Text 24909, 118 rader
Skriven 2006-02-06 10:29:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 24869 av Roy Witt (1:1/22)
Ärende: Texas Grapefruit GREAT!
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 >>> That's usually what one does with a laptop; take it to a
 >>> coffee shop..

 MvdV>> Over here a "coffee shop" is a place where one can buy a joint.

 > I see. Over here, there is Starbucks, a coffee joint with
 > wireless internet access.

That's coming here too. Dutch rail offers WiFi at the train stations. They are
experimenting with WiFi in the trains themselves. MacDonnalds and some others
offer it too. But, it is not free.

 MvdV>> What I said was I "stumbled into an InterNet cafee". Meaning I did
 MvdV>> not intentionally go there, so no reason to carry the laptop.

 > I realize that now, thanks. There's a distinct difference in
 > terminology between there and here.

Actually it was a re-used goods shop. Apparently was run as a social project to
keep youngsters with too much time on their hands off the street. As am aside
they had installed a dozen identical old computers in a corner and linked them
up to the Net. Probably a donation from some firm dumping their stuff. That
they were all running some Linux implementation tells me it is someone's pet
project.

 MvdV>> FYI: One does not often see people carry laptops into an InterNet
 MvdV>> Cafee here. Internat Cafees are mostly used by people who do not
 MvdV>> have a computer of their own.

 > Just the opposite here. That's where your wireless laptop can
 > access the internet.

Most InterNet cafes now offer WiFi as well, but that is a more or less recent
development. They all started out to offer internet access to people that did
not have a computer of their own.

 > If you need a computer, even small town libraries have the
 > internet hooked up now. The use of them is free, if you have a
 > library card.

Same here, except that you do not need the library card, you just pay for the
time.

 MvdV>>>> Point was that I was once again in the dark because
 MvdV>>>> apparently 26 letters is not enough for everyone...

 >>> They are if you're using English.

 MvdV>> Yeah, but the world is bigger than that...

 > Not really. English spans the globe.

While it is true that you can get a long way with English, it certainly is not
the only language in the world.

Try to get a job here if you /only/ speak English. Next to impossible.

 > Ask the other Bjorn how the Chinese sound on his hotel CCTV-9
 > channel. It's all in English.

That channel is in English only. But it is not the only channel....

You don't get the *local* news in English. Not here, not in Thailand.

 >>> Are there umlauts in CW code using the Dutch language?

 MvdV>> No. Apparently it was never important enough to define a special
 MvdV>> extension. On the very rare occasions that it really mattered, it
 MvdV>> was just spelled out like I did: "e-umlaut".

 > Ah.

Actually one can do reasonably well without umlauts and accents in Dutch. They
aren't used very much anyway and one can usually just omit them without harming
comprehension. There are a few exeptions such as één and een. ("one" resp, "a")
In the time when moderators went into a flat spinover "high ascii" we simply
wrote e1n instead of één when it mattered. The SMS gang has now adopted that
custom.

 MvdV>> I know of one unofficial Dutch morse character: four dashes. It
 MvdV>> stands for "ch". As the impossible for the non native speaker to
 MvdV>> pronounce "ch' in "Michiel". I have never actually see it used.

 MvdV>> If you want to know how the consonant "ch" is pronounced freq
 MvdV>> "zsgeitje" from my system. Or play:

 MvdV>> http://www.vlist.org/downloads/zsgeitje.wav

 > Way out of my league.

As I said, almost impossible to pronounce for a non native speaker.

 MvdV>> "Zeven schele geitjes met scheefgegroeide gewrichten gingen
 MvdV>> gezellig samen googelen in Scheveningen."

 > The speaker

That's me.

 > pauses after geitjes, is there supposed to be a comma there?

Commas are often omitted in Dutch when there is no change of meaning if they
are left out. But yes, for clearity to the non native speakers I should have
left them in. Both of them:

"Zeven schele geitjes, met scheefgegroeide gewrichten, gingen gezellig samen
googelen in Scheveningen."

 > I can make out the ch sound in the last word, but it's hard to
 > switch fast enough to read along with the speaker. I cut in around met.

Switch? Switch from what to what?


Cheers, Michiel

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 * Origin: http://www.vlist.org (2:280/5555)