You know how, in foreign countries, everyone speaks foreign languages, but sometimes you suspect it's just some big act they put on, and when you're not there, they all relax and speak English? Totally got confirmation of this in my Norwegian mystery novel the other day. Look at this witness's list of the people at a meeting:
Kem som va der? - Det va meg då, og Thomassen, men han e død, han også. Så va det the Schrøder-Olsen brothers, Trygve og Odin - og så Aslaksen.
Excuse me? "The Schrøder-Olsen brothers"? As if this passage wasn't confusing enough already - the character speaks Nynorsk, the wacky language they speak on the west coast - he had to go and lapse into English mid-sentence? Well, I'm onto you, buddy! I know you speak English at home! You just wrote this book to throw me off the trail, didn't you?
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This is totally unrelated, but I just saw "Children of Men." It was...depressing...weirdly hilarious at times (flip flops!)...and pretty awesome. So here's my reiterating your call for all to take themselves to a theater and see it!
Woo!! Yay, I'm glad you liked it. Hear that, everybody? Spice agrees! Go see it!
Also, Clive Owen rocks! He's my new Peter Sarsgaard (i.e. someone who I can trust to be in movies I'll really like or at least find interesting).
When I was growing up, I always wondered why people spoke other languages. It must be so difficult and time-consuming, little j.bro thought, to translate everything in your head before saying it. Wouldn't it be easier just to speak English in the first place?
Spice - did you tell OleNelson that I didn't like Children of Men? There was some miscommunication between me and you! I left feeling unsatisfied, but I think that's exactly how the movie wanted me to feel. So unsatisfied in the good way, not the The Godfather kind of way.
I think I said something like "not as enthusiastic about it as you" [the 'you' being OleNelson] - I don't think I said you didn't like it. Although I definitely didn't catch that "dissatisfied" was supposed to be laudatory!
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