch that's all smooth on the outside and all bumpy on the inside is called stockinette stitch. In England (and maybe elsewhere, too?), it's called stocking stitch.

There's also English-style knitting (also known as "throwing" the yarn over the right needle) and Continental-style knitting (a.k.a. "picking" the yarn with the right needle). As far as I know, there is no American style.

This reminds me of two related phrases that I've never known anybody outside of my country to be able to come to terms with, namely "just now" and "now now."

As far as I know, they're uniquely South African.

They're both acceptable answers to any question regarding when something is going to happen. "Just now" refers to an indeterminate time in the future, (although rarely more than several hours), and almost always after you're finished whatever you're doing when asked.

Although also indeterminate, "now now" has a greater sense of urgency about it. It is rarely more than an hour, but may be as quick as a few seconds.

In my experience, people in other countries find this too vague to be useful.

--A

I've never heard of "now now" - that's an interesting one!

A Zimbabwean friend of mine says "just now" quite a bit. Certainly haven't heard any Aussies use either of those though!

I'm used to hearing "just now" used to refer to both something that's about to happen or (probably more often) something that has just happened, as part of a sentence. I'm guessing what you're referring to is a different sense, though.

I've far most frequently heard "just now" used to refer to the very recent past, meaning "a moment ago" — as in "When did that happen?" "Just now."

In my experience at least, "now now" is an old-fashioned and very mild rebuke, meaning not much more than "hang on a second" or "hold your horses" — as in "Now now, children. Stop quarrelling and play nicely."

Plus of course there's the seemingly temporally confusing "now then", which is a pretty meaningless paragraph opener, signifying "okay, let's deal with this" — as in "Now then, what's this all about?"

Wow, candy has so much sugar! I had forgotten some ingredient for tonight's dinner and asked my husband to stop at the shop on his way home. That was a mistake. He came home with the ingredient and a bag of assorted candies and chocolates. He was so proud of himself... Candy is not something I ever really buy and I do all the shopping. Best thing to sweet snacks I shop are honey sesame thingies. I bake often, but I don't add much sugar. When I tried one of the punch taste chocolates the husband brought home, I felt like someone just lit a fuse inside my head or injected me with something. Wow, waaaaay too much sugar!