Random Thoughts

[GaryV]

I used to learn some Spanish at my former school, and that education is based on European Spanish. I like that European Spanish makes the distinction by pronouncing soft c / z as a sound like English think. I think that French should also pronounce similar sound as a dental fricative, to distinguish it from s.

So now beside telling other countries how to build and name their roads, you're also going to tell them how to pronounce their own language?

[Max Rockatansky]

At least in Spanish and French, 'c' before 'e' or 'i' is pronounced the same as 's'. Before the other vowels, it's pronounced like 'k'.

Peninsular Spanish is a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives#Distinction

I was exposed to that quite early in high school Spanish class - my Spanish teacher's family was originally from Spain, and so she used the distinción pronunciations.

Which was only funny because the course material was clearly intended to teach Latin American Spanish. We pretty much did not cover vosotros, for example - we barely learned those verb conjugations and never actually used it in a sentence.

I used to learn some Spanish at my former school, and that education is based on European Spanish. I like that European Spanish makes the distinction by pronouncing soft c / z as a sound like English think. I think that French should also pronounce similar sound as a dental fricative, to distinguish it from s.

You should talk to my wife.  She is certified bilingual by a couple counties as being fluent in Spanish.  I'm sure she would love to hear from you how wrongly she pronounces things.

[GaryV]

Remember typing, when you were supposed to put two spaces after a period and a colon? (But only one space after a semi-colon)

[Rothman]

Double spaces forever.

[JayhawkCO]

Double spaces forever.

Can't stop myself from doing it if I tried.  Right?

[mgk920]

I do recall discussions about distinctions between Puerto Rican Spanish and Mexican Spanish.

Mike

[JayhawkCO]

I do recall discussions about distinctions between Puerto Rican Spanish and Mexican Spanish.

Mike

Mexican vs. Central American vs. Caribbean vs. Spanish vs. Northern South America vs. Southern South America are all pretty distinctively different. Spain spanish probably being the most "different" with pronunciation and vocabulary.

I speak pretty decent Spanish, but when I went to Spain, I had a tough time reading menus, a la knowing the word "steak", but needing to know the terms ribeye, strip, tenderloin, flatiron, etc.

[J N Winkler]

Remember typing, when you were supposed to put two spaces after a period and a colon? (But only one space after a semi-colon)

I still do it.  I'm not looking to start a discussion on politics or religion on here, but I think those who advocate using single spaces everywhere grossly overstate the obsolescence of the double space.

[Hobart]

I do recall discussions about distinctions between Puerto Rican Spanish and Mexican Spanish.

Mike

Mexican vs. Central American vs. Caribbean vs. Spanish vs. Northern South America vs. Southern South America are all pretty distinctively different. Spain spanish probably being the most "different" with pronunciation and vocabulary.

My brother went to a small college for music educators in Chicago, where most of the Spanish speaking population spoke Mexican Spanish. The band director at that college taught at a high school in the Miami area for years beforehand, and picked up some Spanish from his students. Apparently the students (who spoke Mexican Spanish) had difficulty understanding the band director's Spanish because of his thick Cuban accent, which he learned when he learned the language.

My two years of high school Spanish are long gone (though I can still read some if I try hard enough). However, I always found the idea that other languages have their own accents interesting; it's one of the inevitable things that would obviously occur that I hadn't thought about.

[JayhawkCO]

I do recall discussions about distinctions between Puerto Rican Spanish and Mexican Spanish.

Mike

Mexican vs. Central American vs. Caribbean vs. Spanish vs. Northern South America vs. Southern South America are all pretty distinctively different. Spain spanish probably being the most "different" with pronunciation and vocabulary.

My brother went to a small college for music educators in Chicago, where most of the Spanish speaking population spoke Mexican Spanish. The band director at that college taught at a high school in the Miami area for years beforehand, and picked up some Spanish from his students. Apparently the students (who spoke Mexican Spanish) had difficulty understanding the band director's Spanish because of his thick Cuban accent, which he learned when he learned the language.

My two years of high school Spanish are long gone (though I can still read some if I try hard enough). However, I always found the idea that other languages have their own accents interesting; it's one of the inevitable things that would obviously occur that I hadn't thought about.

I was in Ecuador once talking with my jungle guide in Spanish and he told me I have a Mexican accent. I told him my Mexican friends would be so proud to hear that.

[mgk920]

I do recall discussions about distinctions between Puerto Rican Spanish and Mexican Spanish.

Mike

Mexican vs. Central American vs. Caribbean vs. Spanish vs. Northern South America vs. Southern South America are all pretty distinctively different. Spain spanish probably being the most "different" with pronunciation and vocabulary.

My brother went to a small college for music educators in Chicago, where most of the Spanish speaking population spoke Mexican Spanish. The band director at that college taught at a high school in the Miami area for years beforehand, and picked up some Spanish from his students. Apparently the students (who spoke Mexican Spanish) had difficulty understanding the band director's Spanish because of his thick Cuban accent, which he learned when he learned the language.

My two years of high school Spanish are long gone (though I can still read some if I try hard enough). However, I always found the idea that other languages have their own accents interesting; it's one of the inevitable things that would obviously occur that I hadn't thought about.

Like between Portuguese Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese and between French French and Quebecois French.

Mike

[kphoger]

Remember typing, when you were supposed to put two spaces after a period and a colon? (But only one space after a semi-colon)

I still double-space after a period or after a colon.  I also started double-spacing after a semicolon a few years ago.  In some contexts, I very recently even started single-spacing before and double-spacing after such punctuation marks.

Like this . . .

This is a simple sentence .  And now this one is slightly different :  it has two independent clauses .

[JayhawkCO]

Remember typing, when you were supposed to put two spaces after a period and a colon? (But only one space after a semi-colon)

I still double-space after a period or after a colon.  I also started double-spacing after a semicolon a few years ago.  In some contexts, I very recently even started single-spacing before and double-spacing after such punctuation marks.

Like this . . .

This is a simple sentence .  And now this one is slightly different :  it has two independent clauses .

Bolding mine. Shouldn't that be a semicolon instead of a colon?

[kphoger]

Shouldn't that be a semicolon instead of a colon?

Nah.  I prefer a colon in that type of construction.

The colon is used to separate two independent clauses when the second explains or illustrates the first.  In such usage, the colon functions in much the same way as the semicolon.

https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/colon.html

[Poiponen13]

The UK should join EFTA and Schengen. Also, North America should have equivalent of Schengen.

[kphoger]

The UK should join EFTA and Schengen. Also, North America should have equivalent of Schengen.

See here:  https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=32280.msg2901369#msg2901369

[kkt]

Remember typing, when you were supposed to put two spaces after a period and a colon? (But only one space after a semi-colon)

Remember it?  That's how I type now.

[ZLoth]

Does anyone really pay for Internet connectivity while on a airplane? I know that several airlines have in-flight WiFi available so that you can watch or listen to the on-board entertainment (movies, TV shows, music) from your phone, laptop, or tablet, but unless you can charge it off as a business expense, can you do without Internet connectivity for a few hours?

The question isn't "can you do with Internet for a few hours if you have to?", the question is "will spending a few bucks make the next few hours less painful?".

In my opinion, a little bit of pre-downloading of movies, TV shows, music, and/or audiobooks also make the next few hours less painful. Also, noise-cancelling headsets. Although, on my American Airline's flight, if you connected to the plane WiFi, you could watch the movies/TV shows that they offered.

On board ship, the basic WiFi was $20 per day (it was included in my cruise fare), and premium WiFi was $13-15 per day additional depending if you upgraded pre-cruise or during the cruise. No, thank you.

[Rothman]

Whatever did we do on planes before phones?

[kphoger]

Whatever did we do on planes before phones?

- Watch the movie, whether you liked it or not.
- Try to sleep on your meal tray.
- Read a book.
- Work various types of puzzle books.
- Read every page of all literature in your seat-back.

I was once on a trans-Atlantic flight on which one woman walked up and down the aisles almost the entire time.

[Big John]

The telephone was invented before the airplane was.

Before there were phones on the plane, got better airplane service and looked out the window a lot.

[kkt]

Whatever did we do on planes before phones?

Buy a paperback and/or a magazine from the newsstand in the airport.

[Takumi]

I do recall discussions about distinctions between Puerto Rican Spanish and Mexican Spanish.

Mike

Mexican vs. Central American vs. Caribbean vs. Spanish vs. Northern South America vs. Southern South America are all pretty distinctively different. Spain spanish probably being the most "different" with pronunciation and vocabulary.

My brother went to a small college for music educators in Chicago, where most of the Spanish speaking population spoke Mexican Spanish. The band director at that college taught at a high school in the Miami area for years beforehand, and picked up some Spanish from his students. Apparently the students (who spoke Mexican Spanish) had difficulty understanding the band director's Spanish because of his thick Cuban accent, which he learned when he learned the language.

My two years of high school Spanish are long gone (though I can still read some if I try hard enough). However, I always found the idea that other languages have their own accents interesting; it's one of the inevitable things that would obviously occur that I hadn't thought about.

Like between Portuguese Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese and between French French and Quebecois French.

Mike

A well-known Quebecois member of this forum once said that the motherland considers Canadian French to be, in his own words, "hillbilly French".

[J N Winkler]

Whatever did we do on planes before phones?

- Watch the movie, whether you liked it or not.
- Try to sleep on your meal tray.
- Read a book.
- Work various types of puzzle books.
- Read every page of all literature in your seat-back.

I was once on a trans-Atlantic flight on which one woman walked up and down the aisles almost the entire time.

I was on a Chicago-to-London flight when a gray-haired woman, probably in her seventies, sat down next to me and began talking.  I looked at her, trying to figure out through nonverbal cues (I am deaf) whether any of what she was saying needed me to respond in any way, and she stopped.  Then I looked away and she started talking again.  I looked again, and she stopped again.  Then, fifteen minutes later, she moved to the next row up, next to a black-haired, sallow-skinned woman in late middle age, and spent pretty much the entire eight-hour flight talking to her as she nodded her head along.  I wondered if they knew each other.

On landing at Heathrow, the gray-haired older woman turned out to be a US passport holder and sailed through immigration (they hadn't yet given it its present hubba-hubba "UK Border" label), while the black-haired one got the third degree with her Pakistani passport.  The whole situation looked so much like a metaphor for first-world exploitation of the third world that I felt a little sorry for her.

Buy a paperback and/or a magazine from the newsstand in the airport.

This approach has become a little less common with the advent of e-readers, but serious readers often maintained a stash of "ash and trash" paperbacks they weren't afraid to lose on trips, and simply gave them away when they were finished.  Hotels and hostels in large cities that attract international tourists often had shelves of books (mostly in English) where a person could pick up something to read with no obligation to return it.  I used one of these in Vienna to unload a paperback copy of Philip Roth's American Pastoral.

Wichita has a reasonably well-stocked public library, so nearly all of my reading nowadays comes from there.  However, people who live in rural areas often depend on used bookstores, book sales, informal exchange, etc. for reading material, as public libraries may not exist near them, may not have a good selection of books, or may charge extortionate annual fees for a card.  This latter problem is less severe in Kansas than elsewhere since the state subsidizes card issue to nonresidents under a regional cooperative program, but I've heard of double-digit fees in Oklahoma City and Omaha, and up to $300 in rural Illinois.

[Scott5114]

Remember typing, when you were supposed to put two spaces after a period and a colon? (But only one space after a semi-colon)

I still do it.  I'm not looking to start a discussion on politics or religion on here, but I think those who advocate using single spaces everywhere grossly overstate the obsolescence of the double space.

Maybe I want to use those bytes for something besides storing your precious extraneous spaces in, did you ever think of that?