Funny Things that 'Foreigners' Do -

[Zanshin]

Originally Posted by MikeZ

...In Guatemala, by the way, the speed bumps are called tumelos...

. In Germany they are "Schlafende Polizisten" - sleeping policemen The worst speed bumps I know of are in the BVI, with Antigua coming in second place. No warning, yellow paint worn off and nearly invisible during the, to day nothing of at night. I have a sneaking suspicion that their construction and (lack of) maintenance is paid for by the car repair suspension shops which, coincidentally, always seem to be within a couple of hundred feet of aforementioned speed bumps.

To get back on the thread - when you wish people luck in the US, you "cross your fingers", in Germany you "press your thumbs".

[TexSail]

In Vietnam, crossing your fingers is considering a vulgar reference to female body parts (but widely used nonetheless ).

[anjou]

The Latin for left is sinister

not for good reason i fear. Its been noted that there are an above average proportion of straight people who are right handed, and i shall leave your imagaination to work out the opposite connotation.

Left handers the world over are viewed with suspicion.

I am of course, right handed

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by TexSail

Perhaps the the MG, TR and Healey owners flash their lights due to defects in the Lucas electrical systems.

I used to be involved in motorsport (rallying). There were a number of British cars in competition. That is where I first learned the answer to the great question:

"Why do the British drink warm beer?"
"Lucas refrigeration."

Jack

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha Tao,
Yes, I was headed that direction. Good that you know your geography. I've always had a good time with those who have visited Key West saying that they'd been to the southern most point in the U. S..
San Diego used to be a military town and was quite a big city with a small town atmosphere with a heavy emphasis on sports in the 60s and 70s. I don't know what it's like now. Lots of different accents because of the military/federal gov't workers and influence.
Being originally from Oregon where we have no accents : ) I quickly picked up a bit of a southern accent while living in the panhandle of Florida.
Wherever I traveled I picked up a bit more phrases and colloquialisms which have really enhanced my vocabulary. Its been fun.
Ex-Calif brought up a bit about the pidgin here in Hawaii. It really is a lot of fun trying to understand what's being said. So if you want your friend to toss you something, i. e. a beer, "Jus fly em over hea."
JohnL

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by anjou

The Latin for left is sinister

not for good reason i fear. Its been noted that there are an above average proportion of straight people who are right handed, and i shall leave your imagaination to work out the opposite connotation.

Left handers the world over are viewed with suspicion.

I am of course, right handed

There exists in the world a very special group of individuals who is left handed. This group has had to spend its life conforming to a world that was not designed for its benefit. In addition, this group has had to put up with insults and derogatory comments aimed in its direction.

In general, being left-handed means having a dominant right side of the brain. The term brain dominance was historically used by neurologists to describe which side of the brain (which cerebral hemisphere) played the greatest role in human speech & language. Neurologists currently prefer the term hemispheric "specialization" to describe how one side of the brain's neural function is specialized for a particular function, usually language ability. But even language tasks occur in both hemispheres, so this description is simplistic.

I believe that “sinistral” is the technical term for being left-handed; while “sinistrality” describes left-handedness - deriving from “sinestra”, originally Latin for left (later came to mean "evil" or "unlucky" - hence the English sinister).

While most devices are optimised for right-handed use, the sextant is a rare example that is more convenient for a left-hander to use. The grip on almost all sextants is for the right hand, meaning a right-handed user has to put down the instrument in order to write down the measurement after taking a sighting.

Exposure to higher rates of testosterone before birth can lead to a left-handed child. This is the Geschwind theory, named after the neurologist who proposed it, Norman Geschwind. It suggests that variations in levels of testosterone during pregnancy shape the development of the fetal brain. Testosterone suppresses the growth of the left cerebral hemisphere and so more neurons migrate to the right hemisphere. The highly developed right hemisphere is now better suited to function as the center of language and handedness. The fetus is more likely to become left-handed, since the right hemisphere controls the left half of the body. The theory goes on to tie the exposure to higher levels of testosterone and the resultant right-hemisphere dominance to auto-immune disorders, learning disorders, dyslexia, and stuttering, as well as increased spatial ability. Males are about one and one half times more likely to be left-handed than are females.


In his book “Right-Hand, Left-Hand”, Chris McManus of University College London argues that the proportion of left-handers is rising, and left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. He says that left-handers' brains are structured differently in a way that widens their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centres of the brain.

McManus also says that the increase in the 20th century of people identifying as left-handed could produce a corresponding intellectual advance and a leap in the number of mathematical, sporting, or artistic geniuses.

A study published in the journal Neuropsychology, in late 2006, suggests that left-handed people are faster at processing multiple stimuli than righties. The hypothesis suggests that people who favour their left hand for writing probably have brains that are more conducive to simultaneous, bi-hemisphere processing of information.

In 2006, researchers at Lafayette College and Johns Hopkins University in a study found that left-handed men are 15 percent richer than right-handed men, for those who attended college, and 26 percent richer if they graduated. The wage difference is still unexplainable and does not appear to apply to women.

I, of course, am left-handed.

[conachair]

Before cruising full time I lived for a long time in a place called "The developed west", or "The corporate west". There were some very strange habits there.... Vast numbers of people would work huge hours every week to buy things which a corperate invention called advertising told them they should have but in reality weren´t needed or wanted. The food was full of chemicals and fresh tasty food was hard to come by, but most was thrown out anyway. Not going back thgere in a a hurry. Strange or what??

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by conachair

... Vast numbers of people would work huge hours every week to buy things which a corperate invention called advertising told them they should have but in reality weren´t needed or wanted...

Ineed!

It ain't what you earn (have); it's what you don't spend (nead).

See also Charlie’s “Fishing Story” (Post #10), and more, at:
➥ http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ore-22025.html

[hellosailor]

New Orleans and New York in the same breath? Now, that's painting with an uneducated brush.

In New Orleans I don't expect logic to be a factor at all, since logically the natives would have long ago done what Chicago and Seattle did, and raise themselves above sea level.

In New York and any substantial northern city in the US, the power lines are underground. The Blizzard of 1886 wreaked havoc in the northeast and brought down most of the elevated power lines and communications lines from New York to Boston. The only communication between those two cities was by the "new" undersea telegraph cables that ran to Southhampton, ENGLAND.

As a result of the massive damage and death toll, New York City banned the installation of above-ground power lines and required everything to be moved underground. That and that alone is the reason why NYC has underground utiltiies, a blizzard.

In most of the rest of the US, including NYC suburbs, there are above-ground power lines because the taxpayers are too *ing cheap to pay what it would cost to safely bury the lines. It costs more, period. So they refuse to pay for the burial, and instead bitch and moan loudly every time they lose power and phone in storm season.

US and European regulations, utility ownership, and government involvements no doubt account for most of the way things are done differently. The same way that they account for the US having four mutually incompatible cell phone systems, versus "GSM uber alles" in Europe.

[anjou]

Originally Posted by GordMay

The wage difference is still unexplainable and does not appear to apply to women.

I, of course, am left-handed.

You are, of course, the font of all knowledge

The wage difference cannot be applied to women in the same way because women get paid less than men anyway

[drew.ward]

I'm not sure if that's supposed to be as offensive as it sounds, but your assessment of New Orleans is quite uninformed. You make quite a few assumptions. For one, most utilities in New Orleans are in fact underground, at least in the parts of the city where the geography allows this. Secondly, New Orleans has not chosen not to "lift itself up".

It is no more low lying compared to its surroundings than much of Boston is. In fact almost all of Cambridge is a drained swamp. Chicago has often had its own problems with water and continues to this day (I believe not too many years ago many of the downtown buildings were in danger of falling over due to water in their basements).

Many of the problems that have been so readily addressed in Northern US cities have long existed in New Orleans. Yet nearly every time Louisiana has asked for fair treatment for its largest city in rectifying such problems politicians representing these Northern areas have voted to deny funding arguing that its wasteful and unneeded (even though Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and all sorts of other (often smaller) cities have gotten such funds all the way back to the 50's).

New Orleans HAD good levees. We also had funding and plans to replace those existing levees with better ones. However one of the first things Bush did when he got into office was freeze all that funding, cancel the contracts, slash the allotments to a third and then give the construction contracts to Dick Cheney's Halliburton in a no-bid scheme. It was THESE "new' levees that failed. Many of them have since been found to be filled with actual shredded newspaper, trash, and any other filler that was cheap. Those that were actually dirt were simply piled on top of mud with no sheeting or gravel.

I am sorry to go off, but I get very irritated with the rest of the country blaming the problems of New Orleans solely on New Orleanians and in being so critical of Louisiana. We are a tax deficit state and have been for decades. We pay much more into the federal coffers than we get in return and many of those improvements that Northern cities and states enjoy have been funded by the dumb yokels on the bayou.

Plus, since the midwest and Ohio valley refuse to properly regulate their industries or force their farmers to use modern agricultural techniques that prevent runnoff, Louisiana gets stuck cleaning up the rest of the country's mess everyday. Over 80% of the pollution in our state is waterborne and of that waterborne pollution almost all of it arrives into our region via the Mississippi river from the high and mighty north. Who gets to deal with the cancer and who gets to foot the bill for the massive ongoing environmental cleanup? Louisiana does.

[Red Mantis]

Originally Posted by drew.ward

Many of them have since been found to be filled with actual shredded newspaper, trash, and any other filler that was cheap. Those that were actually dirt were simply piled on top of mud with no sheeting or gravel.

Cite a source, please?

[Ocean Girl]

Group Hug!


Ordered a coke in Guatemala, it came in a plastic sandwich bag with a straw. I couldn't put the bag down, just had to drink up!

[drew.ward]

Assuming the video link is still active, here's one:

WWL-TV: Orleans Parish Floodwalls Stuffed with Newspaper «

[Boracay]

Every banana bender knows that the plural of "you" is "yous".

Best example I ever heard was from an airline stewardess:- "All right yous, fasten your seat belts."