Comments | earlofgrey: When you're done yelling, would you maybe like to go out for a drink sometime?

earlofgrey

When you're done yelling, would you maybe like to go out for a drink sometime?

Mar 29, 2008 18:47

It came to my attention on Saint Patrick's Day that my grandmother and some of my aunts and uncles were under the impression that I don't drink. As they've seen me do so at most family gatherings, it is apparent that their definition of abstinence ignores the consumption of three drinks or less. My dear family, I'm terribly sorry. I was not aware ( Read more... )

drinking, family, fish, internationalrelations

Comments 20

marnanel March 30 2008, 00:10:50 UTC

In my experience one of the advantages of living in the wrong country is that people assume you're going to be weird to being with, and you can continue to gratify their expectations from there on if you so please.

Do you not run into problems with the US/UK difference in the pronunciation of "fillet"? It occurs at least once a month in this house.

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 00:39:18 UTC

Ha! True. I look forward to it.

For some reason it never has. It's only poor turbot. Except today one of my coworkers asked me why you lot pronounce fillet as you do, which is a delightfully absurd question, and also leads me to wonder how I became your cultural ambassador at Whole Foods when most of you seem to want to see me strung up from our complicated lighting system.

marnanel March 30 2008, 01:13:53 UTC

I have noticed that two-syllable French loanwords are usually stressed on the first syllable in UK English and the second in US English. "Turbot" is not at all a recent loanword, though: we've had it for six hundred years, and "fillet" almost as long. Note that the French spell the word "filet", as in "filet mignon", and if you spell it "fillet" I think people should pronounce it as such. I have no wish to see you get strung up from the lighting system except perhaps as some exotic and glowing form of shibari.

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 01:25:59 UTC

I'll begin the reforms immediately.

The shibari idea is marvellous, and I'll suggest it. Perhaps our demo team could arrange something?

Thread 8

liath_macha March 30 2008, 00:47:06 UTC

I've never understood why you pronounce fillet fillay, either. Nasty French habit.

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 00:48:41 UTC

Perhaps it's because everything we've ever done is wrong?

marnanel March 30 2008, 01:19:56 UTC

Hanna-Barbera! The IWW! Packet-switched networking!

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 01:34:15 UTC

The writings of Emily Post and the refrigerator are two of my favourites.

Thread 5

cynical_ghost March 30 2008, 01:43:49 UTC

I find genealogy quite interesting and have done a little research myself, though I haven't turned up anything fascinating. I did have a relative named "Louisiana Visitation" though and I would imagine anyone with such a name would have to be quite a character. And it was interesting to find out just when people with my surname arrived here from Spain and how long it took before they were thoroughly subjugated by the French (approximately 10 years, thanks to love and marriage.)

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 01:48:59 UTC

That is the single most magnificent name I've ever heard...

Love and marriage ruin everything. Your ancestors ought to be proud of themselves; ten years is far longer than most of us last.

cynical_ghost March 30 2008, 02:30:27 UTC

Isn't it though? I feel slightly miffed that my parents could not have thought up something nearly as wonderful for me. I must settle with being named after a character from "Planet of the Apes." Surely that gives me geek points..!

That is all too true. I must be impressed that my ancestor held out as long as he did! French women (so I have been told) are irresistible.

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 02:32:58 UTC

It does! Geek points are very important.

chronographia March 30 2008, 07:03:47 UTC

Most of the culinary and gustatory terms in the English language originated from the French (think, we eat poultry and veal, not hens and calves). The British, as far as I can tell, pronounce it non-Frenchly to irritate differentiate themselves from the French. That 1066 grudge is by no means buried.

Do not let them get you down, you have the right of things.

earlofgrey March 30 2008, 15:04:27 UTC

One of my coworkers suggested that yesterday, and I thought it was hilarious. And also correct.

brni April 10 2008, 03:05:11 UTC

i apologize (yet again) for coming so late to the party. i do so only to remind you that people from the UK behave in this manner only because they have as yet failed to properly learn how to speak Mercan.

this has not stopped them from hijacking the presses and rewriting the history books to make it look like we are the uncivilized colonists.