Getting Loose

Very Powerful

The Missing I

   
 
 
People in London do not rent apartments or office space or anything else.  They “let” them. 

All over the place I was seeing signs about letting, and it took me a while to figure it out.  At first I thought it was about rest rooms, and that someone had painted out the “I” as a prank.  And I thought, “Man, these English have a fetish about bathrooms!” 

And then I wondered about blood letting, and thought maybe the is the new "old" wave in holistic medicine.

But then I slowly grasped what was really going on.

Altoids

In America, they are called Altoids. 

 

In JOE, they are called “Curiously Strong Mints.” 

 

Whatever they are called, they are made in the Netherlands.

Brilliant

When I use that word, I mean someone with unusual mental keenness.  But here in JOE (Jolly ole' England), when they use that word, they mean it more like "I'm glad it worked out,"  or "That was serendipitous."

It took me a while to catch on.  People kept using that word initially so much around me that I thought someone had tipped them off about my IQ.

Accents

I've reluctantly come to the opinion that this is not a dream,these are not actors imitating, but these Brits really do talk this way.  I mean I've now heard them too many times, from people who by sight I would have thought would slip up and start talking normal and neverlet that kind of foreign accent come out of their mouths.  But they do.  This is really  how they talk, and I need to just accept it.

I was in a conversation with one of Greg's friends about America and my perceptions of the English.  I told this young man that to most Americans they cannot tell the difference between a British, or Scottish, or Irish, or Union of South Africa, or an Australian accent.  I said, "In America, we can at least tell you are trying to speak English, but we have great difficulty trying to figure out where you are from by the way you talk."

He was blown away.  He could not believe it.  How could we we Yanks be so incredibly undiscerning?

I said, "Well, then, let me try one out on you.  Can you tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Cambodian?"

He said, "Not in a million years."

I said, "Well, there you are.  Unless they were out just to try to fool me, I could probably make an educated guess on that."

Quid

Les was shouting to either Dave or Graham, “Yeah, and I’ll tell you what!  I paid 5 quid for the thing!”

I didn’t know what the “thing” was, but the quid stood out to me.

I asked, “What’s a quid?”

He said, “It’s a pound.  A pound.”

I said, “You mean it doesn’t have anything to do with the number 5?”

He looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses.

I said, “You know, like uno, duo, tres, quattor, quince, etc.”

“Now there you go complicating it all up.  A quid is a pound.  It’s just an old name for a pound.”

I thought to myself, “My gosh these people have so many names for the pound—quid, sovereign, sterling, and (a very long time ago) guinea.”  I wasn’t about to tell him that when I was with friends in high school, a quid was something we hawked out the window of the car as we were travelling along . . . heh.

Solanum Tuberosum

We went to Tesco.  That is one of the main larger super markets of England.

 

It was interesting walking up and down their aisles looking at many of the same food stuffs we have, produced by the same companies, albeit packaged differently.

 

We were by the vegetables, and there on a bin were some lightly coloured starchy crops from the Solanaceae family.  I pointed them out to my wife and said, “Look!”

 

Busy with her own agenda, she glanced hurriedly at them and said, “What’s that?”

 

I said, “Y, they are peh-TIE-toes.”

 

She took her hands off the handle bar of the trolley (i.e., shopping cart) and put her finger in my face and said, “You are not one bit funny.  I’ll not have you making fun of these people!”

 

I said, “Buh, tha is the Y they tahk over here.”

 

She said “You sound silly, and it is demeaning to them.  It’s just like when you try to speak French to French people.  They roll their eyes at your pronunciation, and you  think you know so much, and you end up making a fool of yourself and you don’t even know it.”

 

I said, “Well, I was just saying . . .”

192?

Sluggard that I am, I am still chipping away at Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.  One of the things that astonished me was a very long, convoluted sentence.  Without even trying to look for it, I found a sentence that Dickens wrote that had (I think) 192 words in it.  And here I thought German sentences were so long and convoluted!

ENTP

Yup. That’s my pigeonhole, my personality type according to Meyers-Briggs.

I had 8 members of my staff go for a workshop assessing our types. I understood many things as a result.

One staff member always moans when asked to do something. But that is what that "type" does! To get information out of me, you have to ask the right question.

According to Marina Margaret Heiss, my letters mean that my type are usually verbally as well as cerebrally quick, and generally love to argue—both for its own sake, and to show off. We tend to have a perverse sense of humor as well, and enjoy playing devil's advocate. We sometimes confuse, even inadvertently hurt, those who don't understand or accept the concept of argument as a sport.

My type are as innovative and ingenious at problem-solving as they are at verbal gymnastics. We have been known to cut corners without regard to the rules if it's expedient.

My group is basically optimistic, however, we tend to become extremely petulant about small setbacks and inconveniences.

In terms of our relationships with others, ENTPs are capable of bonding very closely and, initially, suddenly, with their loved ones. Some appear to be deceptively offhand with their nearest and dearest; others are so demonstrative that they succeed in shocking co-workers who've only seen their professional side. ENTPs tend to be oblivious of the rest of humanity, except as an audience—good, bad, or potential.

Humph.

Wordle

Here is my sermon for this coming Sunday: