Monday, 22 February 2010

BlogWriter

This is merely a test. This blog post is produced using an iPhone "app", BlogWriter

Sunday, 21 February 2010

Help; Benefits of Blog


I've been asked to give a presentation to a group of senior citizens about “ Benefits of New Technology”.

The person who asked me to do this said that this blog was an example of such a benefit.

I have my own ideas but what do you think I should include? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Friday, 19 February 2010

Unusual: What's not there?

This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious as to just how quickly
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

Several years ago a lady friend of ours spent 6 months in Zimbabwe. She returned with Southern African accent, which stayed with her for a year or so, gradually diminishing.

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 ….