Fast food – differences

 American Life  No Responses »
Jul 062014
 

I’ve got this theory that some of the biggest differences between palates show up on airline flights. I find American airline food very hard to stomach – just wasn’t brought up on dry pretzels, saltines and big chunks of beef with no gravy. But then I imagine Americans trying to enjoy a British Airways airline meal and think – well, it must be really hard if the comfort food you grew up with was steak or burgers or mac’n cheese.

But fast food – surely that would be no problem? Isn’t that American anyway? It seems not.

 Posted by at 7:53 am

Sarcasm and testing

 Irony and Sarcasm  No Responses »
Jun 182014
 

Every teacher knows that marking students’ papers can be a tedious job. If only there were a computer that could do it for us. Except of course, there are computers that do now – but how well?

There’s a lovely article here that explains why we shouldn’t use them for high stakes exams – and the reason…. sarcasm.

Click the ‘Irony and Sarcasm’ button on the right to see some of my other postings about irony and sarcasm.

 Posted by at 3:45 pm

Soccer or football?

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 172014
 

With the world cup upon us, have you found yourself wondering why Brits call it ‘football’ and ‘mericans call it ‘soccer’. It seems potential confusions with rugby might have been at the root of it and there’s a delightful article here that explains why: Why we call soccer soccer.

 Posted by at 8:30 pm

Grace Hopper

 American Life, Politeness  5 Responses »
Dec 092013
 

Today Google popped up with a wonderful link to an interview from the past that I enjoyed emensely. It was a Letterman interview with a lady called Grace Hopper.

 

Her discourse style was so intriguing – military style? (I found it so interesting. How outdated would it be today?) And I was also intrigued by her last question. She wanted to know what David Letterman’s ancestry was. He clearly had little idea, but it seemed to be important to her. But not to him. Were we watching a generational shift at work?

Any thoughts?
Here’s another related post.

UPDATE!
I’ve been sent a link to a comic about Grace Hopper, designed to inspire more young women to pursue careers in Computer Science.
Here’s the link: a comic about Grace Hopper? Here’s the link so you can check it out: https://www.udemy.com/topic/python#gracehopper

 Posted by at 7:28 am
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