(Knobbly) Because the examiner's wife had had an affair with Arsène Wenger. I'd say the circumflex is optional as the word becomes more and more part of the English (note capital) language. It's certainly not wrong.
(Dujon) Do you ever get snow? Must be pretty rare, I'd have thought. Good thunderstorm here this evening with one very close strike (guess 150 yd), the type that produces a crack and a ripping sound.
No, Rosie. Well, nearly no. It is indeed very rare indeed for snow at my level (250 metres above sea level) but it has happened. Last night was the first dusting a little farther up the mountains from me, about a half hour drive. My son lives in the area and my wife headed off to work there this fine morn. I have no idea at this stage as to how much settled but, as is usual in this country, roads were closed and general chaos ensued. I'm guessing that less than 5mm landed, though ice could be the more important factor. I don't envy you the lightning type storm. That sort of thing is not unusual here at my location. There is a number of stains on the carpet to prove it. :-)
(Rosie) Oops. Yes, I think I changed the capital E when I took the capital U away from 'Use'. (To whom it may concern) We certainly are having a lot of weather at the moment.
[Rosie] Did you know that the official French orthography abolished most circumflexes over the letters "i" and "u", except where ambiguity and homographs could occur. This has not bee widely adopted by the French, even though the French Academy encourages it. I know this is not really relevant, but I thought it was QI.
(Dujon) I love thunderstorms, the louder and closer the better up to but not including my house. I have found over the years that lightning flashes vary considerably in length and intensity. On Fri 28 Aug 1958 at about 9 in the morning there was a tremendous blinding flash and an almost instantaneous deafening boom. I thought it had hit nextdoor's front garden at the very furthest but again it was about 150 yd away and completely destroyed a large tree. I found out later that it was a high-level storm with cloudbase about 7000 ft so the flash must have been that long. Most are less than a third of that. On the other hand I have seen a flash hit the ground about 20 yds outside the window at work but it produced no more than a loud pop, and was probably very short, a few hundred feet. (Knobbly) Oh yes, there's always the bloody weather, as I found out when I became a junior forecaster and had to do shifts. I left eventually for the pleasures of 8.30 to 5 in the chemical industry and meteorolgy is now just a fairly serious hobby.
(Phil) The French take their language quite seriously, which I think is a good thing, even if they slightly overdo it. We could do with a bit of that in this country but the culture is against it. (Knobbly) I suspect your examiner was "following guidelines" but should have used common sense. To actually dock marks for that is quite absurd.
EEEK I've got a French exam on Friday. Had the mock test last Friday and got 40 percent. Need 60 to pass. Already booked myself to redo the year. The embarrassing part is that this is a Francophone country.
[Rosie] Belgium. I use my french under sufferance. Italian at home, English (and some French) at work. French when I need something from a shop or artisan. Flemish never.
X-POSTED REMINDER: Tomorrow (Fri 22 June) is the 100th Anniversary of Mornington Crescent Station. If you would like to mark this momentous occasion, please come to the traffic island opposite the station before 8pm tomorrow. On the signal, at 8pm sharp, we will all turn to the station, kneel and worship for 30 seconds, then rise and go about our business (which could include going to the pub). Be there or be uncrescent. :)
Skipping past his father's beatifully inane explanation of how a parachute works ("The parachute is attached to a container on the skydivers back with a load of lines"), you get to his marvellously tactless quote at the end: "Michael is Michael and he will bounce back from it".
[CdM] Planning constraints. And the fact that he has masses of freelance work there and I have very little right now. Now all I have to do is find an English-speaking job in the Netherlands...
I was in the Netherlands last week, and very nice it is too. It seems almost everyone is bilingual (minimal), if disconcertingly sarcastic to my in my native tongue, so I suspect you shouldn't have too many worries.
But, to get you started, zeewolf seems to be catfish.
[pen] Jolly good! Sounds wonderful. And good luck with the job hunting too. I believe there's lots of jobs in Amsterdam which don't require any language (except possibly a few groans), but I'm not sure they're to be recommended....
[pen] These days (and given how cheap it is to fly to London) one imagines one could continue to freelance virtually for UK firms. I hope to do that one day when I move somewhere warmer.
I've got the clogs already. And this is rural South Holland, not Amsterdam (which I have not yet visited). But hold on a minute... there's a REALLY good job going, and I just had a good preliminary telephone interview. If that application continures to go well, plans might change for a year or so!
Well, I'm sure after the run of foul luck you've had of late that you are due some preening in the sun. If you've got it, flaunt it as they say. Are the wooden shoes really called Klompen?
We could talk about Wimbledon. I will start the ball rolling by saying that is a pleasant SW London suburb, and in places rather expensive. The common is a useful place for a wee on the way home in the car though you may have to watch your back. The local football club won the FA Cup in 1988, to the delight of many.
I'm making him meet the rest of my family this weekend. That means he will have met BOTH sisters (including the one with a pied-a-terre in Wimbledon, to stay on topic) and my mother. And the most ditsy of my nieces.
(Projoy) Not only that but I get out of it. Brentford to Warlingham (22 miles, 50 mins) is just a little too far after the maximum breathalyser-passing dose of Fuller's London Pride (2½ pints).
(Phil) Er, well, not really, but it's there so I have it. I play from time to time in a small swing band. The leader is a Croydon Tram nerd but otherwise quite normal and all the group's CDs have a picture of a tram in some part of the country on the front. It makes my interest in steam locos seem positively mainstream, just like my preferred type of jazz.
[Rosie] Ah, I see. I used to walk 25 minutes to my local most days, even though there were about 20 pubs closer. It's a crappy trendy bar now though. But these days I only have to go downstairs for the best pub in town :-)
(Phil) Pity that town is over 100 miles away. I drive 7 miles to my "local" (Greyhound, Carshalton). This limits the intake but I don't want a skinful these days.