Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, June 04, 2010
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. My father (who reads this blog) aptly demonstrated this saying.
A couple of weeks ago he mailed me a package. I was unaware of this fact until my mother asked why I hadn’t phoned them about it yet. She gave me the package’s tracking number so I could figure out when it was going to arrive. The next day I checked the number and I could follow the package’s progress from Owen Sound to Montreal and… Back to Owen Sound?
My father, in all his educated glory, forgot to write my apartment number on the package. Therefore the post office received it, sent it to Montreal, discovered they didn’t know which of the 17 apartments in my building to give it to, so they returned it to my parents.
This isn’t the first time this has happened either.
A couple of months ago my dad did the same thing. Luckily my landlord happened to be there, so he accepted and delivered the package to me.
The best thing about the story this time is that my mom double checked and asked him, “Did you remember to put the apartment number on it?”
He replied with a roll of the eyes and an exasperated, “Yes dear.” (I can totally picture this and hear his tone of voice.)
Now that I think about it, mail has been around since forever so the adage about old dogs and new tricks doesn’t apply. How about this instead? He’s just getting senile.
A couple of weeks ago he mailed me a package. I was unaware of this fact until my mother asked why I hadn’t phoned them about it yet. She gave me the package’s tracking number so I could figure out when it was going to arrive. The next day I checked the number and I could follow the package’s progress from Owen Sound to Montreal and… Back to Owen Sound?
My father, in all his educated glory, forgot to write my apartment number on the package. Therefore the post office received it, sent it to Montreal, discovered they didn’t know which of the 17 apartments in my building to give it to, so they returned it to my parents.
This isn’t the first time this has happened either.
A couple of months ago my dad did the same thing. Luckily my landlord happened to be there, so he accepted and delivered the package to me.
The best thing about the story this time is that my mom double checked and asked him, “Did you remember to put the apartment number on it?”
He replied with a roll of the eyes and an exasperated, “Yes dear.” (I can totally picture this and hear his tone of voice.)
Now that I think about it, mail has been around since forever so the adage about old dogs and new tricks doesn’t apply. How about this instead? He’s just getting senile.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Homonyms
On Sunday night I was arguing with two friends over homonyms. I felt that French had more homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently) than English. I mean, come on, when conjugated, many French verbs sound the exact same. Take the Imperfect verb tense as an example. You add the following endings to the verbs:
He put me even further in my place when he emailed me Alan Coopers' Homonyms. Wow. Them's a lot of homonyms. I don't think I'll argue against English not having homonyms anymore...
- ais*
- ait*
- issons
- issez
- aient*
He put me even further in my place when he emailed me Alan Coopers' Homonyms. Wow. Them's a lot of homonyms. I don't think I'll argue against English not having homonyms anymore...
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