Curiously enough, I have found that since moving to Seattle I have heard far fewer people ending every other sentence with the rhetorical question, “know what I mean?” or its more irritating abbreviated form, “knamea?”. On the other hand, there have been a number of grammatical curiosities that I have noticed here. As well as these, there are some frequent errors I have noticed since my first article on this topic.
Yesterday was International Talk Like A Pirate Day and honestly, it didn’t go quite as well as I was hoping it would. For one, I didn’t have the opportunity to really go out at all, which meant that I didn’t have much interaction with people in person. I did have a few phone calls with a few friends and of course, my brother. Some e-mail messages were sent as well, largely composed in my attempt at the pirate slang.
Continue reading → Thoughts on International Talk Like A Pirate Day
by Andrea Puckett
Using the computer as a way to communicate with friends and family became second nature to me when I did my undergraduate work at Virginia Tech. Emailing was the only way that I could speak to professors that had 500 plus people in their classes. Instant Messaging became a preferred way for my roommates and I to talk with each other instead of walking into the next room and speaking with them.
Continue reading → Entering the Virtual World: A Friend and Enemy
There has been a lot of bashing of France and the French people, much more so in the last year or so than in recent years. While I disagree with their stance on the war in Iraq entirely and I am, understandably, distraught over the large amount of anti-Semitism that is taking place in the country, I do not feel it is right to simply dismiss the entire country and its culture.
Disclaimer
I am extraordinarily fond of being American. I write this because many times, articles which are at all in favor of any other country are somehow misread to mean that the person does not love his own country and is told, “If you love that country so much, why don’t you go and live there?” Well, I don’t want to live in any other country because I do love living in the United States.
I would also like to cite a line from the great documentary, The Sorrow and the Pity, on the subject of France and political involvement. The documentary is amazing (perhaps why it was mentioned in the classic film Annie Hall), being about the French Resistance – or, more accurately, how little resistance there was. One man who was interviewed, being of French nationality, said (I will paraphrase as I don’t recall the translation perfectly), “Generally speaking, the French are a politically apathetic people. Once in awhile, we’ll storm the Bastille, but that’s about it.”
Yes, really, I do know what you mean. So this process where every sentence you utter, or every other sentence, is punctuated by asking me if I know what you mean gets to be extremely aggravating, especially since you never allow me the opportunity to answer your question.
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