Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[sourwolf]

This wasn't exactly an exchange as such as I am pretty sure Ellen De Generes can't hear me through the TV screen but it did have my best friend and I going "You are doing what?! Are you totally insane"

She had a lovely old lady on her show who had given her retirement over to helping people in her community. Everyone loved her and had written into the show to see if she could be one of the people Ellen gives prizes like new cars or holidays to. So after a run down of all this woman's good deeds Ellen asks her what long held dream she had and this dear old lady mentioned she had always wanted to go to the Solomon Islands. Heck knows why because it is a dump. Ellen then annouces "Well we are sending you to the Solomon Islands for a week!" and the crowd starts cheering and going crazy.

We started going crazy too as that dear old lady was going to get herself killed. Not only is it a dump it is also one of the most dangerous places on earth at the time in the middle of a civil war had zero  tourism. Troops from Australia and New Zealand were there on Peace Keeping missions and my BF's ex who was a cop in the Armed Offenders Squad had got back from there saying it was hell on earth. They may as well have sent her to Mogadishu.

Our brains were just about exploding that no one in the production staff had even thought to do a check on where they were sending this woman, which was basically certain doom, as well as the fact the woman herself had not even thought of finding out a tiny bit more about the place herself.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, but if it's good enough for Kate and Wills, it's good enough for me. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/16/kate-middleton-prince-william-solomon-islands-royal-tour-photos-pictures-2012_n_1887903.html?utm_hp_ref=kate-middleton  It seems the Solomon Islands didn't seem to get the memo either http://www.visitsolomons.com.sb/

[WillyNilly]

Not French, but I had a twitch when ordering Greek food from a little drive thru in town and the girl said "Here's your gyros!"  Pronounced "Guy-ros" Gah!  I mean I don't know how to pronounce all the items on a Greek menu but really? That's got to be the easiest one!

There are debates on how gyro is pronounced.  I'm guessing you are in the "eeee- ro" camp?  Because everyone I know - Greeks included - say its correct to pronounce it geye-ro, similar to gyroscope or gyrate, and that "eeee-ro" is a valid Greek pronunciation but not more correct, its just different (like Americans saying rat-iator or radiate- or, or cooo-pon vs que-pon).  If you ordered an "eeee-ro" form a NYC street cart or diner I doubt they'd know what you were asking for, but they sell hundreds of thousands of geye-ro's daily.

Could I please request a little clarification (about consonants, rather than vowels)? Are you saying that in your experience, a correct pronunciation is "guy-ro / geye-ro" -- first letter as in the first letter of the word "good"?  I have always thought this (and gyroscope, and gyrate) were pronounced "jeye..." -- first letter as in the first letter of the word "joke". (Hope this makes sense.)  I'd imagined that the "jeye..."pronunciation was what Piratelvr1121 had been expecting; but perhaps I misunderstood there.

Or does it perhaps depend on where you're from?  In the UK, such words are I think always pronounced with the j-sound; in America, maybe otherwise.

The "g" sound in gyro would be closer to the "j" in joke, or the "g" in general (which to me both start with the exact same sound, if different letters), not like "g" in good.  So gyro, gyrate, general, joke, gender, justice, gentle, gee [whiz], etc all start with the same sound.

Regardiing the pronunciation of the greek food, gyro, at the very best Greek restaurant in Houston (IMHO), Niko-Niko's, they pronounce them "yee-ro". I've been going there since 1980 and that's where I learned the word and have pronounced it that way ever since. Maybe it's not the only correct way to say it, but the people who run this place are definitely Greek and that's the way they say it.

I always pronounced like "hero", I also assumed that's why some places in the US call sub sandwiches "heros".

But is it yee-ro, yur-ro, guy-ro, gee-ro, or gur-ro?      I've heard them all used.

My original point was (to the poster who seemed to think guy-ro was horribly wrong), I think they are all correct.

The thing about foreign words adapted into English is there are a lot of pronunciation factors at play.  The regional pronunciation on the Greek person, and the regional pronunciations of the English speaker picking it up, etc.

I tend to think geye-ro is the most linguistically comfortable because of gyro-scope and gyrate, both which are the same root word, which is to turn, as gyro meat is on a pole that turns, one side always at the heat, one side exposed to allow it to be cut. 

[Outdoor Girl]

English translations don't always go as planned.  My landlords back in the '90s had a name that ended with 'ric'.  There was some sort of symbol over the c, meaning it should be pronounced 'ch'.  So 'rich' instead of 'rick'.  But the computers at immigration didn't have that little symbol and the immigration person entered it as 'ric' instead of 'rich', which would have been more correct.

They are very easy going people and just go with having their name pronounced incorrectly in the wider public and only have it pronounced correctly when in their own community.

[cabbageweevil]

I'm not clever with quoting mechanisms -- to get things done without great consuming of time, I'll "brutalise" things a bit.

Willy Nilly wrote: "The 'g' sound in gyro would be closer to the 'j' in joke, or the 'g' in general (which to me both start with the exact same sound, if different letters), not like 'g' in good. So gyro, gyrate, general, joke, gender, justice, gentle, gee [whiz] etc all start with the same sound."

Right, WN, "I get you". In this instance, UK and US English are on the same page pronunciation-wise.

My original point was (to the poster who seemed to think guy-ro was horribly wrong), I think they are all correct.

The thing about foreign words adapted into English is there are a lot of pronunciation factors at play.  The regional pronunciation on the Greek person, and the regional pronunciations of the English speaker picking it up, etc.

I tend to think geye-ro is the most linguistically comfortable because of gyro-scope and gyrate, both which are the same root word, which is to turn, as gyro meat is on a pole that turns, one side always at the heat, one side exposed to allow it to be cut.

Response here, is on culinary / national, rather than pronunciational, lines -- but I find this stuff interesting.  In the UK, there are rather few Greek "eateries", but very many Turkish ones (this, I gather, because of ramifications of the Cyprus issue). Essentially, though, often much the same kind of stuff, made by two frequently bitterly-at-odds nations. Greek "gyro" -- meat on a turning pole -- is Turkish (the very same thing) "doner".  Most Brits are familiar with "doner" and "doner kebab", but would be at a loss if offered "gyro".

[redcat]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

Genuinely curious...

1.  Where are you?
2.  What would you like her to do?

1. I'm in the States. More specifically, I'm on the opposite side from her in a room that can seat about 100.
2. I would like her to not violently blow her nose 4-5 times per class in a room that is otherwise silent except for the professor's voice. This isn't sniffling. This isn't even normal blowing, which might only distract the handful of people around her. This is "I am actively trying to expel my brain from my sinus cavities" type honking.

So, perhaps, sit near a door so she could quietly step into the hall if this became necessary?  She can't possibly be hearing any of the lecture herself if she's blowing that hard, so this would spare everyone the racket.

I'm not sure of the layout of the room, but I can imagine getting up, moving past people, assuming the  assigned seating means she can't sit at the end of a row, and leaving, then entering and retaking her seat would cause more disruption than just blowing her nose.

Maybe this is a US/UK thing, but blowing your nose in public is rude?  Really? /baffled/

[ladyknight1]

I don't find blowing one's nose rude either. My mother has become much more sensitive to it as she has gotten older and now asks everyone to go outside if they have to cough or blow their nose.

[Adelaide]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

Genuinely curious...

1.  Where are you?
2.  What would you like her to do?

1. I'm in the States. More specifically, I'm on the opposite side from her in a room that can seat about 100.
2. I would like her to not violently blow her nose 4-5 times per class in a room that is otherwise silent except for the professor's voice. This isn't sniffling. This isn't even normal blowing, which might only distract the handful of people around her. This is "I am actively trying to expel my brain from my sinus cavities" type honking.

So, perhaps, sit near a door so she could quietly step into the hall if this became necessary?  She can't possibly be hearing any of the lecture herself if she's blowing that hard, so this would spare everyone the racket.

I'm not sure of the layout of the room, but I can imagine getting up, moving past people, assuming the  assigned seating means she can't sit at the end of a row, and leaving, then entering and retaking her seat would cause more disruption than just blowing her nose.

Maybe this is a US/UK thing, but blowing your nose in public is rude?  Really? /baffled/

I think it's rude to do it with extreme noise/production/mess if you're in close proximity to other people, like elbow-to-elbow in the subway, not necessarily "in public" meaning "any time you're away from home". I'm not sure any professor anywhere would be pleased at hearing it several times during class, especially when it makes him lose his train of thought. I wipe or blow my nose in public (or in class) without honking at an ear-splitting volume, and this girl's quickly becoming notorious for doing it just because of the sheer noise level. Some of the guys refer to her as "Kleenex girl" or "That one girl, you know, she's sick right now?"

[Diane AKA Traska]

I personally don't even find body gas rude (oral or otherwise), unless one is doing a presentation (belching the alphabet, lifting a leg, etc)  It's got to come out, and you can't really hold it in very well.  But then, hiccups probably offend some people.

[Jones]

I recall once, while in an airport, I stepped into a restroom and blew my nose. An older woman gave me a look that I interpreted as "how rude." I apologized as I washed my hands (I always worry about germs getting through the weave of the tissue and all over my hands), explaining that I knew it was gross, and I didn't want to do it in the waiting area, but she waved it off explaining that she had never seen someone step into a restroom to blow their nose before and found it surprising. So, I think it's a regional thing.

[Elfmama]

Maybe this is a US/UK thing, but blowing your nose in public is rude?  Really? /baffled/

Like many things, it depends on the place and the circumstances.  The OP has said that the nose-blowing is extremely loud blowing-your-brains-out honking that disrupts the entire class.  So yes, in these circumstances, it's rude.  I had an anniversary dinner at a fancy expensive restaurant ruined by a similar honker.  It appeared that everyone in the restaurant had their appetites ruined.  No one was ordering desserts or extra drinks, but asking for the bill as soon as their meals were served.  So that nose-blower was not only rude to an entire restaurant, but caused a deep cut in the tips to the servers that night.

[jedikaiti]

I personally don't even find body gas rude (oral or otherwise), unless one is doing a presentation (belching the alphabet, lifting a leg, etc)  It's got to come out, and you can't really hold it in very well.  But then, hiccups probably offend some people.

Some Quite a bit of it has to do with intensity, methinks. A few sniffles, a quick honk - no problem. One unavoidable flatus, OK. Common, garden variety hiccups? Maybe a giggle.

But when someone on the other side of a mid-sized lecture hall is describing your nose-blowing as trying to expel your brain through your sinus cavity, and when it's loud and pronounced enough to throw the lecturer off track, that's when it's time to politely excuse yourself to the bathroom, honk out as much of the offending matter as you can, and then return to class.

Likewise, if I'm really gassy (not a quick quiet poot, but likely to be loud, prolonged, or noxious), I would be inclined to take my gas to an appropriate venue for release, then return to class. And if I had a really bad case of hiccups (I have had bouts with horrifically loud, painful hiccups in the past), you better believe I'd be excusing myself politely rather than distract the entire room with the noise. Same thing with coughing - if it's quick and quietish, no big deal. If you're having a fit that sounds like you're about to expel your lungs, you might want to take it elsewhere.

[Elfmama]

One I got multiple times during my high school years, but not since.  I guess adults have figured it out.

"Do you really need to wear those glasses?"     No, I just like having coke-bottle lenses perched on my nose.  (Can't wear contacts. Every time I blink they ride up, and I can't see until they slip down into place again.)

[Pippen]

This wasn't exactly an exchange as such as I am pretty sure Ellen De Generes can't hear me through the TV screen but it did have my best friend and I going "You are doing what?! Are you totally insane"

She had a lovely old lady on her show who had given her retirement over to helping people in her community. Everyone loved her and had written into the show to see if she could be one of the people Ellen gives prizes like new cars or holidays to. So after a run down of all this woman's good deeds Ellen asks her what long held dream she had and this dear old lady mentioned she had always wanted to go to the Solomon Islands. Heck knows why because it is a dump. Ellen then annouces "Well we are sending you to the Solomon Islands for a week!" and the crowd starts cheering and going crazy.

We started going crazy too as that dear old lady was going to get herself killed. Not only is it a dump it is also one of the most dangerous places on earth at the time in the middle of a civil war had zero  tourism. Troops from Australia and New Zealand were there on Peace Keeping missions and my BF's ex who was a cop in the Armed Offenders Squad had got back from there saying it was hell on earth. They may as well have sent her to Mogadishu.

Our brains were just about exploding that no one in the production staff had even thought to do a check on where they were sending this woman, which was basically certain doom, as well as the fact the woman herself had not even thought of finding out a tiny bit more about the place herself.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, but if it's good enough for Kate and Wills, it's good enough for me. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/16/kate-middleton-prince-william-solomon-islands-royal-tour-photos-pictures-2012_n_1887903.html?utm_hp_ref=kate-middleton  It seems the Solomon Islands didn't seem to get the memo either http://www.visitsolomons.com.sb/

This was years ago and because we get delayed coverage here and are up to 6 months behind the actual screening but it was around the time of their civil war. Things are pretty desperate there at the best of times and it has had a massive improvement in infrastrure and toursim since then and it a million times better but you still wouldn't find me setting foot in the place. It would have been right up there with Yemen and Angola for places most likely to get you killed.

[Cat-Fu]

Pippen, I think you're thinking of a different show. Ellen didn't start airing in the US until after the Solomon Islands civil war was over. Or maybe you were thinking of the riots in 2006?

[Pippen]

Pippen, I think you're thinking of a different show. Ellen didn't start airing in the US until after the Solomon Islands civil war was over. Or maybe you were thinking of the riots in 2006?

Maybe. I could have the dates wrong but I know it was around the time BF's ex came back from there as we went our to dinner with him and 2 other guys who had been sent there and they all said it was madness. Being hacked to death by a machete has never been high on my to do list so I tend to avoid places where this is not considered unusual behaviour.