Week 40; miscellaneous thoughts

In one of my English groups we talked about how difficult it may be to listen to different accents, and how different for instance the RP and American pronunciation usually sound. Pronunciation is not the only thing, though. I found an interesting video clip on You Tube, where Hugh Laurie (an Englishman) and Ellen DeGeneres (an American) give each other words used in America or Britain and see whether the other one knows what they mean. In each case neither of them has the foggiest of what the other one is referring to. I’ve thought that people who speak English as their mother tongue have no problems in understanding each other, regardless of where they come from. Obviously I’ve been wrong, since this extract shows very clearly that for instance American slang or colloquial expressions can be just as strange to an Englishman as they are to a Finn, and vice versa. In a way it’s terribly comforting to know that expressions that are new to us may be just as new even for a native speaker of English!

On Friday the 4th October is a day when people in Finland are encouraged to wear a rose ribbon in order to show their support to brest cancer research. I also read somewhere that another alternative is to wear pink colour on Friday in order to support the cause. I had pink colour in my necklace, bracelet and shawl/scarf. I also bought a pink ribbon and a pink ribbon brooch a couple of years ago, and I particularly like the brooch. I’ve often worn it at work even though I’m not very accustomed to wearing brooches. In my opinion it's important to support a good cause even in a small way.