how many voods vould a voodchuck chuck...?

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Fri May 11, 2012 12:50 pm

in an email from an acquaintance in india:

"i would email you as soon as he arrives."

my Q: why? why not "i will email you as soon as he arrives?"

the writer is a manager in a company in chennai. she has a thamizh last name with a fashionable first name. caste? probably brahmin. i suspect that she uses the incorrect "would" in place of the correct "will" because she wants to sound educated and sophisticated.

by doofus_maximus Fri May 11, 2012 12:58 pm

why is this such a big deal for you? Did you not understand what this purported Brahmin lady tried to convey to you?

I was listening to NPR's The World and they were interviewing a prof from Stanford who was teaching QM and his English was not good. So what. He achieved what he wanted to do.

by garam_kuta Fri May 11, 2012 1:40 pm

doofus_maximus wrote:why is this such a big deal for you? Did you not understand what this purported Brahmin lady tried to convey to you?

I was listening to NPR's The World and they were interviewing a prof from Stanford who was teaching QM and his English was not good. So what. He achieved what he wanted to do.

have you ever listened to susumu tonegawa

by Propagandhi711 Fri May 11, 2012 2:28 pm

phlegmy found a worthy cause to devote an entire weekend on. this scratches his hemorrhoids just right

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Fri May 11, 2012 2:33 pm

doofus_maximus wrote:why is this such a big deal for you?

wrong assumption; it's not a big deal. i'm curious about why peeps do that, and was wondering if any1 here might know. i asked "why?"

doofus_maximus wrote:Did you not understand what this purported Brahmin lady tried to convey to you?

not completely; perhaps she meant something special by using "would" instead of "will."

doofus_maximus wrote:I was listening to NPR's The World and they were interviewing a prof from Stanford who was teaching QM and his English was not good.

bad example. assuming that QM = quantum mechanics, that prof most likely speaks to grad students or colleagues in physics most of the time. there's another language that's used commonly in physics: mathematics, and he'll make himself understood very well using that language.

doofus_maximus wrote:So what. He achieved what he wanted to do.

how would you know that he achieved what he wanted to unless you asked many listeners of npr whether they understood what he said? did you?

by Propagandhi711 Fri May 11, 2012 2:36 pm

the granny's getting hipper by the day: any1 & peeps indeed. tranny: it does the granny goooood

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Fri May 11, 2012 2:39 pm

Propagandhi711 wrote:phlegmy found a worthy cause to devote an entire weekend on. this scratches his hemorrhoids just right

100 times:

a worthy cause to devote an entire weekend to

a worthy cause to devote an entire weekend to

a worthy cause to devote an entire weekend to

.....

by MulaiAzhagi Fri May 11, 2012 2:42 pm

how would you know that he achieved what he wanted to unless you asked many listeners of npr whether they understood what he said? did you?

===> I guess doofus was referring to how the man at Stanford with his limited English skills was able to make a name for himself in QM.

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Fri May 11, 2012 3:08 pm

MulaiAzhagi wrote:how would you know that he achieved what he wanted to unless you asked many listeners of npr whether they understood what he said? did you?

===> I guess doofus was referring to how the man at Stanford with his limited English skills was able to make a name for himself in QM.

most likely by publishing papers largely in mathematics and partly in german, hungarian, or whichever language he knows. if he wanted to use english in his papers, his knowledge of it would not need to be extensive because it would be supplemented by mathematics. if he used another language, but wanted to publish in an english-language journal, he may have got his papers translated into english.

doofus's example is a poor one. a professor publishing papers on quantum mechanics in journals and a manager of a company emailing an acquaintance on everyday business matters are entirely different situations. i'd like you to know that that manager also has "warm regards" for me.

by Petrichor Fri May 11, 2012 3:26 pm

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:

===> i'd like you to know that that manager also has "warm regards" for me.

In Chennai, "regards" are warm by default.

And in the context of "Of course, I would be emailing you, now, wouldn't I?...Naturally..." it ain't so egregious, Mister.

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