----- Original Message -----
From: Athanasios Kotsenos <a.kotsenos_at_rca.ac.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 16, 1999 9:07 PM
Subject: Re: OT: City Names
> >I always wondered why Munich sometimes gets shown as Munchen.
> Because that's what the Germans call it?
Good enough reason. Beats me why it is taught to us as being Munich then.
>
> > Extras? It's the same characters. Accented. If you think about it, it
> actually helps pronounciation.
Not really, well, not in English anyway..
>Can you explain why English words are
> pronounced the way they are?
Some I can, others I doubt if Mr. Oxford himself could explain.
>Like not how they are spelt?
Indeed, english spelling and grammar is awkward to non native speakers.
Particularly since the rules seem to change depending on the word, in some
cases anyway..
> >all this masculine/feminine/neuter gender and case stuff. Confused the
hell
> >out of me.
> m/f/n is no that difficult. Just different from language to language.
Well, no not really. Simply doesn't exist in English. Everything is um,
neuter I guess, we don't have a term for it that we didn't pinch from
another language actually.
Trying to think of another language that doesn't do gender (in the
linguistic sense), Norwegian is almost that way I think, but Indonesian is
about the only one that is fully ungendered that I can recall. There may
well be others, I am far from being even mildy competent in this area..
> When you grow up with it, that's it!
The phrase "Fish aren't aware of water" springs to mind. Immersion from
birth seems to have that effect....
>
> >1) Everybody speaks English. ('Cepting a few migrants/boat people....:^)
> Now they do...
Many did prior to arriving. Some never get good at it, though it seems many
understand it far better than they can speak it. Poor sods from eastern
europe have the most trouble, apart from a different alphabet, (hard enough)
the use of "a" and "the" and "this" and "that" (determinatives?) ie. "Get
me the book" or "Get me that book". In Slavic languages it would be just
"book" in each case. (That's how it was explained to me by a Ukrainian
anyway.)
> >Some do learn Indonesian or Japanese, but most don't bother.
> Fair enough. You get that in much smaller single country islands - like
UK.
Yeah, the UK would fit 4 or 5 times into the STATE I live in, and thats only
about a sixth of the continent.
> >2) You don't need a passport to drive across the road. Or travel 2000km
for
> >that matter.
> You don't need a passport in the EU either. Just valid ID.
Ok, that's gotta be an improvement, we don't need one to go to New Zealand,
but that's about it....Locally, (ie in Oz) theres no law about ID, though
some states require you to have your license in your possession if you are
driving, though SA doesn't, if you don't have it on you and are pulled over,
(RBT or whatever) they give you a set time (24hrs generally) to produce it.
Largely unnecessary since they can just bring up the database if needed.
> >3) 240VAC 3 pin sockets are a national standard.
> I think only the English (and Swiss?) are the ones that want to be
> different to the rest of Europe - in this case anyway (there are many
> others).
What about the mains voltage? Does that vary a lot? We're all 240v 50hz.
(In theory, anyway)
Cheers
Geoff
Received on Fri Apr 16 1999 - 00:09:28 BST