Ballpoint Pens
3rdblade-tól, 2011. április 26.
Hozzászólások: 64
Nyelv: English
Chainy (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 26. 19:58:53
erinja:Another British article recently explained that Easter eggs don't have to be chocolate, that you can actually color your own real eggs as people did in the past, and that some people in America still do this. To an American this is the most obvious statement ever. Of COURSE people color real eggs for Easter, an American would say. "Everyone colors eggs for Easter!", an American might say. Hence huge shelves full of dye packets and other egg-decorating supplies in the shops at Easter. But I guess we don't really have much of a chocolate egg tradition here (more of a chocolate bunny, but real egg, tradition.I find this a little surprising. You certainly don't come across many people painting eggs at Easter in England, but I reckon most people have heard of this custom as it's quite common in other European countries.
In England, people prefer to roll their eggs, rather than paint them.
Miland (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 26. 20:09:36
ceigered:I can't believe some of you HAD to use fountain pens in school!Believe it, some of us did!
ceigered:And I can't believe some of you haven't heard of "biro" before..I remember that one from primary school days, but that was in Scotland.
erinja (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 26. 20:32:58
Chainy:I find this a little surprising. You certainly don't come across many people painting eggs at Easter in England, but I reckon most people have heard of this custom as it's quite common in other European countries.We don't really paint them, we dye them with food dyes. There are a few decorating sets that involve painting, stickers, sparkles, stick-on gems, and other things, but traditionally Americans just dye them in solid colors, or at a maximum, two colors, by dipping half of the egg into one color and half into another color.
In England, people prefer to roll their eggs, rather than paint them.
You can make natural dyes with onion skins or beets but most people seem to buy the dyes from the major Easter egg dye brand, Paas, which now sells an insane variety of Easter egg decorating supplies. It's a long way from the eastern European decorated eggs.
T0dd (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 26. 23:02:10
Chainy:Well, maybe. I live in a row-house ("terraced" house?) built in 1930-something. It has closets, but none that you could really walk into, or move about in if you did walk in. They're mostly about 20 inches deep and three or four feet wide.
The word 'closet' is definitely a bit mystifying for Brits. We normally put our clothes in a wardrobe, you know an item of furniture standing in the bedroom. But over in America, seems you open the door of the closet and the delve deep into a whole separate room!
Newer houses tend to have bigger closets, because people like them. But people still have wardrobes, too.
Must be due to the fact that America's a huge country and so houses are often much bigger than in Britain. Most people simply couldn't afford the space to have a room-style closet.I wonder if the age of the house is a factor there, too.
Although, my Webster's dictionary says a closet can also be a 'cupboard' (I suppose this means an American would also refer to our wardrobes as closets?)No, we still recognize wardrobes as pieces of furniture with their own special name. Esperanto ŝranko appears to cover quite a lot of these meanings. I suppose you could use something like ŝrankoĉambro to specify a room-style closet. Ŝrankejo?
RiotNrrd (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 27. 1:35:46
I took a calligraphy class my senior year in college - that was my first exposure to fountain pens.
Since college (I graduated in 1983), I've seen exactly ONE person use a fountain pen, and with him it was purely an affectation; his way of being "different". I do know where to buy them: in craft stores over with the calligraphy supplies. That's about the only thing people use them for here. In fact, I can confidently say that if you put a fountain pen in the hands of the average American, you'll end up with little more than an inky mess, as they will not know how to write with it (let alone fill it).
Americans, for the most part, think of fountain pens as in the same class as Victrola's and horse-drawn buggies. We're all ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers these days.
erinja (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 27. 2:14:04
Chainy:The word 'closet' is definitely a bit mystifying for Brits. We normally put our clothes in a wardrobe, you know an item of furniture standing in the bedroom.Most American closets are about the size of a British wardrobe. They're just a built-in nook with a door rather than being a free-standing piece of furniture. Only the newest houses have the large closets that you mention (we call them walk-in closets). Even a "British-sized" house in the US would have closets. The small kind, not walk-in.
I first learned of the origin of closets on a visit to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh - it was a small room attached to a bedroom, used for solitary prayer and contemplation, and for holding personal valuables. The original closets were all "walk-in". But the version that made it to the US was used for storage only, not for sitting, and they only got big in recent years.
Use of fountain pens in the US can definitely be seen as an affectation. Even for me it probably is, but I find that writing with a fountain pen leads to less strain on my hand. It's not an issue now but when I was in school and taking notes at lectures, writing with a fountain pen decreased my writer's cramp, since you don't have to press on the paper like you do with a ballpoint pen.
EdRobertson (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 27. 8:34:30
Getting back to "closet", I think it is avoided in British English because of its association with "water closet", i.e. WC, and phrases like "in the closet" (secret homosexual) and "to closet oneself" (to hide, probably to do or plan something, possibly nefarious). For an actual closet, it's always "cupboard" or "wardrobe". Or in Scottish English, a "press" (if it's thin).
ceigered (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 27. 8:35:52
We have closets and wardrobes (not sure about that closet explanation you mentioned though Erinja... I'd agree with the "what?!" comment about the shoes
) (and we don't really have walk in closets, but if it's a new thing then that's probably why). We've got pens, of which we have biros and fountain pens. We've got zips, zippers, flies. Sidewalk, footpath, we all understand immediately without having to spare a second thought (but we only ever seem to use footpath).It's ironic then that our TV and movies aren't exported much, meaning our own "native" vocab and accents are kept locked in our country mostly
Culture wise though, we might be the worst off, as that easter egg bizzo you were talking about sounds like something rarely found here, maybe something done in kindy (kindergarten, preschool, whatever you call them) or sunday school.
Here, we just buy the easter eggs from the store, and eat them on easter sunday normally, but EVERYWHERE they do chocolate eggs so that's not surprising in the slightest. I guess we at least have "easter bilbies", but to me, a bilby is no rabbit - only because rabbits are more closely related to humans
erinja (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 27. 14:18:24
Do Australian children go to the shopping centre in the spring and get their picture taken with the Easter bilby?
Coloring eggs with dye is something done at home here. It's done all through the elementary ages, not just very young children.
I think it's not done in school (not even Sunday school) because when you combine kids with liquid dyes, you can have a huge mess on your hands if you're not careful! You'd want to do it in the kitchen.
I find some Australian accents difficult to understand. It's a shame that more of your stuff isn't exported because I'm sure Australia has good things to offer, and it would get the rest of us more used to hearing Australian pronunciation (and also get to know Australian culture, of course).
ceigered (Profil megtekintése) 2011. április 27. 15:12:53
erinja:Does the Easter bilby come and bring baskets full of candy to good Australian children on Easter?Nup. The Eater bunny still does that. Well, as far as I know. No doubt you'll find some pushing for an Easter Bilby, but thanks to mass marketing here, it's an odd mix of "traditional" elements (Easter Bunny), and "patriotic" elements (bilbies etc). That said, normally I think buying an easter bilby chocolate treat or toy would have profits going towards stopping bilbies from going extinct.
Do Australian children go to the shopping centre in the spring and get their picture taken with the Easter bilby?
But easter is very much run by corporations here, or the churches, and there's practically no middle ground, thus making it probably more sterile and traditionless than other regions, at least from what I'm hearing
(about Australia)You might find it a bit funny, but even I have trouble understanding Australian accents if they're over TV in a drama or comedy - I guess I'm so used to hearing an American accent or a British accent on that box
. Similarly, hearing a US news reporter say on footage taken from ABC (the US one) can be hard to adjust to too. As for Australian culture though, I have to say I am getting increasingly interested in US culture - there's all the boring stuff we learn on TV like independence day, thanks giving, but from what I read here it seems like we're missing out on the "behind the scenes" culture
Like I said before, it never occurred to me that "biro" might never be used in the US, and I'm sure there are other things I don't know because I take for granted the similarities between the US and Australia.