The totally off-topic thread

[JessicaTam]

One of the great child actors, in many movies with Judy Garland.
Sadly another Hollywood great is gone..... but not forgotten.

Nine decades of entertaining. He will be sadly missed.

 

[JessicaTam]

I don't laugh. I struggle to understand the comments they put on jobs explaining the investigation they have done or the investigation they want done. It gives me a headache trying to read it.

And then you see them yapping to each other in foreign tongue in lunch room. It can't hurt to try and improve their English. Can it?

Which reminds me. I need to practice my Thai for an important event in June!

What is 'fore!' in Thai?

 

[JohnK]

What is 'fore!' in Thai?

Same same. :mrgreen:

 

[Hvr]

Same same. :mrgreen:

A very useful phrase in Thai.

 

[Buzzard]

Or even a sentence?

I didn't see the report but wonder if they were new to Australia and English was their second or even third language?

Sometimes those of us with English as our first and often only language laugh as what seem to be incomprehensible comments. Yet English ranks right up there with the tonal languages such as Mandarin to learn properly.

Hearing them speak with Aussie accents makes me think they are not new to Oz.
Listening to them makes me think they are poorly educated, but I could be wrong.

 

[JohnK]

A very useful phrase in Thai.

One of the most common Thai phrases and it was easy to learn.

Don't confuse it with the 'same same but different' phrase! :mrgreen:

 

[drron]

Sometimes it can be useful to know a few words in a foreign language.
We were in Singapore in the early 80s.I was doing Japanese at Uni as part of my mid life crisis.
We were in a jewellers and mrsdrron had her heart set on a bracelet.She was told it was ~ $750.
But the jeweller had obviously rung the wholesaler-numbers were the same sound as the Japanese so when he told us the price I said -'but on the phone you said $230".
Boy did the mood change.Tremendous loss of face and mrsdrron was very pleased with the very much lower purchase price.Silly fellow thought I understood Chinese of whatever dialect he was speaking!

 

[JohnK]

Silly fellow thought I understood Chinese of whatever dialect he was speaking!

LOL. If I am not mistaken numbers in Thai sound the same in Cantonese.

 

[QF WP]

Could smell it a mile away. Very unpleasant.

Very happy you got out and it wasn't serious. Many here would be devastated if something happened to you.

 

[Julesmac]

I agree. I wonder how our attempts at languages where sounds are all important must actually translate to locals.

But, when people born in Australia as second generation Australians massacre our language then this is what does my head in.

Often it's ignorance and/or laziness. Grammar and sentence structure hasn't been taught in schools for years. Spellcheck only fixes errors in spelling (well, sometimes) but not errors in comprehension. God forbid anyone should actually look up a word in an actual dictionary - well they can't, because they haven't a clue how to spell either. 'Shammy' written in the paper rather than 'chamois' springs to mind as a particularly fine example.

 

[Robbi]

Often it's ignorance and/or laziness. Grammar and sentence structure hasn't been taught in schools for years. Spellcheck only fixes errors in spelling (well, sometimes) but not errors in comprehension. God forbid anyone should actually look up a word in an actual dictionary - well they can't, because they haven't a clue how to spell either. 'Shammy' written in the paper rather than 'chamois' springs to mind as a particularly fine example.

I get to see shockers every day in our various workgroup Daily Reports, some of which are directly transmitted to Ministers and Regulators without editing. I shake my head, but they're the dumb coughs, not me

My Ministerial responses and Parliamentary Questions are impeccable in contrast

 

[Shelf]

My Ministerial responses and Parliamentary Questions are impeccable in contrast

Ugh - Ministerials, such a waste of time

 

[JohnK]

Why is it when you are down everyone lines up for their turn to put the boot in?

 

[drron]

Well just wait a minute until I put my boot on please.

 

[Robbi]

Why is it when you are down everyone lines up for their turn to put the boot in?

It's always the safest time

If you are a top/successful bloke it's an opportunity for the jealous types to cut you down to size (tall poppy syndrome), if you are a bully it's an opportunity for the bullied to get a boot in while it's safe.

But I am not a psychologist...

 

[anat0l]

Often it's ignorance and/or laziness. Grammar and sentence structure hasn't been taught in schools for years. Spellcheck only fixes errors in spelling (well, sometimes) but not errors in comprehension. God forbid anyone should actually look up a word in an actual dictionary - well they can't, because they haven't a clue how to spell either. 'Shammy' written in the paper rather than 'chamois' springs to mind as a particularly fine example.

Probably given the same spiel many times now.

I'm not sure about all of you who may see this through the eyes of your kids who are going through the current school system, but for me, sentence structure and grammar was not taught as a matter of theory. It was more something that was taught subtly as part of other language assessment, e.g. spelling tests, writing essays. Occasionally in primary school, we had punctuation drills and parts of speech identification quizzes.

In high school, however, the English curriculum is centred around genre and devices. For example, brochures, campaigns, advertising, English literature, humour, crime, literary critique, letter writing, story plots. Again, there is no specific instruction in grammar and sentence structure. You were certainly penalised in your assessment if grammar and sentence structure didn't hit the mark, but often you would learn about this stuff by either (a) asking the teacher when pulled up in class (hopefully before an exam), or (b) using a self-directed learning book which helped to identify and rectify common English errors in grammar.

The interesting bit about dictionaries is that it was flagged to us when we were younger in that it was supposed to help us spell, which I found weird as you can't find a word if you don't know how to spell it (it might have been OK if your guess was not far off, but if you're way off track you had no chance). Apart from that, dictionaries still have a place - so do thesauruses - but trust if anyone knows how to use them properly. Another thing not taught well in school - the subtlety between synonyms and why this is important.

These days, outside of academia and some professions where written communication is critical, the general public - at least in Australia - doesn't care really about your attention to competency in numeracy and literacy. As long as you can string something to be understood, refinement is unimportant. Ever been branded a Grammar naz_ before? How many people actually care about being competent in maths, especially when calculators are now readily available? I think this is reflected in the curriculum - society would rather see people who can throw words together in a variety of situations, rather than care about how accurately they can do this. (There is merit to this argument - it is no good learning about sentence structure theory - simple vs compound, subjects and predicates, and so on - if one doesn't also understand the subtleties of how to compose a report, a news article, a story with a plot, etc.)

Is it a sad testament to our society?

For what it's worth, I'm only glad for spell check because, 95% of the time, it picks up on my silly typos. But for most publications, it is re-read again carefully for spelling errors. I don't run the spell check machine. I also don't use the grammar checker.

Why is it when you are down everyone lines up for their turn to put the boot in?

So you don't feel more than one boot on your body at a time.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Sad news, RIP Peaches Geldof
http://m.bbc.com/news/uk-26931337

 

[QF WP]

Poor Bob. He has had more heartache and sorrow than most. Burying a child is the hardest thing a patent can do

 

[blackcat20]

Very happy you got out and it wasn't serious. Many here would be devastated if something happened to you.

Thanks my understanding is that you need quite a bit of exposure for it to kill you. I got a bit of a headache but nothing serious. Worse for men as it affects male fertility...

 

[Pushka]

...Burying a child is the hardest thing a parent can do

Yes. It's just against the natural order of things.