My brother, on viewing a History Channel junk science program on the 2012 doomsday crap: “It’s all true! They have SCIENTIFIC PROOF! Look the I-Ching coincides with the Mayan calendar, and they have proof of the pole-shift theory from PRINCETON. You’re an idiot for not believing it!”
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I tried to disabuse him of it by explaining what the scientific method was, to no avail.
This is surprising to me if only for the fact that it seems like the vast majority of native Spanish speakers in this area are not aware of it being offensive/insulting/rude to speak in front of others in a language that others do not understand. My SO used to work with a few female native Spanish speakers that had no idea of this concept until he and other native English speaking coworkers told them.
I’d chalk this up to being a case where it did not occur to the clerk that not everyone in the area spoke Spanish. I’ve never been to Austin; would it be incorrect to presume that people who speak Spanish outnumber non-Spanish speakers?
I see. Thank you.
I really think it depends on the context. In Kizarvexius’ situation there is clearly some absurdity there, but frankly if I’m waiting in line/going to a movie or whatever I really don’t care what language people are speaking to each other, unless we’re all supposed to be talking to one another or they are somehow wasting my time. It’s none of my business what Mo is saying to his buddy while I’m standing in line behind him at the grocery store. I don’t find it remotely rude. In fact, it usually makes me incredibly happy. One of my closest friends is known to take cell phone conversations with his family members in Mandarin, and it makes me feel very wonderful that he feels comfortable enough to do so around us.
My friend and his twin brother also exchange the occasional comment in Mandarin when we’re hanging out, and I really don’t care… their language is a major source of comfort and connection in their lives, and I trust they are not secretly plotting my death. I think it would only be rude if they dominated the conversation or were being patronizing or something.
When I was in Mexico, my native-English friends and I used Spanish almost exclusively, even when talking only to one another. We felt we needed the practice. I guarantee you we got many more confused stares from our broken Spanish conversations at the zoo/mall/whatever than the few times we lapsed into English. Speaking a foreign language is an incredibly exhausting and (especially in the presence of native speakers) intimidating thing to do. Unless you want to practice, like we did, it really makes no sense for people to try to communicate in the language where they are most likely to misunderstand one another.
I was discussing evening plans with a coworker who was a preacher’s very sheltered daughter. I told her that I was planning to accompany a gay male friend to a local gay club. She said, “Wait, he’s GAY?” with an expression of confusion and disbelief. “Well, yes,” I responded. “Are you serious?” she exclaimed, several times, and I assured her each time that, no, I was not lying. Finally she revealed her confusion: “I thought gay people were something they made up on talk shows.” Indeed, she thought that homosexuality was an invention of the media, akin to Godzilla or space mutants. It totally blew her mind that gay people were real.
I don’t think it is rude to speak a language that others don’t understand. What are you supposed to do, poll everyone in earshot on which languages they speak, which ones they don’t, which ones they took in high school and sorta kinda remember, which ones they can order a meal in if they have to, etc.? The problem is the hypocrisy (“I can speak Spanish but you can’t speak German”), not the language use itself. Your obligation to make yourself easy to understand starts and ends with your audience; it’s far more rude for someone to butt in to your conversation and demand that you make it easier to eavesdrop.
A lot of it has to do with context, and there are certain areas of life where it’s agreed upon (at least in my sphere of humans) that speaking a language that everyone can understand is more or less mandatory with few exceptions. Personally, I’ve got a few stories about when people spoke in a language that I or the person experiencing the story did not understand, and most of them are work situations. Here’s one for context:
To give the story further context, few people actually speak Spanish in that workplace, and they were still in my mother’s office while continuing what was assumed to be a private conversation. It’s fine to speak another language while out and about or on the phone with others, but it’s deliberately rude to exclude people from conversation while in their presence by switching languages in the middle of a conversation. Speaking the same language isn’t for ease of eavesdropping but for avoiding deliberately excluding people from conversation with whom you are associating.
The situation I had mentioned above with my SO was one where two female coworkers would be sitting with three non-Spanish speakers and would engage in a Spanish conversation in front of them. So, out of five people who are sitting around trying to pass the time between sales, three are excluded because the other two don’t feel like speaking a language that everyone understands. If they felt the need to make their conversation private, it would have been prudent for them to move to another area and have the conversation rather than sit in the middle of the group and make everyone else feel uncomfortable.
Either way, I’m more annoyed at the hypocrisy of the idea, but was initially questioning whether it was more commonplace in that area to hear Spanish than English, and thus the clerk may not have realized that there are people around him that did not speak Spanish.
Fair enough. As with everything else, including this sentence, context is important.
As for Austin, I can’t tell ya. It is true that there are cities in Texas where Spanish is the de facto or official language.
Because they would die of dehydration long before they starved to death.
Suuuure . . . I can see now that’s exactly what the gum smacking high school dropout at the register next to mine was thinking. :smack: Silly me!
The huz and I were at a movie with his parents, and I was sitting next to his mom. She was looking around the theater before the show started and she said, “You never see doctors at the movies. I wonder if they get private screenings.”
I didn’t even know how to respond. I just mumbled “Maybe so” and wondered how she produced two extremely smart sons.
I’ve got this crazy notion, and someone who knows better, please disabuse me of it, that adding salt to water lowers the boiling point by creating nucleation sites for the oxygen atoms dissolved in the water. Why you want the boiling point lower is a culinary mystery, like mayonaisse.
Or was it the earth element exciting the phlogiston? Something like that.
OK, this salt + water crap is ending, right now.
Roofing work is hotter because there’s less shade, and the roofing surface reflects more heat than the ground. So, although you’re not significantly closer to the sun, it sure feels that way! 
This happened to my friend when she went to the mainland for college. A fellow classmate asked her if we had cars/streets in Hawaii, and if we had licenses and such.
Because apparently Hawaii is such an untouched paradise, and we live in huts on the beach, right?
Sensing a wonderful moment for fun, my friend informed her that yes, we do have licenses, but they’re for canoes.
We have canoe licenses, and use them to get around.
She said the girl’s eyes grew wide. “Really!?” she exclaimed. “Wow!”
It wasn’t for after a while of laughter until they revealed that she was tricked, and that we do have cars.
Aloha-short time lurker, first time poster. On the television news the other night, their roving reporter opened with the gem ‘We flew in here by air’ 
“There go my English teacher”
I was on a coach a few months ago going to visit my family, and I was eavesdropping on a number of adults a few seats behind me.
I admit, I had already judged 2 of them, a man and woman who had a toddler with them because they were swearing aggressively in front of and directly to the kid…they were joined by a man aged about 40, on his own, who struck up a conversation. The first nugget I gleaned was about the BNP(British National Party - reknowned hateful racists who had recently been the subject of debate for being allowed to debate at Oxford University), the man started with ‘I’m not racist, but…I think the BNP should be allowed freedom of speech’. He was not challenged by his audience re: BNP’s debate was likely to incite racial hatred, therefore a crime…
But the real clanger, the one that made my ears nearly drop off, was this monologue:
‘You see, there’s a kid at my son’s school, a black kid. He’s already got two girls pregnant. The reason is, he tells the girls he ain’t gonna wear a condom, and they all want to sleep with him! So I told my son, you tell the girls you ain’t gonna wear a condom, and you’ll get laid.’
I would have challenged him on that one, but it was my stop. I nearly missed it because I was in total shock.
I’ve shared this one before, but it is my all time favorite.
My family and I were at Busch Gardens: Africa in the African wildlife display. One of the exhibits held several Ring-Tailed Lemurs, and there were at least four highly noticeable signs stating that these were, in fact, lemurs.
Cue the gentleman a few feet to my left: “Hey! Look at these raccoons! I didn’t know raccoons could jump like that!” Followed by several more statements about the raccoons.
That has gone down in family history. Now any and all raccoons are called lemurs, and any ring-tailed lemurs are called raccoons.
Actually, we found that the difference was insignificant.