Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Time to do some exercise!

The last chance to figure out what to eat tomorrow... Maybe I honour some traditions and eat vegetarian food.

After following Kathy's lead about exercise, I'm going to send a few emails encouraging various public figures to pay a little attention to climate change.

Then walk the Pom.

Shelley
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com

very sad :( RIP Senor Marquez ....


Melanti just pointed out that we are scheduled to read his One Hundred Years of Solitude in May, for our Revisiting the Shelf Selection.

She linked an article there, too.

Tytti wrote: "The last chance to figure out what to eat tomorrow... Maybe I honour some traditions and eat vegetarian food."

Last Friday, Tytti! ;-)

Well, in the Roman calendar. Don't know about the Eastern one :)


ps - my husband is growing a hockey beard for playoffs cuz the Bruins are in it. phfffft!

Last Friday?

Well, we just have to hope you won't have to suffer for long. :-P

heh

No more lobster pizza?! :o

ohhh suffer was the beard!

he says they're going til summer! or, you know. whenever. ;-)

MK wrote: "No more lobster pizza?! :o"

Now you lost me totally...

Tytti wrote: "MK wrote: "No more lobster pizza?! :o"

Now you lost me totally..."

For meatless Friday ;-)

MK wrote: "For meatless Friday ;-)"

Well it is Good Friday after all. If there is one day I might decide to eat vegetarian food specifically, it would be it.

Fish is legal too :D

Oops I forgot about meatless Friday! But hey I did plan fish for Easter, so that's okay right? :D

yep ;-)

(well, you might need a Papal Dispensation or something ... but, you know, I won't tell if you don't :D)

(oh boy I'm in trouble! ;))

So for you the Holy Friday is a normal day?

Tytti, Good Friday. Holy Thursday. :D

(edit - Holy Saturday, too.)

lol Kim ....

Monday is the best though. My husband's got Polish forebears. In Indiana (one of the US states), they celebrate "Dingus Day" !

Brats, sausages, beer, and a parade!!!


(edit - "Dyngus Day", says Google, what do I know, I never saw it written down :p)

MK wrote: "Tytti, Good Friday. Holy Thursday. :D"

Wikipedia mentions Good, Holy, Great, and Black Friday. In Finnish it's "Long Friday" and everything is closed, as they are in Sunday and Monday, too.

Tytti wrote: "So for you the Holy Friday is a normal day?"

Actually yes, I'm not a religious person. Although, since my byofriend is, I've been trying to remember the days because he's been fasting for 40 days (well almost) and I do want to support him and stuff. So for once I'm kind of aware of the fact that it's almost Easter! :D

Black Friday is usually referring to the day after Thanksgiving when the entire flipping US goes insane and shops shops shops shops shops!

Okay, not the ENTIRE. But, you know.

Don't know about Long and Great. I've always heard Good Friday, for the day that Jesus was crucified.

Kim wrote: "Actually yes, I'm not a religious person. "

Well I'm not either but it's better to know when almost (?) all food stores are closed. There are some other changes, too. But I like to honour some traditions, in my case they are both Lutheran and Orthodox. Some go out to party today, I wouldn't.

Umm in Dutch we have somewhat the same names for it, it's palm Sunday and then white Thursay, good Friday, silent Saturday and then Easter Sunday. :D

@Tytti: Oh yes, indeed! But in my country the stores are only closed on Eastern and the Monday after. :)

I came across this: "New features include a giant chessboard and a large Word Wall listing 600 words children should learn by fifth grade such as “cattle,” “blue” and “sound.”" Aren't those quite normal words? (Except for the cattle maybe, they are city kids.) I can't understand not knowing them... I remember learning "concubine" just by watching tv. (Of course I had learned it in Finnish before that.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/nyr... (The text was in the slide show.)

Yes, those are normal, everyday words. Weird!

Just read the article. Interesting! And, ahhh text in slide show. Was just going to ask. I'm on my kindle right now, so I'm not sure slide show will play (I skipped it, multimedia only sometimes works on my kindle).

Tytti wrote: "Aren't those quite normal words? (Except for the cattle maybe, they are city kids.) I can't understand not knowing them"

I'd assume that they're not so much vocabulary lists as spelling lists. Even something simple like "blue" has a homonym (blew) and three different meanings - color, mood, music.

I remember it being high school or so before my spelling lists regularly included words I didn't know the meaning of.

MK - here's a direct link to the pic and you can read the words in the background... http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/0...

Melanti wrote: "I remember it being high school or so before my spelling lists regularly included words I didn't know the meaning of."

I had never heard of spelling lists...

"Even something simple like "blue" has a homonym (blew) and three different meanings - color, mood, music."

Only three? http://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/p...

Tytti wrote: "I had never heard of spelling lists......"

Yep. Our schoolkids have to do spelling/vocab lists. Usually 15-20 words a week you have to memorize the spelling of (and the meaning of if you don't already know it).

Is Finnish one of the languages that is always spelled the same way it's pronounced? Us English speakers are a bit nuts and even vary how we spell words depending on what country we live in. I'm sure it can be blamed on the Norman conquest somehow. Anything else weird about our language gets blamed on that, so why not our crazy spelling.

Of course we had those when we were studying some language but they were mainly word lists of different chapters.

Well yes and no. The words are pronounced the way they are spelled but nobody writes the way they talk. We leave out letters almost from every word probably.
4-5 different letters and 16 different words: http://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/p...

But it's funny, I have never found it too difficult to spell English. Yes sure some words are difficult but it's not the most difficult part. Now French, that's difficult for me, or Russian probably.

English isn't necessarily spelled the way it's pronounced. We have a ton of rules of thumb on how things are supposed to be spelled, but there's a ton of exceptions to those rules also.

English started out Germanic, then the Norman Invasion added a ton of French and Latin words to the mix, and the spelling of everything got changed to be more in line with the French and Latin spelling methods.

Then after the spelling was mostly standardized, we had a couple of big shifts on the way we pronounced certain letters - especially vowels and the endings of words. Which was more or less when English started to be spelled differently than it was pronounced.

Words that have entered the language after that point have spellings that more closely align to their pronunciations.

Here's a joke that pokes fun at some of our more nonsensical spellings:
If GH stands for P as in Hiccough
If OUGH stands for O as in Dough
If PHTH stands for T as in Phthisis
If EIGH stands for A as in Neighbour
If TTE stands for T as in Gazette
If EAU stands for O as in Plateau
The right way to spell POTATO should be GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU!

Lmao, that joke..

Melanti wrote: "English isn't necessarily spelled the way it's pronounced. We have a ton of rules of thumb on how things are supposed to be spelled, but there's a ton of exceptions to those rules also."

For me knowing how to pronounce some words is more difficult than knowing how to spell them, at least if I have never heard them. Usually I am pretty good in noticing spelling mistakes because I remember the meaning of the word that is written and then I have to think how it's pronounced and try to guess what the writer meant.

Orphan Black! Season 2 premiere in 5 minutes :D. Anyone watching?

Hi everyone :)

@MK

"Bruins fans booed Jesus at the game today... On Easter Sunday.
Some Boston fans are defending their actions saying "It wasn't the real Jesus"
Good luck with that defense Boston. Santa isn't real either"

Hahahaa :D If there is justice in the world, you will be hearing about that for a long time.

Tytti wrote: "@MK

"Bruins fans booed Jesus at the game today... On Easter Sunday.
Some Boston fans are defending their actions saying "It wasn't the real Jesus"
Good luck with that defense Boston. Santa isn't r..."


"What the hell are you talking about?"

lol ... okay, that was my husband talking. He's sporting his hockey beard and feeling chippy. He's laughing over my shoulder, says, Be more politic than that!

(Now he says if Jesus had Red Wings gear on then he deserved it. :-o )


He watched the game earlier. Delighted with the 4-1 victory. He doesn't know when they booed Jesus tho :p

Eagles fans booed to Santa once and it gets mentioned every time Philly fans are talked about. Granted it happened quite recently, in 1968, so everyone of course remembers it.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puc...

Oh yes, I watched the games, too.

Has someone read Ulysses? I wish to read it but it has not been translated to Persian because of it's difficult language I think.

Tytti wrote: "Eagles fans booed to Santa once and it gets mentioned every time Philly fans are talked about. Granted it happened quite recently, in 1968, so everyone of course remembers it.
http://sports.yahoo.c..."

Oooooohhhhh .... Hang on, I have him looking at something right now ;-). I'll show him in a minute :D

Lale wrote: "Has someone read Ulysses? I wish to read it but it has not been translated to Persian because of it's difficult language I think."

I haven't, Lale, but I wouldn't be surprised if another member has.

Tytti wrote: "Eagles fans booed to Santa once and it gets mentioned every time Philly fans are talked about. Granted it happened quite recently, in 1968, so everyone of course remembers it.
http://sports.yahoo.c..."

He says oh yea, they threw at Santa and booed him out of the place! He says he'd forgotten about that, until you brought it up :D.


FUNNY story at your link! Jesus was smoking?!? lol ~

MK wrote: "He says oh yea, they threw at Santa and booed him out of the place!"

He wasn't the real Santa!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWvza...

He says, it wasn't the real Jesus, either! :D

hahahahaaa that youtube was AWESOME!!!

Hi I was wondering how to create a good read link to a title and author when you are posting? Thks

Hi Sam, if you're coming in using the goodreads app, you can't do it.

If you're here on your browser, right above the text entry box (where you type when you post), there is 'add book/author'. Use that click to add book/author links to posts.

Lale wrote: "Has someone read Ulysses? I wish to read it but it has not been translated to Persian because of it's difficult language I think."

I know people that can't read it in ENGLISH and it's their first language. I think it's tough no matter what.

Btw, does anyone use book journals (anymore)? I've been eyeing The Book Lover's Journal: My Personal Reading Record and maybe Bookworm Journal: A Reading Log for Kids for my goddaughter (of course her mother would have to read/translate the important parts but still). The Book Lover's Journal has e.g. a couple of classics lists (and I like lists!) and then you can check the ones you've read which you can't do here. :-P But I think I might like to write some personal notes etc.