English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Right. So suddenly, Mr & Mrs Nax notice that their son Mah has started eating lots of mints and coffee, and acting like he's trying to hide something. So they wonder whether it's alcohol, or cigarettes, or marijuana.

Cerberus

5:02 AM

Yeah, mints are a classic.

Mahnax

More coffee than mints, by the way.

Cerberus

As in, suspect.

Hmm.

Well, the smell of alcohol is not very strong, usually.

I smell it only very rarely on other people.

David Wallace

Yes, but do you spend as much time in close proximity to said people as Mr & Mrs Nax do?

Cerberus

You are careful, aren't you?

Mahnax

Of course.

David Wallace

5:03 AM

Careful shmareful. One day, you'll slip up.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace I don't remember ever smelling it in my parents' breath.

Is it hard to get?

Oh haha.

Make sure you don't drink too much at a time, and not too often, because it is said to be extra harmful for your brain at your age.

That's way too much.

David Wallace

I have little ability to understand why anyone would drink.

Cerberus

Even if they were small drinks.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Quite.

Cerberus

:6400397 That means he or she didn't get too drunk, so that's good, but it is still way too much within a short period of time.

Mahnax

5:07 AM

Interesting.

Cerberus

I believe so.

Mahnax

Well, the more you know, I guess.

Cerberus

You have not nearly enough time to break down the toxins and stuff.

David Wallace

Why would you put those toxins into your body in the first place?

Cerberus

Enough to time break down the alcohol, but not enough to make it exactly as (un)healthy as drinking 2 glasses a day for 5 days: the latter is much better.

Mahnax

5:09 AM

Sorry, that was rude.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace It is indeed questionable.

David Wallace

@Mahnax No, it was honest.

And sad.

Sad, because if you consider alcohol to be a pre-requisite of fun, then it is you, not I, who have failed to comprehend the notion of fun.

Cerberus

It has been a part of our culture for thousands of years. It's mainly social, I'd say.

Mahnax

@DavidWallace That is not it at all.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Not a pre-requisite, of course.

Mahnax

5:10 AM

I never said that.

David Wallace

It's getting hard to tell, the way you keep deleting stuff. But you did strongly imply it.

Mahnax

It is entirely possible to have plenty of fun sans alcohol, which I do regularly.

@DavidWallace I did, and it wasn't really an accurate portrayal of how I feel about it.

David Wallace

So, you don't actually have a fun-related reason to drink then?

Mahnax

I did not say that either.

I am now formally requesting that we change the subject, because this is not the first thing that needs to be seen in the morning.

Cerberus

Okay, can I give one more tip?

Mahnax

5:14 AM

Oh, someone's car alarm is going off.

Sure.

Cerberus

The best way to do it is by drinking maybe two drinks at the start of the evening/night, then slow down to 1 per hour or so, then stop 1 or 2 hours before the end.

It's not always easy, but this way you get the most out of it.

Mahnax

Alright, good to know.

David Wallace

@Mahnax, I don't mean to sound like one of your parents. But the fact is that when I was your age, I drank far too much, and got drunk far too often. And the drinking age here was 20. Today, I bitterly regret doing that.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Out of personal interest, why do you regret it so bitterly?

Of course it was bad, but...bitterly?

David Wallace

If I could make you think twice about the wisdom of drinking, I would do so, gladly.

Cerberus

5:17 AM

There's also moderate drinking?

David Wallace

@Cerberus Well, it did me far more harm than good. I did a large number of very stupid things. I'm not entirely comfortable telling you about them.

Cerberus

OK.

Things that still haunt you?

David Wallace

Actually, what haunts me is that my parents knew that I was drinking heavily, and did nothing to stop me. In fact, my mother regularly bought beer for me.

And yes, there are several things I did that I wish I could take back.

Cerberus

Okay, that sucks.

Heavy drinking is not cool. Especially not at that age.

So anyway, about mobile phones...

Mahnax

Yes, mobile phones.

Cerberus

5:20 AM

Did you hear they were mobile?

Mahnax

Wow.

Cerberus

And you can talk through them.

David Wallace

I'm trying to imagine a situation in which, four years from now, my son comes to a chat room like this one and talks to some guy my age about drinking. What would I want that man to say to my son? So, Mahnax, that's the other reason why I'm sounding the way that I am. Please forgive me if it sounds condescending.

Mahnax

That's like, the opposite of immobile, yes?

Cerberus

Absolutely.

Very moving.

@DavidWallace I understand. Parenthood is the story of losing control.

It's hard, but you will survive.

Mahnax

5:22 AM

That's an interesting way to look at it.

Cerberus

And look how well David turned out.

@Mahnax It is sort of true.

David Wallace

@Cerberus I detect an undertone of irony in that remark.

Mahnax

@Cerberus In many cases, it is.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace It was teasing, but with a core of truth.

Despite your youthful mistakes, you ended up with a house and a job and a wife and a son.

And this beautiful chatroom.

Mahnax

Yes, this loving community.

David Wallace

5:23 AM

@Cerberus Hah! Did I mention I don't have a job?

Mahnax

When did that happen? I'm very sorry to hear that.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Yeah...and it can be hard to decide when and how to let go, little by little. Too soon is bad, too late is bad too.

Mahnax

I'm currently out of work as well.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace But you had one.

@Mahnax He quit too.

David Wallace

@Cerberus I have had several. Well, I haven't actually had a job since 2006. What I have had is contracts.

Cerberus

5:25 AM

OK.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Ah, OK.

Haha, this is silly.

Cerberus

Haha, is that a Iphone?

Mahnax

Yep.

Cerberus

(David, avert your eyes.)

Silly indeed.

David Wallace

Too late, I saw it.

Mahnax

5:27 AM

I'm sorry, Mr. Wallace.

Cerberus

Is there a non-Indo-European language that would be easier for us to learn than some Indo-European language, I wonder?

Like Finnish v. Armenian.

I have no idea.

Hard to measure.

David Wallace

I strongly doubt it.

OK, how about Maori vs Persian?

Mahnax

Bah, you and your Maori.

Cerberus

Yeah, who knows?

Mahnax

Actually, Maori sounds quite nice, from what I've heard.

David Wallace

5:31 AM

Yes, it sounds nice. And many New Zealanders find it easy to learn.

(I'm waiting for tchrist to come along and tell me off for dropping the macron from the A)

Mahnax

Shh, let him sleep.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Hmm I wonder why?

Is it commonly spelled Māori?

David Wallace

Yes, that is the correct spelling.

Cerberus

I have never seen it spelled thus.

David Wallace

I have personally spelt it for you thus many times.

Cerberus

5:35 AM

But...

Maori (taal)

Maori (in het Maori: Māori of Te Reo Māori, vaak afgekort als Te Reo) is de taal van de oorspronkelijke bewoners van Nieuw-Zeeland, de Maori's. Het is één van de drie officiële landstalen van Nieuw-Zeeland, naast het Engels en de Nieuw-Zeelandse Gebarentaal (NZSL). Gebruik Maori wordt gesproken door ongeveer 165 000 personen. Van de Maoribevolking in Nieuw-Zeeland zijn ongeveer 130 000 mensen in staat een gesprek over een alledaags onderwerp te houden, dit is 23,7 procent van de Maori bevolking. * Kia ora - Goede gezondheid (wordt ook als welkomst- en afscheidsgroet gebruikt)...

Mahnax

Dutch is such a weird language.

David Wallace

Umm, if we're going to use their own word for their own identity, we should at least spell it correctly. Even if it was Europeans who gave them the macron in the first place.

Mahnax

> in het Maori: Māori of Te Reo Māori

David Wallace

Umm, of those 8 words, 5 are Māori and 2 are English. Possibly only "het" is Dutch.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Why!

@DavidWallace How should we call Chinese?

Mahnax

5:40 AM

@Cerberus oorspronkelijke

Cerberus

What about it?

David Wallace

I was in a doctor's waiting room a few days ago. There was a children's book there, something about farm animals, where one page out of about six was in Dutch. It was hilarious.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Ere-spring-ly.

David Wallace

I got as far as "I am a brown spotted horse", then I gave up.

Mahnax

I like Dutch, it just sounds a little funny. That's all, really.

Cerberus

5:41 AM

@DavidWallace More so than, say, German?

@Mahnax Good.

David Wallace

@Cerberus sorry, I don't understand the question.

Cerberus

More hilarious than, say, German?

Mahnax

I think I'm going to go to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow.

Bye!

Cerberus

Good.

Bye!

I should be going too.

David Wallace

Oh, umm, no the amusing thing was to find one page of the book in a different language from the others. Any language would have been equally hilarious.

Possibly a language that used a different alphabet would have been even more hilarious.

Cerberus

5:43 AM

Weird.

Why did they include that page?

David Wallace

They weren't around for me to ask.

It was clearly just a printing error, I guess.

Cerberus

Ah OK.

Funny.

David Wallace

When my son was very small, I translated Peter Rabbit into Bosnian for him, and printed it out on paper which I attached to the book with little flaps, so he could read the Bosnian, or lift the flap and read the English.

Cerberus

That's cool.

David Wallace

But my wife found my translation hysterical, because I tried to keep the spirit of the original. So, for example, I translated "Benjamin Bunny" as "Zoran Zec". "Zoran" is a fairly common Yugoslav name; although technically, "zec" means "hare".

Cerberus

5:49 AM

Ah, the alliteration.

David Wallace

And Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail became Vlopić, Mopić and Pamukrep. Because "FL" doesn't really exist in Bosnian, or if it does, it's not common. But "Pamukrep" was probably a mistake; it doesn't sound right somehow.

(pamuk = cotton, rep = tail)

Cerberus

Haha.

Cute.

But hey, it's bed time.

So I must leave you alone.

David Wallace

OK, good night. Nice talking to you today. But I didn't get to use my limerick!

Cerberus

You can polish it for tomorrow.

Good night!

David Wallace