Re: what brand are these bass strings?
- From: JNugent <not.telling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:45:50 +0000
nog wrote:
On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 00:44:28 -0000, icarusi wrote:
"Jose de las Heras" <josenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:60enecF1qrvm8U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That's something that annoyed me beyond what I can possibly express... when I just wouldn't understand one particular word, and somebody would insist on repeating the SAME EXACT WORD... only slowly... as if I would magically evolve a dictionary out of my left ear or something.
Comprehension isn't required so long as pronunciation is correct in a land of homophones.
http://www.bifroest.demon.co.uk/misc/homophones-list.html
And we think English is easy - which is why I'm amused, knowing my own
faltering attempts at German and French, when non-native speakers of
English in fictional drama use flawless syntax, but with an accent.
:-)
I've recently been watching some repeats of "Secret Army" - and it struck me (again, after thirty years) what a ridiculous admixture the dialogue was. Everyone speaks English, even though the Dutch would be speaking Dutch, the Wallonian Belgians (and the French) would be speaking French, some Belgians would be speaking Flemish, the Germans would be speaking German (at least, among themselves) and the British and Canadians would be speaking English. For contact between the nationalities, they speak in English as though it were natural, and no-one ever has the slightest difficulty in understanding a member of a different nationality.
The French-speakers speak in flawless English all the time (presumably to emphasise that they are in fact, speaking their native French, IYSWIM).
The Germans, however, speak in a strangled mixture of flawless English with a very slight stage German accent interspersed with German words and phrases (presumably in instances where the German words carry more "weight"). Hence, "der Fuehrer" rather than "the leader" and "Der Tag" rather than (the meaning-laden) "The Day" (that latter instance in the post-war sequel: "Kessler"). Military ranks are always expressed in German, eg, "I'll ask Obersturmbahnfuhrer Kessler whether he wants his muffins toasted on both sides", or (spoken of a fleeing SS officer masquerading as a member of the Wehrmacht): "He is not a Mye-Or ("Major"), he is a Gestapo Obersturmbahnfuhrer". And just before the execution by firing squad of a Luftwaffe officer in the final episode, the disguised SS officer calls out "the Fuehrer wishes it" - but in German
I obviously can't be the first to have noticed this, because the BBC's own comedy version, "Allo, Allo", plays up all these things ruthlessly. Hence the French female resistance worker speaking in the King's English when speaking to fugitive RAF men and she and all the French talking in parody French accents )and the Germans doing something similar) when speaking among themselves: "Now listen vairy carefully - I shall say zis only wernce". And the RAF men can't understand a word of the English when it is spoken with the French inflexions.
I was lying about the muffins.
.
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