Square Eyes

Sutti's big hair wrote:Dear Mrs M,

If someone who loves all things English is an anglophile and someone who loves all things French is a francophile, what is someone who loves all things American (apart from bonkers)?

Yours yankily,

Sutti

Now, now, Sutti. One of my friends loves mucho American things and she's not bonkers Does me ead in sometimes when she uses Americanisms though.

Finding an American equivalent for Anglophile, Francophile etc could prove very difficult, firstly, because most prefixes for such names come from Greek or Latin words, but America was unknown to these ancient civilisations.

The term’s true meaning is a love or fondness for a country’s culture, and, there again, America, not having a distinct ethnic type (being the land of many races and cultures) could not satisfactorily be given just one descriptor such as Americanophile.

When a person describes himself or herself as liking all things American, they are usually referring to an element of American culture such as Language, Sport, Cinema, Alcohol, or destinations in the USA, therefore, a truer descriptor, such as for someone who likes Country music, Rodeo, big American steaks, American beer, Cowboy hats and boots would be Redneckophile!

Mrs M.

Dear Mrs M,

Elton John claims that 'sorry' is the hardest word. Quite frankly, I'm skeptical! It seems pretty damn easy to me. so what really is the hardest word?

Yours linguistically,

Sutti's big hair

Sutti's big hair wrote:Dear Mrs M,

Elton John claims that 'sorry' is the hardest word. Quite frankly, I'm skeptical! It seems pretty damn easy to me. so what really is the hardest word?

Yours linguistically,

Sutti's big hair

Well Sutti, 'sorry 'does seem to be a very easy word to say and used too often in my opinion.

Personaly, I find the hardest word to say is 'phenomenon', although I do find the words 'car' and 'park' said in the same sentence (having a touch of the spoonerisms) a tad difficult too. Yes, I have refered to the odd 'par cark' over the years, however, my most embarressing moment was when I mixed the words 'fag' and 'ciggie' to advise my colleges I was going for a '*hag'

The hardest word to say is probably a more personal thing. Brenda (from Dinner Ladies ) had difficulty saying Minnellium , Menilium , Millennium!

The hardest word though is probably 'rock'.

Mrs M.

Dear Mrs M,

How come I can't turn on the TV or radio news these days without hearing the words "credit crunch" every few seconds? I swear I'd never even heard that phrase until a few weeks ago, yet now I can't get away from it!

Yours distractedly,

Hughesy

Hughesy wrote:Dear Mrs M,

How come I can't turn on the TV or radio news these days without hearing the words "credit crunch" every few seconds? I swear I'd never even heard that phrase until a few weeks ago, yet now I can't get away from it!

Yours distractedly,

Hughesy

Hughesy, you don't want to hear about the credit crunch

I’d not heard the expression until this past week. There have been a number of programmes on TV this week explaining what, and, more scarily, what causes a credit crunch.

I’ll just quote a reliable source here

A credit crunch is a sudden reduction in the availability of loans (or "credit") or a sudden increase in the cost of obtaining a loan from banks. There are a number of reasons why banks may suddenly increase the costs of borrowing or make borrowing more difficult. This may be due to an anticipated decline in value of the collateral used by the banks when issuing loans, or even an increased perception of risk regarding the solvency of other banks within the banking system. It may be due to a change in monetary conditions (for example, where the central bank suddenly and unexpectedly raises interest rates) or even may be due to the central government imposing direct credit controls or instructing the banks not to engage in further lending activity

What shocked me about the programmes I watched was just what happens to our own money!

It seems that banks invest our money in companies, loan our money to other banks, use our money to finance expansion taking a risk with our money that the expansions will bring in revenue to replace our money. They encourage customers to want many things and encourage customers to buy them with loans or credit cards so they can make money from the in debt customers are in by way of interest, but our money finances customer’s purchases. The interest made is the banks money though. When the bank goes 'under' we lose our money, their money is safe, it's on loan to another bank.

Apparently, one of the factors that caused the recent credit crunch was the report that more and more people were turning to organisations that help with debt problems, but, not for loans and credit card problems but, for the first time in a couple of decades (the recession decade), help because they can no longer pay their mortgage. Alarm bells have started to ring indeed!

Other factors to bring on the credit crunch were the Northern Rock situation and American being on the verge of a recession. Scary stuff!

It brought to mind the little boy at the end of Mary Poppins demanding his 2d from his father's bank so he could buy crumbs to feed the birds resulting in the bank crashing. Incidentally, I’ve always wanted to take a note into a bank and demand my payment in gold like it promises on the note. Has anyone else ever had the urge?

This weekend I should be writing a script breakdown on Anti-smoking for teenagers which will be filmed in the early April. It should take the form of five 5 minutes episodes, similar in structure to a soap opera. There are approximatly eleven young people aged 13 to 16 in the cast. It will be filmed at a secondary school.

Any suggestions?

BRONSON

BRONSON wrote:This weekend I should be writing a script breakdown on Anti-smoking for teenagers which will be filmed in the early April. It should take the form of five 5 minutes episodes, similar in structure to a soap opera. There are approximatly eleven young people aged 13 to 16 in the cast. It will be filmed at a secondary school.

Any suggestions?

BRONSON

Hello Bronson. Great to see you here on Square Eyes II

Your post actually reminded me of the days when I indulged in the weed. My young Nieces and their friends were always nagging me to give up. They succeeded eventually but I was most surprised last January, when chaperoning a 16th birthday party, to find three of the little protesters in the toilets smoking, none were my nieces I’m pleased to add . I did turn the tables.

It’s a tricky subject attempting to persuade youngsters smoking isn’t a good idea. Youngsters, because they’re young, don’t seem to look to the future and see smoking will effect their health, and, telling them it’s a waste of money or they can ruin their clothes with cigarette burns doesn’t seem to have any effect because they think they are invincible and money grows on trees. What good would telling them smoking makes your breath pong and clothes smelly? After all, isn‘t that what tic-tacs gum, perfume and aftershave is for.

Thinking about it I would want teenagers to see the effect smoking could have on the adults in their lives.

There is a programme on TV, America’s Next Top Model, I watch and in one episode the models had an anti-smoking photo shoot. I was really impressed, although shocked, by the results.

The models had one shoot looking their best sitting in front of a dressing table mirror smoking a cigarette, the refection in the mirror showed one of the many effects of smoking. The shoot was a shocker I can tell you showing how smoking ages prematurely, the effect of chemotherapy due to lung cancer, coughing blood, laryngeal cancer with a tracheostomy stoma and more.

I thought while watching if I hadn’t had already given up, I would have seeing those images.

I think I’d look at it from the angle of you think it’s cool to smoke now but look at what it’s done to your loved ones.

I can imagine a youngster asking a school chum if it was her/his Grandmother s/he saw him with at the weekend. The chum replying it was her/his Mother. They discover their Mothers are a similar age and the chum explains his Mother has been smoking since the age of 13/14 and that’s what smoking has done to her. Another youngster asks why the chums Father has an oxygen cylinder and can’t walk very far. The chum explains the Father has emphysema as a result of smoking etc, maybe even ending with the whole cast discovering their favourite teacher had just departed this world due to smoking related cancer.

I always thought the unpleasant aspects of smoking (smell etc) was totally ignored when I was at school, because kids thought anyone who smoked was cool and wanted to smoke too. I didn't smoke when I was at school.

Seeing pictures at school of black lungs from smoking didn’t put me off smoking later in life, but, if I’d seen those photo’s from that photo shoot it might have. I think I might be a tad vain.

Thank you David Mitchell's Mom,

A few ideas there. I'll have a good think and out pen to paper.

BRONSON

Dear Mrs M,

When it's very cold (like at the moment), why does it sometimes hail and sometimes snow? They're both frozen, so what's the difference?

Yours frostily,

Sutti

Dear Mrs M,

Easter was ridiculously early this year. How is it decided when it should fall each year anyway? Does the Archbishop of Christendom stick a pin in a map or something?

Yours ecumenically,

Hughesy

Sutti's big hair wrote:Dear Mrs M,

When it's very cold (like at the moment), why does it sometimes hail and sometimes snow? They're both frozen, so what's the difference?

Yours frostily,

Sutti

It all depends on how the freezing takes place Sutti. Or, how much warm air and cold air are around at the same time.

How different types of snow develop is really interesting. Hail, for instance, starts as water (as you can imagine) becomes a snow flake as the temperature in the cloud it rides in drops. The flake is lifted to the coldest part of the cloud on an updraft of warmer air, partially melts as it ascends, and adds more droplets of water. The larger slushy flake then freezes while in the coldest part of the cloud and falls as an ice pellet. The newly formed ice pellet is again lifted on a warm updraft, partially thaws, adds more water droplets, freezes again and falls and is lifted again by an updraft of warm air. This process continues until the warm air melts the ice pellet that has formed or it becomes too heavy and falls to the ground as hail.

Standard snow is formed as water freezes in the cloud and the snow flake falls from the cloud maintaining the same temperature from the time it‘s formed to the time it hits the ground.

The type of snow depend on air temperatures and wind speed from the start of formation to when it hit’s the deck.

Incidentally, if you cut a hail stone in half you should be able to work out how many times it’s frozen and melted in the cloud because it will have rings like a tree. I might try that out next time we have hail.

Hughesy wrote:Dear Mrs M,

Easter was ridiculously early this year. How is it decided when it should fall each year anyway? Does the Archbishop of Christendom stick a pin in a map or something?

Yours ecumenically,

Hughesy

I've been really suprised recently at how little people know about Easter full stop. I didn't attend a faith school but remember the Easter story told at the lead up to the Easter Holidays. I watched a programme before Easter and it seemed most people when asked what Easter was all about thought it was about chocolate eggs and was for kids!

It was a cold and very early Easter this year! Apparently, the last time Easter fell this early was in 1913 and won‘t be this early again in our lifetime.

I knew the date Easter Sunday falls could vary over a five-week period, and, until the Wednesday before Easter, all I knew for the reason was that the date for Easter depended on the full moon and was linked to the Jewish Passover. Well, this years very early Easter Sunday brought up a discussion on just how the dates for Easter were calculated. Fascinating as the discussion was, the full and very long explanation, I can’t remember, but, in more simple terms, Jesus died on the Friday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, which was also the date of the Passover. You could say that, more often than not, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. The fall of the full Moon and Spring equinox very over a five week period (it’s all the Moons fault) which is why Easter is referred to as a ‘moveable feast‘.

There is a table of dates for Easter, calculated in 325 AD. Emperor Constantine, who wanted to set a common Sunday for Easter celebrations around the world and wanted to know the dates in advance, brought together a number of Bishops who used a complex mathematical formula to calculate the future dates of the spring equinox and full moon to give us the dates Easter fall.

I’m just glad the dates are already on the calendars and diaries! Imagine having to work it out for yourself.

Mrs M

Interesting stuff - thanks Mrs M!

Going back to the subject of snow, you know how sometimes people say it's too cold for snow, are they having a laugh or what? Surely it's never too cold anywhere for snow, let alone here in GB (where this "too cold for snow" saying seems to have originated)?

Yours frostily,

Hughesy

Hughesy wrote:Interesting stuff - thanks Mrs M!

Going back to the subject of snow, you know how sometimes people say it's too cold for snow, are they having a laugh or what? Surely it's never too cold anywhere for snow, let alone here in GB (where this "too cold for snow" saying seems to have originated)?

Yours frostily,

Hughesy

I missed your question Hughesy on my catch up.

What an apt subject considering the recent little flurry some of us had over the weekend.

The phrase isn't scientifically correct because the conditions actually needed for snow to fall is a temperature profile that allows snow to reach the surface, plus, saturated air, plus, enough lifting of that saturated air to allow snow to develop and fall to reach the surface. In a situation when it is said, "it is too cold to snow" there is in reality not enough lifting of air that causes snow to reach the surface.

The phrase ‘too cold to snow’ is most likely to have originated when people associated the decrease in temperature rather than the reduction of moisture content in the air when temperature decreases, as the cause for lack of snow.

Although not scientifically correct, you can bet (if you are a gambling man and I do believe there is a thread that may suggest you are prone to the odd wager or two) that if the weather is freezing cold, snow is very unlikely to fall.

Mrs M.

Thanks Mrs M.

All this weather talk has got me thinking about another confusing saying: that of it raining cats and dogs. How on earth did that phrase come about??

Yours barking up the wrong tree,

Hughesy