Oh wait, you mentioned Spanish. Yes, some kids get Spanish in preschool and kindergarten now. However, some parents pay for French, Chinese and Japanese lessons where I live. It's pretty expensive.
Does English sound like other Germanic languages?
It's about time, KT.
Sometimes, the old ways are the best ones. I remember as a teen in the 1970s hearing stories about my aunts and uncles learning Spanish from the ages of six and eight, back in the 50s. One uncle, in particular, was able to spout out Spanish at the drop of a hat—and this was in rural, almost-homogeneous Tennessee.
Later on, foreign-language education of young children was dropped. I'm not sure why, but I do know it coincided with the advent of the "new math".
In this day and age, I see absolutely no reason why each and every school child shouldn't be completely bilingual, unless it's the money.
Sometimes, the old ways are the best ones. I remember as a teen in the 1970s hearing stories about my aunts and uncles learning Spanish from the ages of six and eight, back in the 50s. One uncle, in particular, was able to spout out Spanish at the drop of a hat—and this was in rural, almost-homogeneous Tennessee.
Later on, foreign-language education of young children was dropped. I'm not sure why, but I do know it coincided with the advent of the "new math".
In this day and age, I see absolutely no reason why each and every school child shouldn't be completely bilingual, unless it's the money.
So, what is Edward Teach's contribution to the debate?
Introducing a new word
arse noun
arsed verb
arsehole description
Introducing a new word
arse noun
arsed verb
arsehole description
"e fact that nobody can be arsed."
What's this mean in non-slang English?
What's this mean in non-slang English?
It is a term meaning just that...but not one that is generally used in polite company, even in Brown's Britain.
Prince Harry is known to use it quite regularly but he is one of the lads after all, and goes out on the lash quite often, but I'd like to bet he doesn't use it in front of his grandmother....but who knows, maybe he does, and maybe she does the same.
The Queen's Mum...the late Queen Mother... reputedly cussed like a trooper in private, often with a glass of Gordon's gin in her hand, so she may as well have said "I can't be arsed" heaps of times behind the royal scenes.
The Queen Mother very much enjoyed the company of gay men (one of her best chums was Noel Coward, among many others of the same ilk). She much preferred the company of men to that of women anyway, and most of the males in her employment, from footmen to private secretaries or whatever, were gay, and it seems she made a point of employing them especially.
There is irrefutable proof that on one occasion at her London home, Clarence House, just off The Mall, she realised that her young male attendant was late coming in with her afternoon tea, and there was no reply to any of her push button calls, so she went to investigate the delay. When she got half way down the stairs leading down to the kitchens she saw and heard the guys there engaged in some kind of heated verbal dispute among themselves.
Her response was to call out: "What's going on down there? This particular Queen is waiting for her tea!!!"
Prince Harry is known to use it quite regularly but he is one of the lads after all, and goes out on the lash quite often, but I'd like to bet he doesn't use it in front of his grandmother....but who knows, maybe he does, and maybe she does the same.
The Queen's Mum...the late Queen Mother... reputedly cussed like a trooper in private, often with a glass of Gordon's gin in her hand, so she may as well have said "I can't be arsed" heaps of times behind the royal scenes.
The Queen Mother very much enjoyed the company of gay men (one of her best chums was Noel Coward, among many others of the same ilk). She much preferred the company of men to that of women anyway, and most of the males in her employment, from footmen to private secretaries or whatever, were gay, and it seems she made a point of employing them especially.
There is irrefutable proof that on one occasion at her London home, Clarence House, just off The Mall, she realised that her young male attendant was late coming in with her afternoon tea, and there was no reply to any of her push button calls, so she went to investigate the delay. When she got half way down the stairs leading down to the kitchens she saw and heard the guys there engaged in some kind of heated verbal dispute among themselves.
Her response was to call out: "What's going on down there? This particular Queen is waiting for her tea!!!"
Damian, I heard the same story, but the details varied.
According to that version, the Queen (not the Queen Mother) said,"Will you old queens stop gossiping and bring this old Queen some tea?"
Whichever version is correct, it's still a funny story.
According to that version, the Queen (not the Queen Mother) said,"Will you old queens stop gossiping and bring this old Queen some tea?"
Whichever version is correct, it's still a funny story.
I met some Austrians recently and asked them the same question. They said it sounded like a combination of French and German.
...Which, actually, it is.
=l Well, how 'bout that.
...Which, actually, it is.
=l Well, how 'bout that.
<<Sometimes, the old ways are the best ones. I remember as a teen in the 1970s hearing stories about my aunts and uncles learning Spanish from the ages of six and eight, back in the 50s.>>
I remember having some sort of minimal Spanish "exposure" lessons back in 1st or 2nd grade in California around 1954-1956. I moved to Kentucky in 1956 for 3rd and 4th grade, and thrre were no language classes there. In 1958, I moved to NYC and simple French classes started up in 5th grade. Then, I moved to Westchester County at the end of 1958, and French classes there didn't start until 7th grade.
I remember having some sort of minimal Spanish "exposure" lessons back in 1st or 2nd grade in California around 1954-1956. I moved to Kentucky in 1956 for 3rd and 4th grade, and thrre were no language classes there. In 1958, I moved to NYC and simple French classes started up in 5th grade. Then, I moved to Westchester County at the end of 1958, and French classes there didn't start until 7th grade.
Jasper: In actual fact it really WAS the old Queen Mother....that little old lady, the apparent epitome of demure charm and graciousness, the sweetest of dew dropped English roses, in whose mouth no amount of butter would ever melt and who was constantly quoted as being quite incapable of ever "putting a dainty foot wrong" wasn't really all she seemed behind regal closed doors and drawn curtains, but speaking ill of the departed isn't very nice really, is it?
On a language note (remembering the purpose of the Forum) the Queen Mother had a life long hatred and an utter contempt for anything remotely German or in any way Teutonic, although she ultimately married into a family with strong German links. That, it seems, was the reason why she took so long to accept the proposal of marriage put to her by Prince Bertie, later to become King George VI. Apparently she only had to hear the German language being spoken to make her feel physically sick. The music of Wagner had the same effect on her, or so I read.
As a teenage girl she saw at first hand the immense suffering of all those severely injured British soldiers transported back to the UK from the battlefields of the Western Front during WW1...many were sent to her home in Glamis Castle, Angus, Scotland, which had been requisitioned as a treatment and recuperation centre, and where many of them sadly died from their injuries, including one of her own brothers. Many of those who were not too badly injured physically suffered from extreme mental conditions. Although she was so young she was no stranger to the wards at Glamis....she found the experience very distressing, and as a result she never lost her hatred for the Germans thoughout her long life.
You can imagine her feelings after the Abdication of her brother in law Edward VIII in 1936 which thrust her husband into the role of King.....a man of a nervous dispostion, afflicted with a painfully acute stammer, and who was never groomed to be King in the first place.
Some time after the Abdication the ex-King Edward and his twice divorced, highly vocal, pathologically, ambitiously social climbing, chronically controlling American wife Wallis Simpson were photographed being very chummy and smiley as they almost embraced Herr Adolf Hitler at his eagle's nest on a mountain top in Bavaria.
On top of all that another war against the Germans came along, which put even more of an immense strain on her husband, who resolutely refused to leave London at any time during the Blitz, as did Elizabeth and their two daughters, although they did "evacuate" to Windsor Castle every night, 25 miles or so away from Central London. On one day though the King and Queen only just managed to escape death or injury when two German bombers flew low over Central London and headed towards the area of Buckingham Palace one morning in September 1940 while they were chatting together in a drawing room. They only just managed to scramble to safety along a corridor before a stick of bombs demolished parts of the Palace, and seriously damaged the room they had occupied a minute or so before.
The war put a tremendous strain on the King and he died prematurely in 1952 aged 56. The Queen Mother blamed Edward. And the Germans.
Anyway, she belonged to the long dead past in every way.....the Europe we now have is vastly different to that which she knew for much of her life and it's really difficult for people of my generation to truly understand her extreme antipathy towards a race of people we now regard as fellow Europeans under the same Union banner. All the Germans I have personally met have been really quite pleasant. Life really is strange in many ways. I'd MUCH rather have a group of well behaved, decent Germans as mates than a posse of pissed-up, foul mouthed, vomiting, urinating Club 18-30 social welfare scrounging, sub-culture proletariat white trash disgrace to Britain Brits rampaging about the night time streets of the Spanish Costas or Greek tavernas causing mayhem left right and centre....not to mention their actions here at home.
Did anybody see the British film Green Street?
On a language note (remembering the purpose of the Forum) the Queen Mother had a life long hatred and an utter contempt for anything remotely German or in any way Teutonic, although she ultimately married into a family with strong German links. That, it seems, was the reason why she took so long to accept the proposal of marriage put to her by Prince Bertie, later to become King George VI. Apparently she only had to hear the German language being spoken to make her feel physically sick. The music of Wagner had the same effect on her, or so I read.
As a teenage girl she saw at first hand the immense suffering of all those severely injured British soldiers transported back to the UK from the battlefields of the Western Front during WW1...many were sent to her home in Glamis Castle, Angus, Scotland, which had been requisitioned as a treatment and recuperation centre, and where many of them sadly died from their injuries, including one of her own brothers. Many of those who were not too badly injured physically suffered from extreme mental conditions. Although she was so young she was no stranger to the wards at Glamis....she found the experience very distressing, and as a result she never lost her hatred for the Germans thoughout her long life.
You can imagine her feelings after the Abdication of her brother in law Edward VIII in 1936 which thrust her husband into the role of King.....a man of a nervous dispostion, afflicted with a painfully acute stammer, and who was never groomed to be King in the first place.
Some time after the Abdication the ex-King Edward and his twice divorced, highly vocal, pathologically, ambitiously social climbing, chronically controlling American wife Wallis Simpson were photographed being very chummy and smiley as they almost embraced Herr Adolf Hitler at his eagle's nest on a mountain top in Bavaria.
On top of all that another war against the Germans came along, which put even more of an immense strain on her husband, who resolutely refused to leave London at any time during the Blitz, as did Elizabeth and their two daughters, although they did "evacuate" to Windsor Castle every night, 25 miles or so away from Central London. On one day though the King and Queen only just managed to escape death or injury when two German bombers flew low over Central London and headed towards the area of Buckingham Palace one morning in September 1940 while they were chatting together in a drawing room. They only just managed to scramble to safety along a corridor before a stick of bombs demolished parts of the Palace, and seriously damaged the room they had occupied a minute or so before.
The war put a tremendous strain on the King and he died prematurely in 1952 aged 56. The Queen Mother blamed Edward. And the Germans.
Anyway, she belonged to the long dead past in every way.....the Europe we now have is vastly different to that which she knew for much of her life and it's really difficult for people of my generation to truly understand her extreme antipathy towards a race of people we now regard as fellow Europeans under the same Union banner. All the Germans I have personally met have been really quite pleasant. Life really is strange in many ways. I'd MUCH rather have a group of well behaved, decent Germans as mates than a posse of pissed-up, foul mouthed, vomiting, urinating Club 18-30 social welfare scrounging, sub-culture proletariat white trash disgrace to Britain Brits rampaging about the night time streets of the Spanish Costas or Greek tavernas causing mayhem left right and centre....not to mention their actions here at home.
Did anybody see the British film Green Street?
Do you honestly think I wasn't aware of that? The daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, as Scottish as haggis and shortbread....read back through my post...her family home....Glamis* Castle, Angus, SCOTLAND. *Pronounced as "Glahms" in true Scottish style....none of your "GLAMM-is" stuff, please....we leave all that to the English yet to find out how to say it properly.
The English rose thing was a sop to the English then, if you like...everybody knows about the "English rose" but the Scottish rose never gets a mention, even though its just as lovely. In any case, the Queen Mother also had another childhood home...in Hertfordshire, England.
I'm fed up talking about her now....she's history anyway.
The English rose thing was a sop to the English then, if you like...everybody knows about the "English rose" but the Scottish rose never gets a mention, even though its just as lovely. In any case, the Queen Mother also had another childhood home...in Hertfordshire, England.
I'm fed up talking about her now....she's history anyway.
Green Street trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAe-1Lv1KYU
Not very pleasant to watch. It is about football hooligans. Not so long ago there was a fight at Stonehaven Railway Station between 'Casuals' from Aberdeen and Dundee who agreed to meet there.
It is hard to believe?
Less hard to believe but equally pathetic.
CCTV of man ramming Tesco in his Rolls-Royce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig1ADoL--6k
"Robert Caton, 50, went to the supermarket to remonstrate with managers after a bed he ordered from Tesco Direct was delivered without the mattress.
Unhappy with their response he flew into a drunken rage before driving his car through the store's plate glass window.
He caused £60,000 pounds worth of damage and left six women - including one who was pregnant - needing hospital treatment treated for cuts, bruising and shock.
A judge ordered him to forfeit his Rolls Royce and banned him from driving for five years.
Moments before he drove his 1983 Rolls Royce Silver Spirit into the shop he had asked a security guard how long it would take to evacuate the store.
His car wiped out two check outs, scattering shoppers in all directions. Roofing and shelving tumbled to the ground as smoke filled the air, adding to the confusion.
Emergency services dashed to the scene as the store in Andover, Hants, was evacuated on the afternoon of May 20, this year. "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAe-1Lv1KYU
Not very pleasant to watch. It is about football hooligans. Not so long ago there was a fight at Stonehaven Railway Station between 'Casuals' from Aberdeen and Dundee who agreed to meet there.
It is hard to believe?
Less hard to believe but equally pathetic.
CCTV of man ramming Tesco in his Rolls-Royce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig1ADoL--6k
"Robert Caton, 50, went to the supermarket to remonstrate with managers after a bed he ordered from Tesco Direct was delivered without the mattress.
Unhappy with their response he flew into a drunken rage before driving his car through the store's plate glass window.
He caused £60,000 pounds worth of damage and left six women - including one who was pregnant - needing hospital treatment treated for cuts, bruising and shock.
A judge ordered him to forfeit his Rolls Royce and banned him from driving for five years.
Moments before he drove his 1983 Rolls Royce Silver Spirit into the shop he had asked a security guard how long it would take to evacuate the store.
His car wiped out two check outs, scattering shoppers in all directions. Roofing and shelving tumbled to the ground as smoke filled the air, adding to the confusion.
Emergency services dashed to the scene as the store in Andover, Hants, was evacuated on the afternoon of May 20, this year. "