Archive for March, 2009

Intonationally Left Behind

March 25th, 2009

So, living away from English for a long time, one naturally starts to worry about losing touch with the language as-it-is-spake, especially when one’s contact with one’s home culture comes primarily through reading things on the internet, as opposed to talking to fellow countrymen or watching topical television. One regular shock is hearing peoples’ names.  […]

Transitive Property of Equality

March 24th, 2009

So Alex has just turned 3, which means he’s starting to make interesting cognitive connections and jumps.  The two which I’ve been impressed by lately were: He was asking me about the sand people in Star Wars, and I explained that they were nomads, so they lived in tents.  The conversation proceeded something like this: […]

Culturally Modified Female Voice

March 5th, 2009

Most people with a passing familiarity with Japan, and anyone who has actually lived in Japan, is intimately familiar with the Culturally Modified Female Voice, by which I mean the extra-high voices that some (not all) Japanese women use. There are actually two types of annoying voices, with very different roots.  The first is the […]