George Carlin by Brenda

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

George Carlin

POSTED BY: BRENDA
UPDATED: Sunday, August 28, 2022 19:35
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Sunday, August 28, 2022 6:21 PM

BRENDA

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Sunday, August 28, 2022 6:57 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

George Carlin. Now THERE was an awesome comedian! He saw the absurdities that were foisted on people, and made fun of them.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Sunday, August 28, 2022 7:35 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Hehe. Idioms are a silly thing.

I realized that pretty young when I'd hear my grandparents saying old ones that the kids didn't say in school. A favorite of my grandma's was "that doesn't leave much to the imagination" when referring to what a woman was wearing, usually on TV. That one in particular confused me when I was a kid because usually whatever she was referring to was certainly fueling my imagination.

It didn't really hit me how strange a concept they were until I worked a tech job where I had to call and take calls from people all over the world. All of them had varying grasps on English, with some speaking and understanding it phenomonally, to the dreaded and rare calls with China where their understanding was only two or three words (I did end up finding a wonderful contact there eventually and had her number on speed dial after finally getting in contact with her saved the day).

But it isn't just language itself that is the barrier. Idioms just further complicate things. You don't even realize how often you use them in life until you catch yourself saying yet another phrase that even somebody who is quite fluent in English as a second language doesn't understand in the slightest because putting those words in that order actually makes zero sense unless you grew up hearing other people saying them and understood the words to mean something different than what you'd expect them to mean because everybody else around you does.

I found it really interesting that the contacts who were most likely to understand American idioms were the contacts I'd had in Mexico. I remember one dude named "George" (I'm pretty sure it was probably Jeorge, pronounced hor-hay) specifically. We were talking through a problem one day when I said "Wait. Is that Star Wars?". He laughed and said yeah. He'd been using American movies and TV shows to learn how to speak English, and since it sounded like he had a job very much like mine that was babysitting computers and being paid to be there to handle problems as they arose, he used his free time watching American TV and movies to get a better handle on English.

I told him it must be working because he communicated beautifully. I can't recall any specific idioms I ever used when talking with him, but that's probably only because he actually knew what they meant from learning English through American cinema.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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