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Post by tod2 on Sept 10, 2020 16:35:02 GMT
I'm presuming you are fluent in German and Mrs. In English? Otherwise you wouldn't know who's telling fibs now would ya?!
Never mind about babies and small kids……Our help talks 'baby talk' to our dog. Especially when she rolls over and wants a tummy scratch. Ooops! Stomach scratch….
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 10, 2020 17:17:23 GMT
I can hold a conversation in German, that's all. Mrs M is fluent in English though, as well as other languages. When our kids would get confused and talk to me in German my default answer was that I have no idea what you are talking about as I only speak English. Try again.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 10, 2020 19:12:28 GMT
I've been seeing advertisements for "the perfect vacay". I'll see your cringe-inducing slang word and raise you one: "vayjayjay" for vagina. I had never seen the term until it was mentioned here, but even one use of it is overuse. Amen! Mrs M only spoke German to our kids and I only spoke English. That is interesting! I have often wondered how parents get their children to grow up bilingual.
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 10, 2020 19:35:02 GMT
Are you familiar with word vajazzle?
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 10, 2020 20:12:38 GMT
Glittery private parts?
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 10, 2020 20:27:09 GMT
Yes indeed. Pretty common in Anyport I hear. Very popular in New Orleans.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 10, 2020 20:38:26 GMT
That is interesting! I have often wondered how parents get their children to grow up bilingual. It has been mentioned a few years ago probably, but my three on;y spoke a certain level of Spanish when we adopted them. This we stuck with until they came with us to live full time in Germany a year later and they went to kindergarten and school. Just before that happened we bit the bullet stopped overnight speaking Spanish to them, and I mean overnight (we told them that from tomorrow they speak English or German but neither of us will understand Spanish any more. They took it in their stride as kids do) - never mind the fact that I couldn't speak Spanish anyway and always spoke English - but for them to survive in school they needed fairly quickly, working German. We took the hard decision of making their life a little less difficult by getting them to learn just two languages, English and German, rather than them trying to not only learn those, but Spanish as well. The hard decision was a complete drop of Spanish, which we didn't really want to do, but our daughters, when we stayed in Spain for over a year and they went to school here, had all lessons in Spanish and became conversant with it again. So the daughters are more or less tri-lingual (when they can be bothered).
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Post by casimira on Sept 10, 2020 21:04:39 GMT
Are you familiar with word vajazzle? Putting mine on right now to go out on the town
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 10, 2020 21:07:42 GMT
Are you familiar with word vajazzle? Putting mine on right now to go out on the town Should be quite a night...
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 10, 2020 23:13:33 GMT
That is really something, Mark. I suppose you thought you were being very hard-nosed as parents, but probably the kids saw it as sort of a game. It sure worked out!
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Post by whatagain on Sept 11, 2020 3:48:20 GMT
I've also seen t-shirts with vacay! on them. In general I dislike t-shirts with writing, unless it is a team shirt with the team's and the player's names, and baby talk makes them much worse. The best t-shirt ever appears on Notting Hill. Hugh Grant has to approve of his neighbour wearing one for a date. The neighbour really has poor taste. At last he puts on a t-shirt that reads 'You are the most beautiful girl i ever met' Hugh gives the thumbs up. Neighbours turns around and leaves. On the back of the T-shirt appears 'Wanna fuck ?'.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 11, 2020 15:44:40 GMT
At least I had a great belly-laugh! I'd need one of Diana Rigg's famous karate kicks!
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 14, 2020 20:11:50 GMT
I am so tired of "life threatening" events-- fires, hurricanes, etc. I guess "dangerous" has become too weak when all dangers must be new and improved and scarier.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 14, 2020 20:30:33 GMT
And all life-threatening/dangerous events are "horrific".
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 14, 2020 20:51:02 GMT
Have we mentioned 'hero'?
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Post by questa on Sept 14, 2020 23:27:01 GMT
And like the disasters that have gone before, these are 'unprecedented'.
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 15, 2020 8:25:51 GMT
Thoughts and prayers.
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Post by tod2 on Sept 15, 2020 11:14:39 GMT
A word my son frequently uses and which I have concluded has several meanings is "hundreds". Sometimes I thought it meant 'Great', other times 'that's OK with me' and sometimes I thought it meant ' Thank you so much…..like a Hundred times thanks'. I just wish conversations say what they mean….not shortcut a sentence or meaning down to one word. Except in times of high stress or shock…..F.U.C.K.!!
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 15, 2020 11:44:13 GMT
If we keep this up, we will all have to hydrate.
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Post by casimira on Oct 16, 2020 14:58:32 GMT
pandemic pounds (apparently referencing weight gain during Covid)
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Post by casimira on Dec 9, 2020 20:45:00 GMT
All of a sudden everything is being correlated with "bandwith". WTF is up with that?
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Post by tod2 on Jan 6, 2021 12:58:34 GMT
The native population of South Africa is taught English at school of course, as it is the main spoken language, but even the most influential people insist on using the word "basicallÿ" in every sentence. Every single answer to a question or statement always starts with that word. I have to tune out or I will punch the TV screen in frustration. I don't think the person using it has the faintest idea what basically actually means.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 6, 2021 18:39:49 GMT
"Basically" was also pointlessly over-present in American English usage for a long time. It seems to have been superseded by "actually". From watching tv on youtube I have become aware of stupid words taking the place of regular words: price point instead of plain old price. Wow factor used over and over again.
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Post by bjd on Jan 6, 2021 19:21:54 GMT
'At this point in time' instead of 'now'.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 6, 2021 23:42:12 GMT
"At this point in time" entered the language during the Watergate hearings and has never gone away.
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Post by tod2 on Jan 7, 2021 8:27:30 GMT
Ha! And just when you thought you could converse the way your grandparents did - or even your parents if you are my age 76, the most ghastly continually chanted slogan is "It takes xxxxx to a whole new level" If I hear a chef, art director, travel agent or movie crit say "to the next level" I think I will spit at them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 7, 2021 15:15:22 GMT
the most ghastly continually chanted slogan I haven't picked up on that one to the point of being infuriated by it yet, but probably because I haven't been watching the right shows. What I see as such a big part of the endlessly repeated slogans is that everyone under a certain age (@40?) seems to be performing all the time. I'm talking about everyone, not only people who are professional performers or presenters. It's as though everyone is in selfie/speak-into-the-camera mode all the time, even children. Contrast the career infectious disease experts advising us about covid with Dr. Mike for instance. The official experts just stand up there and state what we need to know, whereas Dr. Mike makes an effort (excessive, in my opinion) to be charming and bright. I imagine people now used to all-singing/all-dancing all the time just tune out the gloomy experts but pay real attention to "fun" Dr. Mike. Of course I suspect those same people are more swayed by the smarminess of Fox news than they are by the impassioned but sincere presentation of Rachel Maddow. That's my grumpy two-cents worth.
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Post by whatagain on Jan 7, 2021 18:46:42 GMT
Something that is invariably a hint that the guy is going to muddy the waters is when they start with ' very clearly ' ...
Actually is a false friend, as well as eventually. They start to be used in french with the english meaning, which infuriates me.
In the line of stressing a word by using 2 instead the ine i hate in french is 'au jour d'aujourd'Hui' which means the day of today.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 22, 2021 22:11:38 GMT
"not so much"
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Post by lugg on Feb 23, 2021 20:20:37 GMT
I am definitely using the word " fab" too much ( I do try to slap myself)
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