two virgins

Listen these two girls that I know have been flying exactly three years. And they've been all over and they Athens, Rome, Greece, Egypt every place. On their passes you know they take two weeks off and it's just fabulous. And this one girl met this guy in uh Egypt and she just fell in love with him. Well it was so funny and now she can't, she had to come back in two weeks. That's one thing because she can't you know "be" with him or anything. Egypt. I mean how far away can you get? Kind of a bad problem. She's supposed to be going back in August. He's sent her tickets a ticket and her sister for them to come back.

Two stewardesses that I know have been flying for exactly three years. They have been to all sorts of places. They can occassionally take two or three weeks off. When they do they go everywhere: Athens, Rome, Egypt etc. on their passes. It's a wonderful experience for them. One of the girls met a man in Egypt and fell in love with him. But the difficulty was that she had to come home in two weeks. Now she can't be with him, because Egypt is too far away. He has sent her and her sister two tickets for them to come back in August.

things that are ob

You may have given it the name flob because flob is spit and spit is what we do a lot but I doubt that many people here know that flob is spit. So, the name did not stick because it means spit but rather for some other reason, such as that people like ob things, things that are ob. It is like a mantra to those lacking patience for the full om which given it's long o (people like long things as well) does not even rhyme with ob, etc.

yes, it's an emergency

A New Zealand man who claimed to have been left speaking Australian after being raped by a wombat has been sentenced to 75 hours community service.

Arthur Ross Cradock, a 48-year-old orchard worker, admitted in the Nelson District Court yesterday to the charge of using a phone for a fictitious purpose, after calling police with the message, "I've been raped by a wombat".

Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court that on the afternoon of February 11 Cradock called the police communications centre, threatening to "smash the filth" if they arrived at his home that night.

When asked if he had an emergency, he replied "yes", Mr Stringer said.

On a second subsequent call to the communications centre, Cradock told police he was being raped by a wombat at his Motueka address, and sought their immediate help.

He called police again soon after, and gave his full name, saying he wanted to withdraw the complaint.

"I'll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he's pulled out," Cradock told the operator at the communications centre, who had no idea what he was talking about, Mr Stringer said.

"Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right you know, I didn't hurt my bum at all," Cradock then told the operator.

Mr Stringer said alcohol had played a big part in Cradock's life. However, defence lawyer Michael Vesty said alcohol was not a problem that day.

Judge Richard Russell said he was not quite sure what motivated Cradock to make those statements to the police.

In sentencing, he warned Cradock not to do it again.

stuff.co.nz

you're small

I'm on drugs. I'm, uh, I mean, you know what it is. What's the deal, man? I like to get small. It's a wild, wild drug. Very dangerous for kids though, because they get really small. I know I shouldn't get small when I'm drivin', but, uh, I was drivin' around the other day, you know *whistles tunefully* and a cop pulls me over. And he goes, ‘Hey, are you small?’ I said, ‘No, I'm tall, I'm tall.’ He said, 'Well, I'm gonna have to measure you.' They've got a little test they give you; it's a balloon, and if you can get inside of it, they know... you're small. And they can't put you in a regular cell either, because you walk right out.

thinking nothing

Did you guys get at all that that was an incredible class? I was there you see and therefore perhps better able to judge what she understood and what she didn't, how she felt about the whole process, whether or not she will download songs and lyrics on her own and try to interpret them, on her own, sing along, prepare questions for next class. Quit stuttering. Whether or not she will get some much needed exercise while studying English, relax a little, get some insight into the key concepts. All that good stuff.

Yes DB, if you look it up, the dictionary will say that "eat" is a v.t.i but that is from a syntactic point of view purely. Yes a syntactic (ju4 zi5 jie2gou4 de5 - is that right? Putting some of my basic vocabulary and analytical thinking skills to work here.) point of view (guan1dian3 - help I can't stop) is useful, but not the only one and certainly not the more important one. In practical semantic (yu3yi4 - can we get a check on that?) terms we can assume generally that if a person eats, meaning "eats," (the meaning we were discussing, the one discussed in the idiom textbook) he eats something, and that that something, especially if it is assumed, is food.

"Assumed elements" is a key concept because if you don't know what the assumed element is you don't understand the sentence. If a sentence contains an asumed bit I often ask what the assumed (jia3shi4) bit is. It is a good practice to get into. Helps to improve "understanding." Another key concept. (I'll be here all week!)

Anyway I asked what they ate and she didn't say plastic bag, computer chip or television anttena, she said "I dunno, something" and I said "Food?" and she yeah, yeah probably.

The textbook didn't go into that either, which it didn't need to of course. Look what they did in your link though.

Quote:
INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1a. To consume food.


Am I the only person who sees how stupid that is?

Next class I'll explain that some verbs beg an object and essentially don't make sense without one. They are sometimes marked v.t.i. in the dictionary, but that is bullshit really a lot of the time. Especially, if the word is being used in it's basic sense, there is "always" an object there, you just sometimes "have to" "assume" it. Drink, kill.... there are loads of them, "think" might be one, but then again what do I know? I've heared meditation is a powerful tool but even when meditating you think nothing, and that's something, right fred?

intransitive

Unfortunately, both explanations, the book's and yours, weren't correct. Eat is both transitive and intransitive. If we can say "I like to read" or "I like to eat", it's *not* that these verbs are transitive with 'assumed objects' (although they can also be transitive, in 'read books' and 'eat apples'), but rather that they are in these uses INtransitive. (In Ironlady's post she mentions identifying the intransitive verb and the prepositional phrase, but she didn't spell it out for you so I am.) A verb can be transitive in one use, and intransitive in another. Just because the most common use (or the only one you can think of) is one way doesn't mean you won't find both in the dictionary or in the literature out there.

interpret

Here is what happened tonight...

I arrived at my students house and discovered that her "famous teacher from one of Taipei's most prestigious universities and further such gack as might be imagined" had assigned a book about idioms with examples of idioms and explanations written in Chinese. The first example was "We ate at the restaurant." The explanation said that "ate" is a transitive verb "so at the restaurant" must be an idiom because the object of a transitive verb is not seperated from it's verb by a preposition. I explained that "eat" is a transitive verb but the object can be assumed as people generally eat food and not plastic plants. "At the restaurant" is an adverb phrase and neither fixed nor metaphorical and so has none of the characteristics of an idiom.

Yes, I explained that in Chinese. Sue me.

She still didn't quite get it so I explained that words have what could be considered a basic sense and this basic sense could be thought, generally, as the first few meanings listed in a dictionary. If a group of words can be understood using these basic meanings it is probably not an idiom.

Look I said, breaking into English and a bit of a sweat, over here you got black, over there you got white, in the middle whatta you got? That's right, a whole lotta grey. Like in the Led Zepplin song we did last week remember "Whole lotta love" yeah, like that except a whole lotta grey. It's a metaphor, bi3yu4. You remember bi3yu, metaphor, like the Neil Yong song "Heart of Gold." That was a metaphor.

All that was a bit of a kafuffle so moving right along I taught the song "If I could" by Jack Johnson. Played it once through and asked what it was about. She knew it was about a baby, somebody dying, crying...

Not bad. That "is" what it is about.

The first two lines...

"A brand new baby was born yesterday, just in time."
"Papa cried, baby cried, said your tears are like mine."

My questions: "Just in time for what?"

"'Your tears are like mine" so what?"

She had no idea.

I explained that "my interpretation" "my quan2shi4" (that is how I talk) was that a baby was born just in time to maintain the balance of souls. She knew balance, she didn't know soul so I touched my heart. Clear enough. We looked it up anyway (mind if I write that down? What is the tone again? Thanks.). Came up with linghun. Agreed that a different interpretation, a different quan2shi4, was possible, and that the writer, this guy here, Jack Johnson, might have intended (had to look that up - "intend," good word, should have written it down)a different meaning and that if she wanted she could apply (hmmm "apply"... interesting collocation, remember we did collocation? how do you say that again, yeah yeah that's right dapei lian luo/yong?. )

Later the lyrics said...

"And though you've got to go we'll keep a piece of your soul."

She didn't know "piece" so I tore of a piece of paper and told her "this is a piece of paper." Odd isn't it? I don't think the writer is using "piece" quite literally, quite an zhao zi mian de here, but perhaps if you have have ever had anyone close to you die before you can understand what the writer is talking about. Yeah, yeah she did...

Tender moment there.

Anyway, we continued from there with me reading the lyrics aloud, crying at the right moment, tears rolling down, tasting, "if I could" gesture etc. and she translated it line by line into Chinese because that is what I have trained her to do.

Next I told her I didn't want a translation. I wanted her to show me understood using gestures, like I did for her, like I have been training her to do for weeks. Played the song again. She acted it out, giggled, danced, sang (not part of the assignment but so what?) even forgot to stutter. Interesting point there.

At the end of the class I asked her which was her favorite word. I always ask them what their favorite word is, and because they know I'll ask, they think about it, hmmm what was the best word we did today?

I always think about it too and today was rough. We did a lot of good words: chorus, lyric sheet, predict, suffix, prefix... but "her" answer today was unequivocal.

It was "interpret."

speaking of witches

It has occured to me that perhaps Leonard Cohen was born dead, sleep walked through the rest of his life, and at the magical age of twenty four was reincarnated into my body. At first glance this seems like an odd theory but consider the evidence:

1) Leonard Cohen is Jewish.

I am negro.

2) Leonard Cohem was a loner.

I am a loner.

3) Leonard Cohen inherited a trust fund that enabled him to pursue his literay ambitions at "his" liesure.

I inherited nothing and pursued my literay ambition at "my" liesure.

4) Leonard Cohen wrote a book called Beautiful Losers.

I "am" a loser.

5) Beautiful losers is set, in part, in Northern Ontario, or Saskacthewan or someplace.

I was born, in part, in Northern Ontario, or Saskatchewan or someplace.

6) Leonard Cohen is a buddhist.

I am a nudist.

Can't think of anything else but the parrallels must surely be clear by now. Allow me to say also that I find the comparisons of my work with the aforementioned Cohen novel to be quite insulting. Leonard himself describes the book as more of a sunstroke than a book really.

Leonard?