(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

1.  I got my final assessment back from the OU for my Creative Writing course.  I got 91 per cent!  I am very happy, and the more so because it kind of validates all the time I waste spend on LiveJournal - my final submission was based on the entry I wrote a while ago about Wade, and thank you to everyone who commented then, it totally inspired me

Comments

[muckefuck]

How long is "long"? I don't think I've been hearing the "Bei[ʒ]ing" pronunciation for more than twenty years. It used to be fingernails on a chalkboard to me, but I'm slowly growing accustomed to it out of sheer necessity if nothing else.

How much less sympathy do you think there'd be for Ossetia if we called it by the endonym "Iryston" instead? (Especially if we anglicised this to something like "Irastan".)

[wwidsith]

Oh really? Well, 20 years is still a while. I don't know. I have always said bay-dzhing, but now I'm being TOLD to, I sudddenly feel all rebellious!

[muckefuck]

You maverick, you! If you really want to do something rebellious, why not start calling it "Beiping" and see how long it is before the hammer comes down!

[antarcticlust]

I remember my high school history teacher telling us how much he liked the BBC because they always pronounce things much more correctly.

Manara's work looks really familiar...did he ever do something named Nemo in Slumberland or something similar? It was a girl in a giant bed going through various dream sequences.

[wwidsith]

No, that was an American, Winsor McCay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsor_McCay). However, a different Italian fumetti artist called Vittorio Giardino did produce a kind of sexy version of that called Little Ego (http://www.ubcfumetti.com/enciclopedia/littleego/) which may be what you're thinking of. I have a copy and it's total, total brilliance.

[antarcticlust]

I knew the name was a play on words of the original Nemo - it was definitely NOT for children. :P

Yes! That was it!

[hazel_shea]

Re 2. Ha ha! I knew I was right. Only a few days ago me and my boyfriend were watching the news and I said to him, isn't it strange how suddenly one day all of the BBC presenters started pronouncing Bejing with a hard J, whilst every other channel and radio station is still pronouncing it the English way. I said I bet everyone has had a memo or something saying this is how we've decided to pronounce it.
He thought that was ridiculous and said the BBC don't waste their time on such trifling things when there are wars to be covered and such like. But I knew differently.

[wwidsith]

Haha. I think we are the only major broadcaster to have its own Pronunciation Research Unit, which is pretty awesome. You can call them up day or night to check how to pronounce those complicated names that seem to be all consonants...