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So, for the first time since I don't know when, I called out of work yesterday due to weather. Two feet of snow.

I thought you Yankees up there don't consider two feet to be more than an inconvenience. :p

In other news, it is incredibly frustrating to try to read - and recite - an epic in a language which you don't speak, and has patterns of pronunciation that are as bad as those of English, and which uses letters that don't exist anymore.

Mikey wrote:I thought you Yankees up there don't consider two feet to be more than an inconvenience. :p

I lied. it was twenty-five inches!

In other news, it is incredibly frustrating to try to read - and recite - an epic in a language which you don't speak, and has patterns of pronunciation that are as bad as those of English, and which uses letters that don't exist anymore.

That... does sound very frustrating. All I can say is do your best.

Beowulf, like any other poetry of ancient Germanic/Dane origin, displays its "art" in alliteration and polyrhythmic - but measured - meter. Because of this, declaiming it or even reading it in translation loses the poetic bit of the poetry, and can render sluggish or uselessly repetetive what in Old English has artistic intent. A number of professors have advocated recitation to feel the impact of that type of poetry. I've read quite a few translations, but I have now acquired the Chickering version which includes the original text facing the translation. Unfortunately, I have no background in OE, and the pronunciation guide that Chickering includes has all the typical "ifs, buts, and whens" that you'd expect from a Western non-Romance language, in addition to a caveat that basically amounts to "except when it doesn't." E.g.:

OE ahlog* ("laughing") is pronounced as "ach-log" with the second consonant as "ch" in the German "ich, nicht." Because that's how OE is. Except if the "h" is in the intial place in the word, in which case it's pronounced as our traditional voiced "h." And "c" and "g" are pronounced with our typical glottal "hard" k as in "king" or g as in "good"... EXCEPT when before or after "i" or "e," or after "œ," in which case they are pronounced like ch as in "child" or y as in "yet." Also sometimes after "æ," but not always, because Fuck you, readers. So you end up with OE ic ("I") pronounced like our word "itch" but OE ac ("for, due to") pronounced as "ack." Of course, the letters "f, s, þ, and ð" can be pronounced either voiced or voiceless, like our modern English f, s, and th, based on the rule that they are voiced only when between two vowels... but only some diphthongs (which ones you have to guess, because they're not constant) AND for this purpose only, four specific consonants will count as vowels. Also, try declaiming or reciting aloud in a language in which the accent is almost always given to the first syllable, even if the first syllable has a short vowel and a subsequent syllable has a long one.

* I have no idea of the OE word ahlog (pronounced "ach-log") bears any relation to the name of Aslaug of the Völsunga saga et. al.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Mikey wrote:I thought you Yankees up there don't consider two feet to be more than an inconvenience. :p

I lied. it was twenty-five inches!

In other news, it is incredibly frustrating to try to read - and recite - an epic in a language which you don't speak, and has patterns of pronunciation that are as bad as those of English, and which uses letters that don't exist anymore.

That... does sound very frustrating. All I can say is do your best.

We got a solid 12-15 here in CT... the snow wasn't bad, but it went from snow to liquid to ice and the roads stayed awful until this morning, really. My commute to work is 30 minutes with no traffic, that turned to about 45... that wasn't so bad, but our supply lanes were disrupted for two days because of a massive hazmat situation closing down our biggest East-West highway for two days. Basically everything going from our warehouse central Connecticut to Boston was detoured somewhat inconveniently and we had a bit of a problem getting our empty trailers/pallet trailers back from the stores in a timely manner. Remarkably, we only had about 15% of our shift call in absent during that mess.

Hey Ian, I'm on my last carribean cruise as well hitting most of those ports on the celebrity Equinox.

Teaos wrote: hitting most of those ports

Huh. I didn't think that the big cruise ships put in at that many New England ports in the dead of winter.

Mikey wrote:

Teaos wrote: hitting most of those ports

Huh. I didn't think that the big cruise ships put in at that many New England ports in the dead of winter.

I'm confused???

Bryan Moore wrote:

Mikey wrote:

Teaos wrote: hitting most of those ports

Huh. I didn't think that the big cruise ships put in at that many New England ports in the dead of winter.

I'm confused???

See, Teaos said he's "hitting most of those ports" in response to Ian, but he said it without an antecedent after you and Jon mentioned your New-England-y home locations, so...

Mikey wrote:
See, Teaos said he's "hitting most of those ports" in response to Ian, but he said it without an antecedent after you and Jon mentioned your New-England-y home locations, so...

Okay, thought I missed something. I'm just slow...

I'm set for a longer than usual week of work next week. Ordinarily I come in four days and simply leave when the work for the day is done (averaging twentysomething hours) but next week the owner will take the week off. Since it's just the two of us, that leaves med to run the shop all week. That will amount to a five day, 40 hour week (ordinarily the shop is open six days and totals hours more like 50 but the owner won't hang that on me). The biggest problem I've faced when doing this the past couple of February's was just boredom: having to stretch things out and fill in the time.

There could be worse problems, CPH. But seriously, hope it goes well for you.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:There could be worse problems, CPH. But seriously, hope it goes well for you.

Well, the weather looks more spring-like than February in NY weather. I was out in a tee shirt today. Though it does look quiet to start my work week (not much to start with, pending whatever comes in) I have dealt with this kind of week the last two or three winters.

I'm temporarily locked out of mg Google account, and phone until Google can authenticate me. It's really my fault, and though I'm not a heavy user, it's frustrating as I wait for the email back from Google. This happened because of an Android upgrade, from 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) to 7.0 (Nougat). Being the kind of geek who's curious to try the upgrade, I was looking out for it. On Friday morning it became available for T-Mobile variants of my handset - though I'm on that network my handset is a factory unlocked version and didn't pick up the over-the-air update. I successfully flashed the Android system manually but ran into a roadblock when I had to re-enter my Google account on the phone. Though I know my password, I had set up a second security step dependent on an app from the phone. All would have been alright if I'd had the foresight to disable that feature in my google account ahead of time but I can't log into my account from a different PC or device of any sort without the code generated in the authenticator app. Of course, the point is to lock others out of my account but it locks everybody in the world out when that app can't be accessed. But, Google will probably disable it after verifying my story.

At least I have a backup of the content of the phone I can restore once I get back in, so the apps and content are safe.

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:I'm set for a longer than usual week of work next week. Ordinarily I come in four days and simply leave when the work for the day is done (averaging twentysomething hours) but next week the owner will take the week off. Since it's just the two of us, that leaves med to run the shop all week. That will amount to a five day, 40 hour week (ordinarily the shop is open six days and totals hours more like 50 but the owner won't hang that on me). The biggest problem I've faced when doing this the past couple of February's was just boredom: having to stretch things out and fill in the time.

If I may ask... what kind of work is it?

Bryan Moore wrote:

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:I'm set for a longer than usual week of work next week. Ordinarily I come in four days and simply leave when the work for the day is done (averaging twentysomething hours) but next week the owner will take the week off. Since it's just the two of us, that leaves med to run the shop all week. That will amount to a five day, 40 hour week (ordinarily the shop is open six days and totals hours more like 50 but the owner won't hang that on me). The biggest problem I've faced when doing this the past couple of February's was just boredom: having to stretch things out and fill in the time.

If I may ask... what kind of work is it?

Computer repair. Largely it comes down to malware removal as our bread-and-butter but all sorts of hardware or software problems are game; in the last few years we've expanded to take phones and tablets.