Let me begin with a [hiding from Jackie for breaking the cardinal AWAD rule] emoticon, b/c this really has nothing to do with linguisitics....
I was ICQing with a very bright friend of mine yesterday, and i was lamenting my seemingly insurmountable inability to slow down when i speak. He mentioned that he had the same problem, so naturally we decided it must be an apodictic indication of aristophrenia .
I figured this board would be an excellent forum for testing this theorem..... anyone else have a similar problem?
I don't know about the aristophenia, but I too tend to speak too quickly, at least when dictating or speaking in public. I have tried to slow myself down, but after a few sentences, I've worked myself right back up to warp speed again. Since the problem tends to manifest when I have prepared text, I suspect the hurrying is my unconscious mind saying, "you know already, get on with it..."
I also have this speed problem...but often it occurs in everyday speech as well. I sometimes get the words in a sentence in the wrong order; my husband is accustomed to this now and can rearrange or fill in as necessary. Also, when I talk quickly, my enunciation goes down the drain...both my dad and my friends who are not native English speakers find this difficult to understand! (I don't blame them - I dislike it myself - but it's so hard to control!)
Jean Redpath, the wonderful scot's singer, does some songs of tones (la- di dah ) instead of words-- and she sings them so fast-- it's incredable to hear-- She calls it "mouth music" and complains that her tongue often has trouble keeping up. so i guess you're not the only one!
A-HAH ! Bridget96, you have not escaped my eagle (evil?) eye! But, my dear, you have escaped scathing, by me at any rate. I did try to find an official clue, but the only thing I found by going Home was that AWADtalk is a discussion board. That it is a language-discussion board is implicit, as far as I can tell. And, my dear, speech does qualify as language in my book. [beneficent smile emoticon]
It's standing waiting for a bus in New Hampshire during the winter. , WOW,
Actually, it's a system you can install on your computer which lets you know when someone you really, really, want to talk to logs on to the Internet. Or, alternatively, it lets you know when someone you want to avoid like the plague logs on. It also lets you chat and do all sorts of other cool things which would be great if only there were enough bandwidth to make it work well.
ICQ is an instant message program, arguably the most popular (similar to Yahoo's and AOL's, but with more bells and whistles). You can download it at http://www.miribilis.com.
This came to me from an old friend. "Something to put your day into perspective... If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following: There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south Eight would be Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 89 would be heterosexual 11 would be homosexual Six people would possess 59 percent of the entire world's wealth and all six would be from the United States. 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition One would be near death; One would be near birth One (yes, only one) would have a college education One would own a computer Also something to ponder... If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world. If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75 percent of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top eight percent of the world's wealthy. If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada."
Thanks wow. The one item on the list that reaaly surprised me was the 70% illiteracy rate - I did not know that it was still so high. It reminded me of a thread in a newsgroup I frequent. The participants were scathingly cynical of Bill Gates' motives for his largesse. Only I and one other person pointed out that his motives won't matter to the millions of people likely to benefit from the AIDS vaccination research he is helping to fund.
Where / who is the source of the data? (sorry bad sentence) I would like to be able use some of the #'s in a comparison our campus popluation were working on.
Dear BeingCJ, I tried to find out for you but I haven't had much success ... as noted it came to me from a friend and when I inquired I learned warmer climes had beckoned for a vacation. Will try again.
Its pretty old-- i saw it over ten years ago-- so some of the data might be out of date--
and i suspected it even then-- US is rich but Europe has wealth too, as do other "1st world" countries--and being a femanist--I suspect the 6 richest people (what ever their nationality) are all still male. It was put out by one of the "green groups"-- to shame american into using less (part of the less is more philosophy)
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, WOW,
