LL-L "Language use" 2007.11.16 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  16 November 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Maria Elsie Zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2007.11.15 (03) [E]

Hoi alltouhoop,

Thank you for a lovely story Jonny!
In a way it reminds me of the story of my first visit to a rural post office
in Quebec Province, Canada:

My truckdriver friend, a Mennonite Plautsnakker, warned me that the rural
'Québécoise' will refuse to speak to us in English. So we decided
beforehand to talk to each other in Afrikaans and in Plautdietsch in case
this should happen.

Well, the good old lady greeted us in French, asked where we were from and
grumbled about the rain ruining her raspberries. I asked her for stamps and
she went on refusing to understand me. So then we started talking in our
mother tongues. And she understood the dilemma and said
in good English, 'Oh, you don't speak French?' and sold me a few stamps.

Elsie Zinsser

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From: Helge Tietz <helgetietz at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language use" 2007.11.15 (05) [E]

Dear Paul,

I have to admit, I don't really understand your comment there at the end of
Jonny's little ancdote. Do you refer to hunting, sheep and dogs? I am myself
a strict vegetarian but I am fully aware that this is something I can afford
these days because of food imports which haven't been there before. My
forefathers 100 years ago had to utilize everything carefully which their
little farm offered in order to survive, and that, of course,  included
slaughtering animals. But they did this carefully, not wastefully, like it
is done today! I remember headlines from London-based newspapers about
blood-thirsty Faroe-Islanders because they hunt about 2000 pilot-whales per
year. They have hunted them for hundreds of years in the same number and
pilot-whales do not belong to the threatened species, the little
Faroe-population is not responsible for the possible extinction of whales!
If then, it is general over-fishing in the Norfth Atlantic and there you can
actually include the Faroes among all others, e.g. the UK. And bloodthirsty?
What did the same authors think is going on in Britain's slaughterhouses?
What makes whales more precious than cows and and pigs? At least, the Faroes
kill them in the open, that is more honest and everyone can see what is
going on, it is not hidden behind the walls of a slaughterhouse. If Jonny
tells us a story about hunting, sheep and dogs, that is perefctly alright
and authentic to me, I trust Jonny that he is not doing it excessively! And
I also experience the same that speaking the local dialect helps acceptence
from the locals and why not? A Londoner would expect that a person who comes
to live in his town learns the English language in a way that he/she
understands it, what is normal and perfectly alright for a Londoner is then
suddenly chauvinism if the same demands come from a Low Saxon or, let's say
a Geordie or Scotsman? I don't see the difference. But perhaps I
misunderstood what you wrote Paul, if so , then please let me know!

Groeten

Helge
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