language learning software (Word of the Day :: Transparent.com ::)

In a message dated 2004:02:16 10:37:37 AM,
wotd@communications.transparent.com writes:

>-----------------------------------------------------------
>
>Example Phrase Using Today's Word:
>
>
>
>German: Im Großen und Ganzen sind europäische Taxifahrer ehrliche,
freundliche
>und hilfsbereite Menschen.
>
>English: On the whole, European cab drivers are honest, friendly and helpful
>people.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
    ROTFLMAO that's high flattery IMHO of the surliest, mercenary bunch of
professional cabbies/tourguides this side of New York's infamous wild bunch.

    ... not to castigate those cabbies who actually have professional pride
in their calling: one of my ex-housemates from long ago she's a San Francisco
cabbie who goes outta her way to be helpful. Her attitude is that it makes for
return customers and clients-for-life. But she does scare people at first -
she listens to DeathMetal, "scrap metal" etc. and looks like a blonde gutter-rat
Metalhead tattoos and all...
And she could moonlight as a bankrobbery getaway driver ;)  she musta gotten
her drivin' lessons in Chinatown...


--- *DiDJiBuNgA!!* ---

Hanuman "Stitch" Zhang, ManglaLanger (mangle + manga + lang)

     Language[s] change[s]: vowels shift, phonologies crash-&-burn, grammars
leak, morpho-syntactics implode, lexico-semantics mutate, lexicons explode,
orthographies reform, typographies blip-&-beep, slang flashes, stylistics
warp... linguistic (R)evolutions mark each-&-every quantum leap... languages are
"naturally evolved wild systems... So language does not impose order on a chaotic
universe, but reflects its own wildness back." - Gary Snyder

"Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again as New Ones" -
a chapter on pidgins and creoles, John McWhorter,
_The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language_

= ¡gw'araa legooset caacaa!
    ¡reez'arvaa. saalvaa. reecue. scoopaa-goomee en reezijcloo! =
[Fight Linguistic Waste!
    Save, Salvage, Recover, Scavenge and Recycle!]