General Chat

AuntyS

we once attended a huge International meeting in Sydney

at the Opening Ceremony, the President of a university took great pains to explain Australian English to several thousand scientists

"Wash your fice in the bison"

did not mean having to go hunting to find a North American beast

:)))

Having lunch. Leftover from OHs cooking last night. Rice and chicken curry. Rather nice. Sneaking a look at the thread. I think you should be asleep by now.

Don't tell me she's done it again. I've a few icepacks left in the freezer for application to swollen heads. Don't know why anyone would want to have the lady banished from our midst. Well that's probably stretching the truth a little, however JC does have her uses on occasions. Does that sound like I am buttering up. Yep just in case.

If you spoke very slowly to me in French with lots of waving of the arms I might be able to follow a conversation. Then again if you spoke very slowly to me in English with the same waving of the arms I might also be able to follow a conversation.

I admire your collective linguistic expertises.

I know,,,,sigh
I have left you a message to help reduce the swelling of the head !

Syvia -- that's how I do email. ;) The guv'mint clerks email me in French, I email 'em back in English.

It's actually more difficult than you'd think to conduct a conversation orally that way though.



Fanny Fanny Fanny Fanny Fanny !!!

I found Florence Skerett. ((SMUGS))

Chinese (various dialects) and Japanese are more use on this side of the country!

I occasionally read the cornflakes packet French ..... but have to be really bored!


One French-Canadian friend of ours, born lives and works in Montreal, maintains that the true sign of a bilingual country would for him to speak to me in French and for me to respond in English, and we would both understand the other.


s

Blingualism is the rule for federal government services and services to the public in areas like transportation and communications. Parliament functions in both languages. And yes, labelling of everything.

I began French in public school, took to it, and majored in it, and work in both English and French. Few people in London, Ontario, where I grew up, could speak a word, other than what bits they might remember from school. Most Montrealers of either language can communicate in both, same for the French-speaking minorities in other provinces, but not a lot of English speakers outside Quebec do.

I did Latin next (with a little ancient Greek at noon hours), in grades 10-12, then German 11-12, and Russian one summer; picked up Spanish (in which I can communicate quite well, unlike German and Russian) mainly on my own on trips to Cuba and some evening classes. And Farsi from an excellent teacher who was a client of mine, but didn't get to go too far. I can still impress Iranian cab drivers everywhere in the world with my admirable accent, though!

Latin was originally my excuse for getting out of going to the vocational-type high school my neighbourhood was assigned to and going to the decining "collegiate" in the other direction. Languages just turned out to be my bag. ;)

Here you are Sylvia. To make amends. The most famous Sylvia, with apologies for the incorrect spelling. Will Shakespeare was probably as bad as the census collectors in name spelling!!


.

Silvia

WHO is Silvia? What is she?
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.


William Shakespeare

And now I must bid you all adieu, which is French for TTFN.

Morning LK. Just been lurking on THAT thread. Read it through from the beginning. I think we need a summary of the information. It really is the most frustrating puzzle. I ran an 1881 census search just for glass splitter. Janey did that once for me with my circus clown. There are only about five or six matches and the only one called John was the one without his family name showing. And he was a window glass maker. And maybe John was not alive in 1881????!!

I'd better stop or there will be fire and brimstone hurled at me for being off task on this thread.

How did you manage to score a sample of so many different languages. We were only offered French in my days. Nowadays you can study most any language. In our area it makes more sense for the kids to study Asian languages but lots still go for Spanish or French. And you are correct about exposure to other languages being helpful with the derivation of the English language.

Did a little bit of Latin
Little bit of French
Little bit of Spanish and
Little bit of Russian

Cant do anything now though.

I did find it gave me a greater understanding of the English language and root words though.

Well that was a bit of luck. I was just about to claim this thread under the auspices of the Thread Killers Incorporated Act, and you posted on it. Oh well, tomorrow.

Yes I did say it was a dumb para. One should not take you to task over the choice of your board name. Well nice people wouldn't. I tried all combinations of the words turning them around different ways but it still remains SylviainCanada.

So you see how little we know about your country. I thought you had everything printed in French and English and that you all chattered away in either language. Well just goes to show.

You were downgraded. I was upgraded. We moved and Mum enrolled me in an all girls school in June. I was placed in a high school certificate course. At the end of year exams I had managed to score above 95% in all my exams, English, Social Studies, Physiology, etc, and just scraped through in simple Maths (which of course is why my occupation is and has always been maths orientated).

Principal had a talk to mother and the next year I started my high schooling again in the more difficult stream and did Maths 1 and 2, French, English, History, Chemistry, Physics and Geography. And life became just that little more difficult.

Hi AuntyS


so I'm untidy am I??


do you have xray eyes to see through the computer???!!


errrrrrrrrrrrr no, most Canadians do NOT speak both languages!


I did 5 years of French at high school, can just about say Hello and Goodbye. Also did 4 years of German, can say hello and goodbye, and "can you speak English". Passed my exams in both of them.

Didn't do Latin, didn't want to do Latin, was only too pleased when I was moved down to a lower classification and had to do German instead. The Senior Mistress never understood ..... she thought it was a great shame to be downgraded!



sylvia

Not allowed to delete. However did not say nuttin' about heavy editing.

I typed for about 20 minutes.

Of course it was garbage, but it was good quality garbage, verbose, colourful with lovely sentence structure and well formed phrases, participles and paragraphs.

I went to check a reference and lost the lot.
Except for the bit about Sylvia.

Where I explained.....

"Nope don't like SylviaInCanada. Looks untidy. I always refer to you as Sylvia IC. "

Now isn't that a charming paragraph. It would lead a thinking person to deduce I do not like an untidy person called Sylvia who lives in Canada. I refer to this person as Sylvia IC.

I remember I was talking about Latin. Told you to keep your Latin. I did six months of it at school, moved interstate and did French for three years. Passed my Alliance Francaise examination, I did. And that was a miracle. I know the average Canadian speaks both French and English. I can sing three songs in French, and decipher French phrases in books, providing there are pictures to go with the words.

.

Yeah yeah yeah. My Latin days were, lordy, 40 years ago. I didn't notice - last year was 40 years since I left high school. These anniversaries just slip by. ;)

So I can still decline 'em, just can't name the declensions! I know what prepositions they go with, though, hee.

sine ex ab in de cum pro
and the other ones ... in inter ad ... the other ones.

Even in German: aus ausser bei mit nach zeit von zu
and the other ones ...


Sylvia - it's just that a capital I and a lower-case l are identical in this font (see?), so an I in the middle of a word looks like an l. Ha.

Hey Dr Leon I remembered it at last.

The 6th declension from my Latin days.

nominative vocative accusative genitive dative ablative

Ablative!

Going Sylvia?

BTW ,him in doors is still alive,so thats something and thank you for the inquiry.

I don't see that Janey

I see In


or am I going daft?

This stupid font at this place -- rn looks like m, and you look like SylviaLin.

Better than Sylvain, though. ;)

well, I tried it


any better?


sylvia