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Windy Day

(12 posts)
  • Started 13 years ago by Andrea Thompson
  • Latest reply from Brigitte Gant

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  1. Andrea Thompson
    Moderator

    The gusty wind today (outside, not me :-P ) provided some entertainment this morning.
    One of the lawyers who works on the ground floor of our office building was walking out to his car carrying a document. One gust later and he was chasing the pages of that document round the car park.
    Raised a titter.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. Brigitte Gant
    Member

    Just goes to shoe that this sort of thing does not only happen in films.
    I am glad the wind has dropped now. I don't like it when it whistles round the house.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. brenda midgley
    Member

    Hello Andrea and Brigitte - why is it we always laugh at someone else's misfortune in this way. Thank you for telling us - I could just picture it and it made me smile. Brenda

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. Andrea Thompson
    Moderator

    it was like a slap stick comedy moment.
    And he did get all the papers back :-)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. Brigitte Gant
    Member

    Brenda, in German wie have a word for it 'Schadenfreude'. It is one of the rare occasions where the word describing something is shorter in German than in English.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. brenda midgley
    Member

    Brigitte it must be wonderful to be fluent in two languages - out of interest - when you buy something new, like say a dishwasher or something - and we all know we get instruction leaflets with languages ranging from English to Urdu - do you automatically go to the German, as your mother tongue, or English?

    You no doubt come in useful on the holidays abroad as well, I bet you get no end of questions from the others on Jane's trips saying 'Brigitte - what does this mean....?'

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. Brigitte Gant
    Member

    Brenda, it all depends which language in the instruction book I read where I bought it. Strange, but true. Many years ago I bought a word processor - then state of the arch - in Germany, mainly because I got fed up with typing cut and paste hand outs for my evening classes - and read the German instructions. Only when thicko-me got stuck, did I switch to the English ones because DH had to help and I had no idea how to translate something that I did not understand in the first place, whatever the language. Language is a funny thing when you think about it. I often wonder, why something is called what it is. Who decided to call it that. Some words sound funny to me, God knows why, i.e. 'Kartoffel'. And why is it called potato in English? It doesn't look anything like Kartoffel. At at least Apfel looks a bit like appel.
    And yes, I will need poking in the ribs occasionally when doing the interpreter bit, if I am operating in the wrong language. Because I understand both, I don't seem to worry in which language I am spouting off. Poor DH has remarked in the past that other husbands can hope that their nagging wives eventually run out of words to say. He has to wait twice as long, as when I run out of words in one language, I just start off in the other one.
    (By the way, in one of my earlier posts it should have been 'show' not shoe. Fingers working faster than brain again.)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  8. Christine Berrett
    Administrator

    And the French for potato is (off the top of my head) pomme de terre, ie. apple of the ground?

    Wot's that all about????

    Posted 13 years ago #

  9. Brigitte Gant
    Member

    Well, I guess they had pommes (apples) and the potato is a bit like a crunchy apple in texture, but as it grows in the ground, hence the name.
    The German word for peanut is Erdnuss - earth nut - so that makes sense, too. But some names are just baffling, arent' they?
    No time to think about that now, got to go and assemble DH's Valentine's Day card as he is out for a while.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  10. brenda midgley
    Member

    Brigitte I love the idea of nagging the nuisance of the house in two languages instead of one; although come to think of it, I do use two - ordinary English to start with and Anglo-Saxon if the first doesn't work. I have to say though it works the other way round too - (him to me) - I was hoovering through upstairs the other day and went into Himself's study. He was in his chair in front of the computer (aren't they always) so I decided to hoover him as well. He told me what to do in Anglo Saxon - two little words - so I just took myself off and finished the carpets instead. I dunno, where does the romance go?

    As for a Valentine's Card - are you mad? I don't think you can have been married for as long as me.

    As for Erdnuss(es) - I've got millions of those buried in our back lawn. The wretched squirrel is always pinching the birds nuts and digging holes in the grass to bury them. Trouble is it never puts the earth back afterwards to tidy up. It must be a man squirrel.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  11. Barbara Stone
    Member

    Brigitte, do you dream/think in German or English? One of our docs at work who is Italian, says that when hes on holiday in Italy, he thinks in Italian and dreams in the same language, so does that mean that it depends on which country you are in, as to which language you dream/think in? As for Valentines cards, surely they would have been given to somebody who you were interested in and annonymously, and sending one to your husband kind of takes the gilt off the gingerbread? (Having said that, I must admit I've got one for my other half) Its something to think about.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  12. Brigitte Gant
    Member

    Good question, Barbara. And to be honest, I cannot give a straightforward answer. I know that sometimes the language in my dreams depends on where and with whom I am in there. I think in both languages, but cannot always say which one I had been using as I understood myself perfectly well. One thing I still do, though, after all these years living over here is that I automatically count in German. Of course I know the numbers in English, but I really do have to make a conscientious effort of starting off in English. So I would not make a very good spy, because they all they would have to wait until I have to count something and I would be found out.
    @ Brenda: I agree, must be very untidy man squirrels. Just one more thing, the plural for Erdnuß is Erdnüsse. (I just flicked to the German keyboard for that - only took me over a year to find out how to do that on my laptop).
    Yes, I did get the Valentine's Day card sorted. DH would be mortified if he were to receive a shop bought one.

    Posted 13 years ago #

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