A friend of mine had this exchange recently with one of his flatmates:
Mate: Why doesn’t Germany have veto powers in the UN? I mean, it’s the biggest economy in Europe, why do the Brits and France have veto and they don’t, uh?
Friend: Well, it’s because of the whole WWII thing, you know. The Allies, the Axis, that whole thing.
Mate: Uh?
The flatmate is in 3rd year in business school and one of the compulsory courses for 2nd year is XXth Century History - with a whole month dedicated to WWII. And he’d passed the course, but no, he wasn’t just having a blonde moment, he really had no idea what was my friend talking about.
Hispanic here and I find that as rude as can be when done in front of someone you know doesn’t speak the language you’re speaking in and if it’s the kind of situation where this person may want to butt in; basically, by switching to the language they understand you’re making clear that they’re not excluded from the conversation. But if you don’t know that the person there doesn’t speak Spanish (or if it really is a conversation where you don’t expect third parties to butt in, for example on the subway), then it’s fine.
In my last job my German coworkers would be speaking in German, then turn to me or another one of the non-Germans and say in English “so, what do you think about this?”. We’d have to ask “about what”, they weren’t even conscious that they’d been speaking German dangit and not English. I wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t then gone and complained that us Spaniards (a programmer and myself) and Indians (the rest of the programmers) “didn’t socialize” with them Siege, did your coworker live in Pamplona? I had a boss there who told one of my coworkers (we were 2nd tier support) “I pay you to solve problems, not to think.”
“So, where you you go to school?”
“Ah, it’s a real small place out in New Mexico.”
“Oh, wow, Mexico? You must speak really good Spanish/Can you drink the water there?/Why would you want to leave the US?/Wait, New Mexico? What’s that?/etc…”
I wish it were just one instance with one person…
I think the Mexicans not paying taxes for their first 5 years thing might come from something else I’ve heard; when you immigrate to the USA you can get government loans to start a business that are interest free for 5 years. Or so I’ve heard from 2 reputable people, I haven’t researched it myself.
Very hard to believe, but these things happen. I know someone who had friends in Austria some 20 years ago or so. Said friends were completely ignorant of the Holocaust. In fact, when they watched the movie of the same name, they were convinced it was fiction. Mind you, they were not denying it – they’d honestly never heard of it.
The clip I saw of Kellile Pickler on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Specifically, when she is asked “Budapest is the capital of what country?” Gems from the clip include: “I thought Europe was a country.” and “Well, I know they speak French there, don’t they?” also “Is France a country?” It made me cry.
I have no idea. I tried to find a cite, but how does one google a lack of a belief? Strange that some things that should be all over the Internet sometimes are not. I also could find nothing about Quebec’s Revolution of the Cradle. At least “halifax explosion” got a lot of hits. Funny how few Americans have heard of it, though.
Didn’t come up with much. I did see that in Austria now Holocaust denial is illegal and could result in jail time. Maybe that’s a sign of changing times. But I’m not talking about deniers. I’m talking about Austrians not even knowing about it at all.
I’ve only heard that from two sources, but they were reliable sources. It would be interesting to find out more.
I’m assuming that is based on Latin, and sadly my 1/2 year of Latin 2 dozen years ago did not stick. I’d promise not to make the mistake again, but I’d be lying. I will promise to try not to make the mistake again. In my defense, dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster list both spellings (American Heritage listed no plural).
An occasional use of “so” to start a sentence ain’t so bad. When every other sentence starts with “so”, and when the ones which don’t start with “and” or “like”, then we have a problem.
BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed, you’ll notice I mentioned spelling and grammar. Typing is right out.
Like I said, it’s not a “mistake” insomuch as it’s now a standard and accepted version. It rubs me the wrong way, personally, but there’s no need for you to wrap your entire writing style around my idiosyncracies.
Today (not yesterday, or the week before – just today, between 3 & 3:15 pst) I heard:
Directed at me – “What, are you Ingrid Gorbo, and vank do vee all-von? Come over here and be friendly!”
Since I am a dumbass who didn’t instantly barf on his shoes in horror (meaning the herd followed him over to my not-hidden-enough smoke-time hiding place), this was followed by such conversation as, and I quote:
“It’s too bad the blacks and mexicans don’t just stay in their own neighborhoods anymore.”
"I told him that ‘all you ay-rabs need to shut up and let me talk to an Englishman’ " (especially priceless since I got stuck taking the complaint call, and the a/p clerk to whom my idiot cow-orker was speaking just happens to be a <gasp> Brit born, raised, and currently living in fucking London, England!), and, as an valiant, but futile, attempt to change the subject when I turned purple and started sputtering –
“I hope that litter-bug Ru-Paul gets the nomination so we don’t have to vote for that woman!”
For those of you who are offended by the term cow-orker, please allow me to introduce Patty.
That may be because it wasn’t the Revolution of the Cradle, it was the Revenge of the Cradle (Revanche des berceaux). I got 16,400 hits (though most of the first 10 weren’t about Quebec, the first one was). If you google “revanche des berceaux”, you get another 540 hits, all about Quebec.
When every other sentence starts with “so”, and when the ones which don’t start with “and” or “like”, then we have a problem.