Disqus - Latest Comments for kelly

Re: Â¿Habla usted EspaÃ±ol?

kelly — Fri, 12 May 2006 17:27:11 -0000

Well, I'm from the Southwest, and folks here were speaking Spanish long before the English-speakers showed up. It seems to me that Spanish-speakers have been mighty accomodating, all things considered.

My family has its own complicated relationships with language. My great-grandparents spoke German (having emigrated from Germany), and, although they learned functional English as adults, lost their English skills in old age (one of the common effects of Alzheimers). So my father grew up with a grandmother who adored him and loved to tell him stories. However, his own father had been of the "this is America and we will speak English" persuasion, which resulted in my father's complete inability to understand a word his Grandmother said to him. All that history, that whole relationship, lost to English-only prejudice (certainly related to anti-German prejudice surrounding WWI and WWII). Yes, I earned a BA in German, but that was too little, too late.

I tend to worry about what happens when one learns English; I am concerned by the rather common assumption that one will trade in one's home language in order to learn English, and saddened by the losses implicit in that abandoned language.

WEB DuBois' notion of double consciousness is helpful. One shouldn't be required to abandon one identity or the other; DuBois is right in desiring a single consciousness that fuses all aspects of one's identity.

(Actually, before WWI, German was widely accepted as an appropriate language for public discourse in the US; when Germanness became politicized, so did the language and its speakers).

OK, I have too many opinions on this topic. and will stop now.

Re: Pronunciation question

kelly — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:20:29 -0000

Well, I've heard both pronounciations, myself, and seem to recall that the Hungarian/slavic/language of origin word is "paprikash." I'm not sure that little tidbit helps with pronounciation.
So I checked http://www.m-w.com, which is Merriam-Webster's Dictionary online. Besides having some nice word games, they also have a little button you can click on that will pronounce the word you've looked up. Webster's stresses the 2nd syllable.
Well, that got me thinking that maybe this was a British vs American English thing, like their bizarre pronunciation of contreversy (now with extra syllables!). So I went to our library's online OED (Oxford English Dictionary, the Queen of dictionaries, an etymological dictionary, much fun for browsing), and they gave me this under pronounciation:
Brit. /paprk/, /pprik/, U.S. /pprik/, /pÃ¦prik/
not much help. there are actually some phoenetic symbols that the computer cut-and-paste didn't pick up, but based on my admittedly fuzzy recall of phonetic notation (I took a whole semester of German phonetics in undergrad, thank you very much, so this is actually knowledge I had at one time, although I've forgotten it now), it looks like the difference between British and US pronounciations has to do with the vowels, rather than the accents.
Was that more of an answer than you were wanting? Can you tell that I have a lot of grading to do?
KCWC

Re: In-N-Out

kelly — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:11:28 -0000

I love the fries! salt and pepper. A few years ago, they actually ran a TV ad. It was a picture of a double-double and the words, "Somewhere back east, a college kid is dreaming of this."
They do rather epitomize the notion of "Do one thing and do it right."

Re: Internet banking bribery

kelly — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:24:14 -0000

hey, the elimination of paper transactions in favor of electronic transactions could be their way of going green and/or saving on stamps. i'd guess a little from column a and a little from column b.

Re: Tide’s in, dirt’s out

kelly — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 02:16:38 -0000

when i went on summer missions in high school (France, South Africa, Norway), we took Fels-Naptha, a laundry soap in bar form, and used it to wash our clothes by hand. it's small and light, and reasonably effective.

Re: A quick note

kelly — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:46:30 -0000

glad you're well -- hope I'm not making too much of a mess of things!

Re: ain’t I nice…

kelly — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:52:20 -0000

Wow! I tried to learn to crochet from the ladies at church, but they gave up on me and sent me back to my knitting. The one-stick thing somehow is more difficult left-handed.

Re: something to look forward to…

kelly — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:27:00 -0000

The key is to develop a simple project with a lot of repetition, so you won't miss a stitch during faculty meeting. "Bringing Peace and Productivity to your next faculty meeting" is my knitting motto.

Re: God bless America

kelly — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 23:52:11 -0000

so, should we send you a copy of "Trains, Planes, and Automobiles"?
welcome home--

Re: Postage due?

kelly — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:39:04 -0000

I've never received anything postage due. And I don't think that's due to the particular postal aptitude of my friends and relatives.

Re: Parallel

kelly — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:40:18 -0000

ooh, neato. I want one.

Re: Mister Bubble

kelly — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:26:54 -0000

In our house, you are regarded as the guru of soap -- it sounds like it's time for you to make another recipe search...

Re: Quote of the day

kelly — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:40:16 -0000

Gosh, thanks. But the real question is: what will you do next time you find yourself in the cheese aisle at the grocery store?

Re: Good stuff

kelly — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:04:26 -0000

I'm the SIL -- I tried for years and years to learn to knit. I'm a lefty, and I seemed to encounter only right-handed knitters. Really good knitters go so fast that it's hard for them to slow down and show others how to do it. The closest I came was the year I was in Germany, and I got a book on knitting written in German. I made some headway knitting in German. When I finally did learn to knit-- last year, from a lady at church -- I learned Continental style, which is more ambidexterous than the English style more common in America, and is in fact the way I was learning from the German book.
There's hope yet!