Time elasticity

For a very long time I was convinced I had a problem with my time. I kept saying 'I have not enough time'. But I actually had much time and I did a lot of things. My time perception was an obvious contradiction. I went on further with the subject and I found out that my problem was 'time management' or 'time administration' if you will. At that point I started to being concerned on how good or bad I was in managing my time. I gave a little more thought on that and I came across with a further question. Should I have good time management whenever or simply should I have good time whenever? Great question and great finding! Now I know 'my answer'. I care about having good time, whenever possible.

I came back from Scotland on July, 2nd. I thought I will publish a comment and a couple of photos. But I did nothing so far. Is this due to poor time management? I'm afraid it is not...

Now my time for this blogg is over. My comments on Scotland may come at a later time. But since one image equals to one thounsand words here you may see two photos which I believe are quite typical of that country.

End of course and 'mojito' galore

I'm the older of our class but believe me yesterday I had a great time and fun with all of you.

In my opinion the most brilliant contribution to the party was the ‘mojitos’ brought and prepared by Guillen. Great idea!

Thanks Felicity. I would like to have you as teacher wherever I might attend another English course. May be even a Catalan course because yesterday we realized your excellent level of our language.

I want to say to you, my classmates, that I’ve been very pleased to meet you all and you are very nice both women and men.

Oh!, I was about to forget that I owe you a big debt. May be difficult to quantify in Euros but it is a rather big debt anyway. I just checked my ‘internal calendar’ and apparently during the course my birth date shifted some ten years forward. That could explain why I feel quite younger in the evening party at the Can Vidalet gardens. It’s your influence!

I really wish to see you again. Good luck to all of you!

Lunfardo

I was aware of the word 'Lunfardo'. But I didn't know its meaning and the sort of slang that it is behind this word.
From a very long time ago my opinion is that the more you pay attention to anything the more you get aware of everything.
I recalled the above concept when I read the Carla's 'Lunfardo' explanation. I knew the word although I didn't know the meaning just because the word Lunfardo is within the lyrics of a Joaquin Sabina's song. There you are!
I felt another point of interest from the Lunfardo and Cockney existence. Can we imagine the variety of languages, dialects and slangs worldwide? If these days we met two slangs can we reckon how many hundreds or even thousands may be around the world?
The world of languages to me is actually fascinating.
I made a quick search based on Unesco data and found that currently in the world there are some 6,000 languages (dialects and other variations not accounted). Out of that number roughly 50% are in danger of disappearance before the end of this century!!! We may believe it or not but this has been stated for long time by bodies not directly political driven. And the studies supporting this were made by very qualified linguistics professionals.
If the former information is not enough think on the following: more than 200 languages have died in the last three generations elapsed time. And currently 538 languages are in 'critical situation' plus 502 in 'serious danger'.
A desolating panorama, don't you think so?

Cockney rhyming.

Hello everybody,

This week I’ve been quite busy and most of it I was out of my Barcelona home. I did nothing related to English or at least related to our English class. Please, Felicity don’t be upset because by now you know how much I like English and how much I enjoy your course (don’t you hear some violins in the background?).

Now, justa few minutes before our May, 31st class I’m writing this post. I’ll bring a hard copy to the class because it is physically impossible for you to read it on internet.

Going to the cockney rhyming I must confess that I’m not yet sure on how it works. My question is the following. Should one or the two words on the left have some sort of relation (meaning) with the ‘single’ one (on the right)? Or the two words might be whatever you want and the only ‘condition’ is that when you say both together the ending phoneme must rhyme with the ending phoneme of the word on the right?

I’ll put my question in another way: the relation between ‘left’ and right’ is somewhat conceptual or it is simply phonetic?

outside ÷ easy = busy
awake ÷ frog = blog
brave ÷ peak = speak
below ÷ around = underground
chemistry ÷ dove = love
twelve ÷ wealth = health

And here’s another one which I feel is closer to the way we use rhyming than the way cockney does.

no homework ÷ no writing = no exercising

End of the post.

English Social Classes

I found in the Montse’s Blog a description of an 'English class test'. It is very interesting, illustrative and funny. I wasn't aware about most of the 'class indicators' Montse explained so well.

After reading Montse’s comprehensive ‘report’ I put myself an immediate question. What is my reaction to the English classes (EC) endless subject?

I love English language and I love many features of the English way of thinking and behaving. I love many English traditions too. It could be almost said that I am an English culture fan. In addition I worked close with many English people and I spent some leisure time with some of them too.

After all here is my honest opinion about the EC subject. I’m not referring to the test but the actual social class pattern.

Being a foreigner I feel very little sensitive to EC. My level of English language is far from being able to differentiate between subtle accents and vocabulary diferences. Even more important is that not leaving in the country makes me look at the EC as a theme belonging to some classical black & white films rather to real life. And my last view is that if for any reason one of us had to live in the UK, according the current times he or she would be appraised fundamentally by what he or she was and did rather than his or her accent, wealth level or specific manners.

I don’t think I’m too much naïve. And I know that in England as in many countries there are still strong social segments closed and conservative. They try to keep their privileges and they look down on other lower segments. But modern times and ECONOMY are imposing an unstoppable trend to dismantle those unfair and even ridiculous positions. I don’t care much about social classes even if they are English. My natural reaction in front of people believing they are upper-whatever (like our Spanish rich-pijos) is to laugh at their faces.

At least that’s what I honestly think.

Girona’s Flowers Week (Unique in the World-probably-)

Yesterday I went to Girona. I visited most of the old town. The town has an old tradition consisting in making a great number of design sets of flowers and plants. The designs consist in sets of hundreds of flowers, plant leaves and some artificial materials. This is something very difficult to describe. Photographs can give some idea. But I would dare to say that these days the ‘Girona’s Flowers Week’ is something unique. This week is a ‘must’ for people who like flowers –thousands of flowers- arts and beauty.

Every year during this week many privet yards (‘patis’) of the very old houses are opened for visitors and inside you can see incredibly beautiful floral sets. The floral designs are different in every site and they are made by garden centers, plant shops, design schools, associations and groups of students. Some of the monumental sites within the historical center show some of the bests floral sets. If you plan to visit this unique sort of flower exhibition you should not miss the Arab Baths and a couple of the towers of the old walls. Other public buildings like churches, City Hall, are equally fitted with those beautiful and original flower sets.

The visit interest is strongly enhanced by the fact that a part of the old town it used to be the Hebrew ‘district’, now called ‘call’ in Catalan. The Hebrews living there –and those living everywhere else in Spain- were driven out from the country by the sadly well known Spanish Catholic Kings in 1,492. The same year that Cristóbal Colón reached the New World. The current ‘call’ is much the same as it was at that time. But during these days you may visit the inside of some of those houses and see the incredible stone walls, arches, cistern reservoirs, etc. To me it is always striking to realize how few and small windows those stone houses had. Those people lived in almost dark rooms and consequently their main source of light was just oil lamps.

I’m inserting a few photos to better illustrate that event. I hope you’ll like them. If you haven’t been there yet think of going some year. You won’t regret your decision.

See you next Thursday!

Places vs Photography Gallery

Two classmates and our gentle English boss made some comments on the photographs published within my last blog. I had no intention as to organize a game or a quiz but rather to have an excuse, as I do usually, to write a subject in English.

But Lydia took it seriously and wrote the names of the places depicted in the photos. She was more than great! She must have a special gift for sites recognition because she succeeded in identifying all places including the two more difficult ones. I thought those two photos could be known only by Carla or anyone else having been in Argentina.

Also Montse wrote a comment which I found it to be very nice. Apparently she likes lighthouses and she felt curious about the one you may see in my photo.

So I'm going to list right away the places of the photographs. I will list them in the same order appearing in my post. Here they are,

Cala Aiguablava (Costa Brava)

Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, US)

Colosseo Romano (Roma)

Hoi Han (Vietnam)

Peterhof Palace (St. Petersburg, Russia)

Una bodeguita (La Habana)

Mountain train (Switzerland)

El Ateneo bookshop (Buenos Aires)

Chichen Itza Pyramid (Yucatan Peninsule, Mexico)

Bangkok (Thailand)

Lighthouse (Argentina) SEE EXPLANATION BELOW

India (place not identified)

Blue Mosque (Istanbul, Turkey)


Last but not least:

Huge dish of 'rice with lobster', prepared by 'cheff' Miguel. (Miguel, not Miquel!)

Restaurant's name: Miguel, el Rey del Cabrito (sic)

Location: Palafrugell (Girona)

Comment: '10 star' Michelin, providing you don't expect any luxury
and you're rather ready to the noise made by customers and fumes
from kitchen.

However, dishes are obscenely large and tasteful!!! (and cost is very, very reasonable)

Comments on Argentinian photos:

The bookshop 'El Ateneo' in Buenos Aires used to be an old large classical theater. When the theater was closed the building was reconditioned as a bookshop. As you may see this is a very especial bookshop. Because of its layout and esthetics but also because you're allowed to take any book from the shelves and read it seated in a box for as much time as you want. And eventually you may leave the book back in the shelve without having to buy it. Furthermore the stage is now a 'cafeteria' were you can also read the book you like while having a drink or coffe for as long as you wish. That's a great bookshop, isn't it?

The name of the lighthouse is 'Les Eclaireurs'. This is a French name which means 'The explorers'. This lighthouse is in 'Tierra del Fuego' in the very south of the Argentinian Patagonia. It is situated in a tiny island on the Beagle Channel, very close of the Ushuaia town which is the closest town to Antarctica in the world. Many people there call this lighthouse as 'El faro fin del mundo' (The end of the world lighthouse). Ushuaia and the surroundings is one of the actual fascinating places one can visit worldwide. There it is easy to feel you are still in one of the few 'end of the world' places.

Argentina is a country full of places that can be qualified as the Michelin guides state: 'Worth the travel'.

The Buenos Aires bookshop and the 'End of the World Lighthouse' are clearly among those which 'Worth the travel'.

See you next Thursday!

Photography quiz

I have a friend who works as web manager of an organization. He knows almost everything about internet. I’m in the opposite side as far as internet is concerned. A few days ago talking with him I mentioned that in our class we have opened blogs as tools to facilitate our English course. He then told me that blogs may be used for a much broader scope.

If you like photography you can use one of the many free available sites online to store your photos and you may even manage them. Having done that it is possible and easy to produce your own photo galleries in your blog. By doing this way you’re able to insert in your blog photos of large size which can be shared or exchange with other people.

I will make a ‘mini’ photo gallery right in this blog just as an excuse to keep on writing English.

Now here is ‘my’ quiz. I’m going to insert a few photos from different countries or places. I won’t write down the names of those places. So if you like, guess from which contries/places/towns are the photographs of the mini gallery.

Just a clarifying note before I carry on my post. What I'm doing in this very post (same as what I attempted to do in all others) is just an excuse for doing my aim and only aim which is writing in English. I'm not trying to keep any real sense or any degree of consistency. In few words I'm just playing a game. The game is all about practising English!

The photographs are coming right away. Some show an easy clue to be identified. And two may be identified only by one of our class mates. If this person happens to see them I think he or she might be glad but nostalgic.

If this post were a game two good things would have been part of it. One is that no answers are expected. That's good, isn't it? The other is the last picture. That is a great unforgettable course! As you can see it's a tray much bigger than an ordinary dish, with 'arroç amb llamàntol' = 'arroz con bogavante' = 'rice with lobster' (actually a crustacean of the lobster family). As an exception of this game answers might be given for that picture. An special prize will be awarded to those that might be able to identify town and restaurant's name.

I will be more than happy to let anyone interested know some information on that place.

To be or not to be... Lost

Hello dear mates and readers,

At the beginning of our English course Felicity made us some suggestions on books and films we might read/see to practice the language. Regarding films she focused on humour TV series being consistent with one of the course subjects. Do you know what I did? I was dramatically inconsistent with the point since I started watching the TV series ‘Lost’ (Perdidos) which doesn’t meet any of the Felicity’s reasonable suggestions. What a mistake! The ‘Lost’ series is meant to be one of the most addictive series on TV. It’s a real thriller. And watching it is quite likeable since it leaded by a bunch of incredibly beautiful actors (women and men too!) all filmed in a luxurious nature which is supposed to be a remote tropical paradise-like non-inhabited island (the island is actually Hawaii which is not that bad anyway). But those episodes don’t meet any of the three basic criteria I guess Felicity was suggesting.

One. There’s no humour at all. Neither English humour nor anywhere else humour.

Two. There’s very little English culture in that series. With the exception of the accents of two characters the rest are typically American. The characters supposedly from Great Britain are an English guy who played the bass in a Rock band and a Scottish man which is not yet clear to me what he was doing before he got ‘lost’ except that he used to run Marathon races. Everything in that series is ‘American’. People’s talking, reactions, believes, violence, everything is American.

Three. ‘Last but not least’ is the language spoken in the films. Ah, my friends. This is a great series to learn the English (American) that is likely we won’t hardly need to use in most circumstances. What do I mean? Imagine a group people under limit situations. Imagine them surrounded by mysteries, dead threads and not able to trust anybody around them. No matter whether they spoke Russian, English or Swahili the question is ‘how’ would they be speaking most of the time? Educated language? Family language? Work language? No, obviously not. They speak fast as a lightning, using all kind of down-the-road (am I using right this expression?) language and all sort of odd words, at least within my English knowledge.

A few examples of what I’m saying are: buddy, gizmo, ‘you’re a dump hick!’, nutter, hatch, latch, ‘he is a jinx’, ‘a deranged woman’, ‘you’re mad at me’, piss off!, dude, sodding, ‘to drive someone nuts’, ‘how long was your last fix?’, clout, etc.

Do you want me to sum up my ‘Lost’ experience? Terrific! No more coffee. No more non sleep pills needed! One gets trapped to the episodes rightaway. You just can’t quit them so you stop sleeping, eating, working and…STUDYING ENGLISH. Our course falls into pieces!

I made a big mistake. I waste a lot of time on watching ‘Lost’. No English learned except indispensable words like ‘dude’, ‘gizmo’, ‘jinx’… Now I feel sad. I apologize to whom it may concern. Please don’t do the same mistake. Don’t follow my wrong path. BUT my friends, ‘Lost’ made me HAVE A GREAT TIME and as a not intended bonus I GOT A DEGREE on how to survive in tropical islands. Is all summed up that bad? May be it is but just in case it is not, does anyone know how I can get a tomorrow’s flight to the… Seychelles Islands?

Digital Clock (Tempus Fugit)

This clock is not part of an exercise on English. But I happened to find it in a website which has lots of different clocks and I decided to paste it in my blog. The website offers for free all kind of clocks including many fancy ones.

Special (and instructive) exercise.

I wanted to challenge myself by trying to write a story with one condition (constraint?). The condition was that I should write the story using no other English than the English I know. That means I should not use English from anywhere else than my head. Also my PC word spelling would be not in use.

*************************

So here is the story. A few months ago I was driving on the side road of the AP7 Motorway. Traffic was very few and I was driving just slowing down because I was about to leave that road. Suddenly I heard a strong noise. It was like if my car had crashed a truck part, a stone or anything hard enough. After the crash I waited a few seconds for any unusual vibration or noise. Since everyhting was fine I didn't stop and carry on driving.

Just after those seconds a car passed by my side, slowed down and one of the two men in that car opened his window and started strongly gesticulating to me. Helpful people, weren’t they? The man was pointing at below my car and making undoubtful gests meaning my car was having something wrong and serious somewhere in its lower part. And more important, he was also making clear indications which meant I should immediately stop my car at the road’s side.

Have you got any idea what was all about? I was very fortunate. I did know what was all about! A friend of mine had had the same situation a few months before an he told me.

I guess there’s no need for me to tell you what actually was happening. But I’ll tell you what I did right when the fellow was asking me to stop. Do you rmember when Felicity opened her paper notes block and the two images shown?. One was a bird and the other was basically a gest, weren’t they? OK, I did two simultaneous things. I clearly made a gest, image no.2 like to them and I kept driving relaxed an absolutely convinced that my car had no break down at all.

When ‘my friends’ soon realized I had not bitten their bait they make themselves disappear among the other cars on the road. And when I reach the place I was driving to I inspected the back of the body of my car and close to the booth’s lid it was (and still is!) a clear impact produced by a hard object thrown by someone.

I think some time later the police cought a gang which was doing quite professionally rubberies of cars in main Motorways in the Vallès area.

If you wiil the moral might be:: if your car makes a noise when driving get ready to be scared either by your garage invoice or by thieves willing to sell the car somewhere out of the EU.

Happy end (Part one)

This is the happy end story of Francesc, Pilar, Luciano and Daniella. (Part one)

Here is another story about colleagues that fortunately end up nicely. Let me tell you right away. This is a happy end story. And most of it is real and true. For privacy respect names of the main characters have been changed as well as some other details for the same reason.

The story began in 1974. At that time my brother Francesc worked as freelance. He was a draftsman and he had very good skills in other arts related fields like painting and modelling. Most of his work was to make projects on the scenery involved in large housing developments.

Just by accident, he had a new work opportunity and he became part of a huge project. Catalana de Gas was merging with an Italian gas company which was rather back in technology and social awareness. They planned to build near Milano brand new premises which should include an industrial plant, head office buildings and a sports and recreational area for their employees and visitors. However there was a big issue about that plan. The company had already acquired the land for the project but it was right in a huge agricultural region with no precedent of industrial plants.

The company organized a team of specialists in order to make a project that would please all stakeholders (writers note: don’t mistake with ‘stockholders’) and eventually obtain the authorities approval. Here came in to play Francesc. It was felt that how it would look the gas complex would be essential in being accepted or rejected. And therefore the company hired Francesc to do this part of the project. It was expected from him to lead the project on what was called ‘respectful & scenery environmental plant’. This concept turned out quickly as RSEP, as it would be expected from any trying-to-be multinational company.

Once explained the frame of this story we move on my brother Francesc. In 1974, by early winter he was about to fly to Italy for the first time. He agreed with his managers that he was going to be in the place of construction one week out of two during a year roughly. The lands were close to the little town Moscazzano (Mzzo) which is some 50 kilometers south from Milano. One Monday Francesc took the plane in Barcelona and he asked himself who would be at Milano’s airport to pick him to the nearest hotel in Mzzo.

(To be continued)

Do Blogs Make Feel Something Else?

Having opened a blog is proving an excellent method to write in English providing you have time, indeed. I don’t think I would have written all I wrote these weeks if I had only my computer or even worse, an old-fashioned paper notebook. I wonder why is this. What makes a blog different in inducing to writers some sort of stimulation? In short I think the answer is just one word: PUBLICATION. When we write in a blog we know that text is going to be ‘published’. So what? you may say. Well, let’s be honest and try to find out an explanation. Did you see someone who just by chance appeared on TV for a fraction of a second on the far background? Or perhaps his/her name was incidentally mentioned in a newspaper? How his/her face looked like? His/her face looked with an ear to ear smile or with a not well dissimulated satisfaction. Why is this? Because getting notorious is rewarding for many people even in cases which notoriety might be very small and ephemeral.

If my reasoning makes sense, when you write in your blog you know intellectually your text is going to be read only by a very few number of readers. BUT emotionally (should I say ‘psychologically’?) you get the feeling that your text is on ‘the net’, which means everywhere and therefore it is ‘published’. Some little part of yourself moved from being private (anonymity) to being public (notoriety).

Of course, some people will agree, some will disagree. Don’t take my speculation seriously. It is just an excuse that enabled me to write in English. I wanted to make some practice in a let’s say formal style.

Oh!, I forgot saying that in case you decided to vote my ‘thesis’ I will count first votes favourable. Regarding the ‘others’ (like in the TV series, LOST) they will be qualified as dangerous, nasty and not deserving to be taken into consideration. The thing I love most is… justice, isn't it?

Translation of Thoughts

A long time ago I decided to collect certain sentences. In my computer I started a list which I called ‘Thoughts’ because I was interested in sentences expressing thoughts. Not thoughts from myself but thoughts said or written by no matter who. I decided to put in the list all kind of thoughts providing I just liked them. I took no specific theme or subject for selecting 'my’ thoughts. Some of them have well known authors. Others have not. Even a few are anonymous.

I never intended to gather those thoughts according to a consistent political, philosophical or just vital line. There’s one and only one common denominator in my ‘Thoughts’ collection. I like them all. I currently have some 350 thoughts.

I ‘thought’ it would be an interesting English exercise for me to translate a few of them. That might be not so easy since some of the Thoughts use language related to abstract concepts and/or short sentences with deep complex meaning. Here is a sample of my collection after my English translation (My original list is written only in Castillian or Catalan). I would highly appreciate your comments on how the following translations 'sound'.

* * * * * * *



Creativity is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. (Thomas A. Edison)

Our big mistake is trying to get from every individual the virtues he/she hasn’t got. However we neglect developing the virtues individuals have got. (Margerite Yourcenar)


Some men fight one day. They are good men. Some fight one year. They are better men. Some fight many years. They are much better men. But some fight all their lives: those are essential men. (Bertold Brecht)


The difference between what we do and what we could do would be enough to overcome most world’s problems. (Gahdhi)


Every language is a source of culture and the extinction of one language –which is a mankind’s heritage- is the failure of all societies. (Isabel-Clara Simó)


Some loves in life just can’t be forgotten,
undeletable times our heart keeps forever,
cause something that made us shiver of joy
can’t be replaced at present by a new love. (Julio Gutierrez)


The world has changed much more in the last one-hundred years than in any previous century. The reasons for that have not been the politics or economics new ideas but the fundamental developments fostered by the progress of the basic sciences. (Stephen Hawking)


Imposing is nonsense. Convincing is glorious. (Victor Hugo)


Forget Gods, Religions and Death. You are living in this life: be happy by administering its pleasures. (Epicure, IV BC)


Mediocrity is always a thread to us. We should beat it. If we don’t like our life we should improve it or give it a new dimension. (Kenzaburo Oé)

I can’t believe I’m getting a decoration. I thought one should be driving tanks or wining wars to get such a thing. (John Lenon)


The word ‘progress’ has no meaning while there might be unhappy children. (Albert Einstein)

If you don’t want to get replaced by a machine do not behave like one of them. . (Arno Penzias)
[Penzias is a physicist who together with his colleague, Wilson, hey detected a faint low radiation in the Universe that proved the Big-Bang hypothesis. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1978]


A weak mind is like a microscope: it enlarges trivial things but can’t see the big ones. (Lord Chesterfield)

___________________________________________________________________


Two Greeks (in Parthenon’s times) are discussing. It’s good we don’t know their names. Their discussion is on an abstract subject. Sometimes they refer to myths which they don’t believe. They don’t argue. And they don’t either want to persuade each other nor to be persuaded by the other. To win or lose is out of their scope.

They agree in just one thing. They know that discussion is the impossible path to reach truth. Since they are free from the myth or the metaphor, they do think or they do try to think.

That discussion between two unknown men somewhere in Greece is an essential fact of our history. They forgot the prayer and the magic. (Jorge Luís Borges)
___________________________________________________________________

How old am I? Age doesn’t exist: everyone decides what age is willing to have. (Giovanni Reale)


Raise your son/daughter with a bit of hunger and a bit of cold. (Chinese proverb)


If you’re able to measure what you’re talking about, if you can say that by means of a number, then you may think you know something. . (William Thompson, known as Lord Kelvin)


God helps those who help themselves. (Charles Chaplin)


I got the feeling of living in a stupid world where it is only expected from you to buy many things and have grandchildren who will buy many things too. (Mario Camus)


Beauty depend one half on the scenery and one half on who contemplates it. (Lin Yutang)

________________________________________________________________
Translation #1

The worst thing some people ignore
is they are ignorants.

Translation #2 (more straight forward from original)

The worst thing some people do not know
is they do not know.

(Adolfo Bioy Casares -terrible statement-)
__________________________________________________________________



Happiness is made of little things. A little mansion, a little yatch, a little fortune… (Grouxo Marx) [Do you, Felicity, own the same sort of ‘littles’?]


What makes a true intelligence is the ability to deal with contradictory facts. (Scott Fitzgerald)


I adore Mankind though people make me feel bursting. (Susanita, Mafalda’s friend)

* * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Yes, Minister (nuclear weapons concern)

I watched a couple of chapters of the TV series, Yes, Minister.

Here is a short cut of a discussion between the Minister and his adviser Sir. Humphrey. They are discussing the issue of nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union threat.

Minister (says): They probably certainly know (referring to the Soviet Union)


Sir Humphrey (replies): Yes, Minister, but they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn’t, they don’t certainly know that although you probably wouldn’t there’s no probability that you certainly would.


I find Humphrey's repply very funny just from a language perspective and regardless its actual meaning. The way English is allows Humphrey to say a quite long sentence using only two times one single verb (know) and building up the sentence just by fulfilling it with a brilliant play of 'would', 'certainly' and 'probably'. Sometimes I believe English is a Lego-like language and I love it!

I took deliberatly that sentence as an obviuos example of what I liked to bring to debate. A language like English is what I call a 'powerful' language. A language using few words and little declinations and conjugations, say little grammar, but able to accurately communicate both sophisticated technology and conceptual abstraction.

But on top of that, isn’t Humphrey’s talk very funny, anyway?

(Note: From what I've heard about chinese language it may be extremely powerful. Is it going to be another threat to the English-using Western powers?)

The Story of Mr. Bird

I intended to write a short story. I realized it was going to be hard for me. My imagination is strictly limited to topics which I’m very enthusiastic (birds and dicks are not among those). When I write something out of them I get lost and I don’t know how to end my story. I’m asking you your understanding because my story deals little about birds, is too long and it is little fun in it.

The story is ninety-five percent fiction and five percent real. I actually had an Englishman friend whose name was K.J.H. Bird. He was an Engineer and he spoke good French and some Spanish. For many years he was Research & Development Mgr. of acompany producing feeder equipment. Right from when we met we got along very well. It’s ten years since I don’t hear from him and he doesn’t from me. I feel sad for that.

Mr. K.J.H. Bird and his site www.bird.uk

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My English friend Ken, who is sixty-four was living in Watford which is a town North of London rather close to it. His full name is Kenneth J. K. Bird. He is very friendly and he speaks very good French and some Spanish as well. When he was a boy his parents realized he was very clever and his mind was surprisingly what we would call multidisciplinary. He showed interest for many different matters. By the time he was ready to go to the university he had made a strong determination. He would study two careers simultaneously. So he did. He choose English philology and believe it or not he also choose Automotive engineering.

After a couple of years in the university he proved to be right in his decision since he had excellent marks in most subjects of both studies. So he went on and he finished achieving Master degrees both in Philology and Engineering.

After graduation Ken started looking for a job and he got married with Charlize. Since engineering offered by far more job possibilities Ken forgot philology and joined a company producing chemical feeder equipment. He was brilliant and effective in his job and soon got a promotion to the position of Research & Development Manager.

By that time I was working in a company which was a ‘sister’ of Ken’s company. Right from when we first met we got along very well and professionally we shared most views. We used to meet several times every year. We saw each other in meetings and in a fewer occasions when he and his family came to Mallorca and stopped a day or two in Barcelona. Ken looked to me like the perfect paradigm of an Englishman. I got no idea how I looked to him. I strongly hope I didn’t look to him like the perfect paradigm of the Spanish torero. But we understood each other like if we were from the same nationality and our relation and esteem was very profound.

More than twenty years went on and unexpectedly Ken’s company was sold to the Unilever Anglo-Dutch group. After some months of uncertainty he secured his position and succeed in getting a further promotion.

His new job made him to travel on business throughout Europe. He had to get used to different, sometimes odd English accents and syntax of his colleagues from most countries in the continent. Complete sentences, comments and even jokes were said using English words but they had little if any sense when listened by an English native listener. Reversing those observations and retrieving some of his philology knowledge Ken slowly began feeling much interest in all that rich and complex world of languages. Humour talking was the more exciting part to him.

Six years later Unilever was in financial trouble and they set up a program of costs reductions and personnel dismissal. Ken was asked to go on an early retirement and a very good compensation package was offered to him. He felt sad and disappointed the first twenty-four hours. However next day he saw the sun shining as never before. He run to the company’s HHRR office and signed his resignation trying to hide his exultant mood. He felt free for the first time since he was at the university and in addition he could not foresee anymore personal economy worries for the rest of his live.

When Ken left his job our contact got less and less frequent. I have to say sadly that it is more than four years I have not seen him. That’s the way life is. This reminds me a short poem written by a Far Eastern poet, ‘Live is a succession of encounters and goodbyes’. From then up until now I only know brushstrokes of Ken’s story. I guess I will be able to summarize it in a consistent explanation.

Ken and his wife moved from Watford to Alfreton in the North of Nottingham. Once retired he had a lot of free time. Ken knew a lot about computers, and all internet tools and tricks. He went back to his humour hobby and thought it will be interesting to work out some internet layout dealing with European humour. He first made some tests in a limited scale among his former colleagues. When he saw the preliminary outcome of the tests he went on developing his idea of establishing a huge humour cross linked database. He set up an internet application. Currently Ken’s web has 370,000 visitors and some 7,000 regular participants. End of my story.

If you feel interested you may visit Ken’s site. His site’s address is:

www. bird.uk

The good memory readers will likely notice that Ken’s humour site’s name is just his straight own name. Although it looks like this, the name (bird) of the site is owed to his sense of humour and his predisposition to playing words.

He asked me not to disclose the actual origin of that name but I’ll do an exception for you. The Ken’s site name BIRD is an acronym. It stands for a list of four humoristic European trends.

Burlesque (France)
Ironic (England)
Rigid (Northern Europe)
Dilettante (Italy)

More on rivalry

I just saw a film called ‘Promises’. It deals with the Palestinians and Israelis conflict. The film focuses on children of both sides. It shows realistically (children are not actors but real children) their hopes and fears at different times of their life.

Even if you didn’t see it you may imagine how touching and depressing is that film.

The situation depicted by the film is hopeless. Boys and girls six or seven years are in both sides already fill up with hate and mistrust. And they’re hopeless. The paradox is that the reasons for rejecting each other are almost the same. Palestinians on one side and Israelis on the other, both are strongly convinced their God is the ‘one’, their land is theirs, justice is with them. In that non fiction film you get amazed when seing a six year boy (or girl) talking about land possession and history with more conviction than a professor would have on that subject. Why is this? Because we all live and think according to the information, education and vital experiences that we receive from our people and environment. In extreme situations this can produce tragic consequences.

In Western Europe situations tensions are much less stressed and as a consequence our thinking and attitudes may be much less dramatic. For example, in Germany someone told Lydia explicitly something about the superiority of Northern versus Southern Germans. And many Spaniards still believe wrong things (just the opposite to the reality) about Catalans. Tendentious information and political interests are beyond those topics. And, still further on, economy is, in my opinion, the very real and deepest factor that fuels (sometimes not in an obvious way) human history worldwide.

I like topics like this one but I like lighter, fresher and funnier topics too. Trying to balance the serious themes I’m looking for ‘Never mind the buzzcocks’ with Amy Winehouse. I think I will download it soon.

See you at E.O.I.

Quite simple learning, some irony and latin confusions.

When I was a young man I started to read and speak English. That was some one-hundred years ago.You know the Jurassic age? I was a young man in just the next era, believe me.

Sometimes I like saying that I learned English like children do. Word by word. From the very basic. No study but much practice. And I had a secret that I'd like to share with my nice classmates. The secret was never being 'shy' and never hesitating. Use the English you know. English/Americans natives will always (99.9%) welcome your English even if it is basic and wrong (I guess like English children's is).

I already wrote a note on Felicity’s blog about the topic of the English language origin versus Germanic and Romance languages. The document our teacher handed over is very very interesting. To me it’s even more than interesting it is fascinating. When reading that text I remembered a confusion in translation that may be made by student beginners.

In fact the point is that current Romance languages like French, Italian, Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish (Castilian) all come from relatively straight forward Latin. Therefore a substantial number of ‘our’ words are relatively similar in their writing or speaking to Latin English words. For instance, auxiliary (auxiliar), impression (impresión), ubiquitous (ubicuo), etc.

But every word is not that much easy. When Spanish people (the same as Italians, etc.) come across a Latin English word tend to believe that its meaning is the same as their own similar word. This is the case for many words. But there are many as well that changed their meaning with time passing.

What happens is that once a language is born its words start to evolve (a bit according to Darwin’s laws) and their meaning and spelling lose connection with their origins.

To explain the above let me make a hypothetical example. Let’s take the Latin adjective ‘minusculus’ (small, tiny). Suppose that at certain time (XIth. century I think) its use was introduced in England as part of the Latin used at that time. After several centuries the word was eventually part of modern English as ‘minuscule’ (the meaning kept unchanged: small, tiny).

Latin ‘minusculus’ survived also in some Mediterranean countries. Nowadays this word do exist in French (minuscule), Italian (minuscolo), Spanish (minúsculo), Catalan (minúscul), and probably in other Romance languages. But suppose now (it is not true) that in some or all of these countries the meaning changed with time. Suppose (it is not true) that ‘minúsculo’ in Spanish currently means ‘weak’. If this was the case a low experienced Spanish student of English could understand as ‘weak’ when facing English ‘minuscule’.

To end up with a more practical information I’m writing five cases that fit into my previous comment. In my opinion these are words commonly and continuously being used in English but I would say that beginners easily fall into the trap once produced by the long-lived Latin-English-Spanish-shake.

English...............Translation by ‘intuition’................Right translation


Actually..........................Actualmente............................................En realidad, realmente

Eventually.....................Eventualmente.........................................Al final, finalmente

Consistently.................Consistentemente...................................Coherentemente, consecuentemente

Comprehensive..........Comprensivo...........................................Global, de conjunto, exhaustivo

Current.........................Corriente..................................................Actual


I’m sorry my friends. I can’t help being long and tedious when writing (not to mention when talking!).
See you on Thursday!

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My blog is on the move

Hello Felicity! Hello everybody!

Time seems to be the less available resource in our lives. I'm saying this because I can't understand why it took me so many days to become a 'follower' of our teacher's blog. Every one's personal situation is different and so are our personal options and priorities. But I think below that general complaint about time there are two basic explanations. We look for happiness instead of being happy and as a consequence we want to do more things than we are reasonably able to do.

I promise you something. I won't go into philosophy anymore. The theme about English history and evolution is very exiting and there's no need to drift across elusive subjects like philosophy.

You will see in this blog I put some information on general language history. I had the information already. I made a sort of summary and translation into English as a writing practice. I have some very basic information on the History of the Universe. From the very beginning (the 'Big Bang' happened 13,700,000,000 years ago) to the twentieth century. Language is part of that history. Mankind is too.

LINGUISTICS (a few points)

(Note: The story below it is not intended as 100% rigorous )

The Birth of Human Language

• The firsts human ancestors probably lived some 6 - 7 million years ago in Africa. Their anatomy and brain didn't allow them to speak and their intelligence was very limited.
  


• 3.5 - 4 million years ago evolution made to appear Hominids with larger brains. They were short height but they made a big step forward because they already walked in an upright position standing only in their feet.

In Ethiopia the remains (fossils) of a young female from that time was found. From her remains a quite realistic life size model has been made and it is shown in Barcelona's Science Museum (CosmoCaixa). The "girl" found was named "Lucy" by her discoverer after the Beattle's song.

• 2 million years ago appeared humans that made tools for the first time in our planet. This shows a tremendous progress in intelligence. But they could'n speak yet.




• Only some 100,000 years ago humans develop their anatomy and brain very close to ours and they started to speak! At the time there were Homo sapien (exactly as ourselves) and other Homo especies. The ability of speaking was in all of them. Though it is believed that at the begining humans spoke only simple basic words and their sintax was very limited.

Isn't it amazing to know that 100,000 years ago minkind was just about to speak and all current complex and rich languages come from that simple origin? Isn't it amazing that currently there are some 6,000 languages in the world? Isn't it amazing that if a language inventory along time could be made it will show many times more languages already dead? Isn't it a shame that everyday some languages from anywere in the world are dying?

The Birth of Writing

• Human evolution driven by the struggle for surviving and the environtment constraints led Homo sapiens to the need of deep selfconsciousness and the use of symbols as representations of reality and hope. About 30,000 years ago humans started "painting" walls and roofs of deep caves. They didn't live in those caves which reinforces the idea of the use of those paintings as rituals related to their practical lives. Hunting would be the main theme for them.

Once you come across the idea of drawing symbols of big events you are about to starting drawing symbols or signs as representations of all kind of things around you. When you do those representations you are actually writing. This happened some 25,000 years later.

• Humans invented writing more than 5,000 years ago.
  
  
• It is interesting to point out that four different writings were invented in four different places and at different times.

In Mesopotamia: Sumerian Logograms, 5,300 years ago

In the Nile River Valley: Hierogliphics, 5,300 years ago

In China: Ideograms, 3,400 years ago

In Central America: (the Maya culture) Glifs, 1,700 yeras ago

The Birth of the Alphabet

The very early systems of writing were complex, difficult to be learned and little practical. A logogram or hierogliphic writing uses a symbol for each object, action, concept, etc. This means that those systems have many thousands of different symbols. The lack of practicality of such systems is obvious.

A huge progress in writing is the way we write. We use our "Alphabet". By using only less than thirty signs (letters) we are able to write and infinity number of words. What is the history of the Alphabet?

• The first signs used as an alphabet were made 3,700 years ago by the Semite people at South of Palestine. They created a 15 sign alphabet since they only used consonant signs. Their writing without vowels fulfilled their language phonetics.


• It is quite interesting that the invention of writing has happened only once in mankind history. All other further alphabets came from that very first one.

• Our western alphabet comes from that old Semitic alphabet as well. It is still the same used by Romans and their Latin language. The summary of its history is:

Old Semitic --> Northern Semitic --> Phoenician -->

Greec --> Etrusc --> Latin

Murphy's Law

Do you know Murphy's Law? Most of you do. I think is relatively known over here. For some who may not know its definition is the following:
"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".

From this -pesimistic- statement there are thousand ways to say it, some in a quite funny way. One of this is: "if a toast with jam and butter spread over falls on the floor it's always the jam side the one sticking to it".

Why I brought Murphy's Law about? Because this sort of determinism happened to me just this week. I decided to by book no.3 (Adventures of English) according to Felicity's list. My decision was very strong. I like sciences and linguistics are part of science. Thus I felt that book by far suited very well my own interest. Now Mr. Murphy came into play. I went to Alibri, Casa del Libro and Come in. Guess what happened. The book is not in stock anywhere and Come in told me a delivery delay of three weeks minimum!

I gave up my expectations and I got Jeremy Paxman's "The English", which seems to be written in a language level very suited for any of us. I'm fine with this book.

See you when again?, Mr. Murphy...!

English and myself

I always liked English. Languages are very much as living systems or living beings. And like living beings you may like or dislike a language very soon after you "meet" them. English phonetics are part of the reason I do like English. It is a language with a wide range of sounds either from its vowels or from its consonants. After some time when I was more acquainted about English I realized one of the most poweful characteristics of this language. This is the abillty of English of expressing an idea, a concept or an action with very few short words. It's what I call languge efficiency. To be an efficient language it must accept a lot of flexibility in the meaning of its words. English does it and even is extremely good at creating new words as long as they are needed with changing times.

The opposite to my point on English are the latin languages. They are very good in academic environtments but they "suffer" when modern times demand them to evolve as technologies or general situations change.

This week I may have not learned much English yet. But to be honest I'm very pleased to be within the class group and Felicity. You know I can hardly remember myself in a class having other people to work with. At the very beginning of first day it was strange because I'm used to do what I want the way I want. But all people in this class look very nice and I'm also happy to see that we can work together very well since English level seems quite balanced among all of us.