Other skills...

That last post really wasn't so good. There were kind of a lot of different ideas rattling around in my head, and I don't think I was able to express any of them as well as I would have liked. In summary, I am not nearly as satisfied with this course as I would like to be, and last Wednesday was repeatedly unsatisfactory in a number of different ways.
However, one thing that did come up in the writing class last week was a point about Japanese language. Another guy in my class happens to have spent a couple of months working for a Japanese company, and even got to spend a couple of weeks in Tokyo for a job. So he wrote a short piece that involved a person trying to negotiate with a person speaking broken English with a heavy Japanese accent. One of the verbal tics he gave the Japanese character, in addition to the whole L/R thing, was the interjection of the syllable "ka". As in "you are funny person-ka." So when the lady who was ostensibly running the workshop asked what that meant I was volunteered by the author to give an explanation.

"'Ka" is generally a sentence final particle indicating a question. In this case he's using it to elicit assent from the listener, much the same as 'y'know?' in casual English."

As I said last time, the lady running the workshop really didn't demonstrate much in the way of listening skills, so she had to ask me to repeat myself. I spent four years as a grammar teacher, and one of my strong points was explaining stuff like that. It was my job to be able to answer those questions. Go ahead, try me. What is the function of a subjunctive verb? How do I use a semicolon? When is it okay to use "alright" in a sentence?

The subjunctive is used to indicate an action that is not presently true, as in a wish, desire, command for action to be taken in future, or a hypothetical situation. The semicolon is used to link a subordinate, explanatory or elucidative clause to an independent clause, or to separate a list of comma-heavy clauses. And you should not bother using "alright"; you should either use "all right" or else re-write your sentence and use something else.

But I digress. She seemed somewhat surprised at my rattling that off without much in the way of warning, and I was somewhat surprised at her needing the explanation twice. So yes, I could summarize the general use of "ka", but I declined to point out that he actually should have used the conversational question marker "ne" instead.
But lest you think that I have a higher level of competency in another language than I really do, I oughta come clean and admit I've tried, on and off, to post stuff in Japanese too. There are, no doubt, numerous mistakes. Proving once again that those who can't do, teach.

A schoolboy's heart no longer beats within this chest...

I told you all I went back to school, right? It hasn't been all smooth.

Can you imagine what kind of situation I must be in to have to say something like "Dammit, is there reason I'm not getting more homework at this point"? Or "why the crap didn't they give us a reading list?" Or even "I'm pissed off because my damn dumbass teachers aren't working us hard enough, crap damn hell piss fart double dookey damn it!"

That's right. Today, in trying to explain my interests as a writer, I needed to clear up the differences between comic books and comic strips as regards the ways in which they are written, published and distributed to a person who was only theoretically aware of any differences at all between something like Dilbert and something else like V for Vendetta. So not only did she immediately judge me based on her own blinkered world-view, but after asking for an explanation, she demonstrated that she was not listening at all.

"Yeah, so when you talk about telling stories with pictures, I mean, I love Garfield, so that's great that you're thinking about coming up with skits for that."

To add ignorance to insult to injury, our so-called Professional Writing course assignment was to come up with a lesson plan to teach an aspect of creative writing. Now, this was done for a teacher who has a side career in... teaching creative writing seminars. Is there any reason not to think that she just scammed, like 15 free lesson plans for her own damn business? The only up side I can think of is that so many of my classmates have stopped giving a damn that the lessons they submitted were likely to be a load of crap anyway.

Oh yeah, final indignity of the day. In trying to talk about science fiction fandom to a self-proclaimed "sci-fi dork", I tried to ask about a series only to find out that it that debuted a year before her birth.

What the hell, man? How the jumping crap did I wind up like this? Upset about not being asked to study enough, indignant about the ignorance of a writer of Harlequin Romances, and having to explain why a story about a space ship full of hot-blooded young folk would have been popular to a fan of Firefly.

I feel safer now...

It's about time the Justice department got down to protecting the American people from the true threats to the American way of life: teenage boys who are interested in looking at porn.

No, seriously. If there only would have been a direct link between him and the files found on the hard drive of his family computer, this kid could've wound up serving a 90 year sentence. As it stands, he just barely squeaked out of having to be registered as a sex-offender. At age 16. For looking at porn on-line.

Good job, Maricopa County DAs. Good job, Yahoo. Good job, America.



Bunch of freaking idiots...

A message to the citizens of England

We are all well aware that the English feel some sense of ownership towards the language named for your country. No doubt the world would be a poorer place without the works of Jonathan Swift, Geoffrey Chaucer or Iain Hollingshead.

For the record, however, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million people living in the UK these days. Not to slight the cultures of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man, but just about everyone in that total is a speaker of English. That still leaves the UK significantly behind the number of English speakers in the US. Assuming, of course, that the 2001 census estimate of 215 million is roughly accurate. And behind the estimated 200 million Chinese people who are aiming for ESL fluency by the year 2020. Depending on who you believe, there are anywhere from 20 million to 100 million to 330 million people in India with ability right ranging from mother tongue fluency down to casual conversational right now. Do the math. If want to find an English speaker on planet Earth, you've only got about one chance in five of getting someone from the UK. And that's assuming the highest number of English literate UK citizens and the lowest numbers of English literate non-UK citizens1.

Whatever people may have said about the modern uses of Latin, there's not much Latin coming out of Rome these days. I don't mean to imply that the Queen's English is a dead language. But there's not much evidence to point to the future of English as strongly resembling anything heard around Eton. Or Oxford. Or anywhere else "public school" is taken to mean "place for upper class boys to engage in sport and light pederasty." All of which is to say the following.

Attention, citizens of England!
Please be aware that:

1. An accent unlike yours is not unusual by any stretch of the imagination
   
2. Pronunciation unlike yours is not unlikely
3. If the best you can manage for humor is observations about points 1 or 2, don't bother. Those jokes have been made countless times before.
   

Thank you.

1. For purposes of the rather rough estimate made here, I used a UK population of 60 million as compared to 215, 20, 20 and 19.5 millions for the US, India, Australia and Canada. I left out the Francophone Canucks along with everyone in New Zealand, Ireland, the Philippines, Africa, Asia and continental Europe.