Monday, 22 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Help; Benefits of Blog
Friday, 19 February 2010
Unusual: What's not there?
you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and
plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing
is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think
about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at
it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Scottish Language and Accents
Last week I stayed in a ski chalet in France with 5 other men. All the men were from Scotland, and frankly I had difficulty understanding them and I was concerned that I may return to the UK speaking with a Scottish accent.
I don't really know the difference between an accent and a dialect. I thought that if different words were used for exactly the same meaning, it was a dialect. If so, in this case it was a dialect. For example, for the word “No” the guys said “Nay”.
It may not have been a dialect even, it may have been another language. I do speak some French and if they had been speaking that language I would possibly have understood more.
I probably didn't understand one word in three and at first had to keep asking them to repeat themselves. This they did, a repetition of the phrase exactly, so I still didn't understand. They must have thought I was dense or deaf. Maybe I am?
We had 2 chalet girls looking after us and lo and behold, Sophie quickly admitted that she was born and spent her early years in Scotland. There was an English Chalet girl, Jess, so I wasn't totally alone. I asked Sophie if the Scots could understand me and she affirmed that they could. I can't really follow that logic, can anyone explain?
The five guys did not live in the same areas of Scotland and it was pointed out to me that I wasn't the only one who couldn't understand, at times, they could't understand each other, ie the Glaswegians could not understand the Aberdonians.
To complicate matters of the 6 men, 3 were called Michael,..... I think ….
